Unpacking Joe Kent's resignation

The big news, seen via The Dissident?

Joe Kent has resigned as Trump's head of counterintelligence, the guy who runs the National Counterterrorism Center. 

Several thoughts.

First,  per the Tweet/Shit on Shitter by Kent, that link above, even Looney Laura Loomer has enough brains on this one to dig up an old Shit and show him to be more than a bit of a hypocrite, arguably. Go read all the responses; it’s the old chimps eating a human face.

In the letter he does claim "Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation." He says that the US had essentially neutralized Iran since Trump's 2020 assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Loomer calls up a September 2024 Shit of his, after the domestic assassination attempt on Trump, in which Kent says:

Iran has been after Trump since January of 2020, when he ordered the targeted killing of the terrorist Qasem Soleimani.

Dead to rights. 

Well, not totally human.

Per his Wikipedia page, Kent is kind of a political whore. If he had really had integrity and less whoredom for political office, whether elective or appointive, he would never have taken the counterterrorism job in the first place. But, he decided to whore himself out.

And, he's obviously not well-read, either. Per James Bamford, Israhell was very much behind Trump's 2016 election, and his 2020 bid for re-election, too. (And surely, 2024, though Bamford's book came out in 2023.) I'm sorry your wife was killed in an arguably stupid war — setting aside whether it was "Israel-manufactured" or not —, but you had five-plus years since then to be reflective, and you still took this job.

And, you still stayed on this job after the start of the war. (That said, contra the Blue Anon yappers, you quit before anybody quit Team Biden after Oct. 7, 2023 and his blank checks to Israel.) 

Now, in terms of the war, pivoting from him to Demented Donald? How does he spin this one? Not very well, I'm sure. 

And, our answer came in quickly. Like Demented Don's wont, it involved no pause for actual thought. 

Before we get to Trump's response, let us note Kent claimed that Trump had been duped by a "misinformation campaign." No mention of names, but we all know he's talking about Satanyahu, the person formerly known on Shitter as Netanyahu, as he did mention "high-ranking Israeli officials." I love it, and am stealing it, while also being pissed I didn't think of it myself. (But, it also includes the self-inflicted wounds mentioned above.)

Now, Demento Don:

Trump later told reporters "it’s a good thing that he’s out because he said Iran was not a threat. Every country recognized Iran was a threat."

Shock me. Actually fairly low on his bluster scale. (And, per Loony Laura Loomer, Joe Kent claimed Iran was a threat 18 months or so ago, and presumably felt the same way when taking Trump's job offer.)

Meanwhile, at Vox, Zack Beauchamp says we shouldn't align ourselves with other claims in Kent's letter to Trump, either. And, for this, you have to look at Bamford, you have to look at Kent's own background, and take this all in.

You also have to look at what came in Kent's letter after "high-ranking Israeli officials," which was:

[I]nfluential members of the American media ...

Now, that's not necessarily accusing them of being all Zionist. And, it's not antisemitic. Nonetheless, that, plus the other things I mention, lead us to Beauchamp. 

Here's Beauchamp:

In fact, Trump has been hawkish on Iran for decades. Back in the 1980s, he called for troop deployments to the country and a US-led campaign to seize control over Iranian oil. In his first term, he tore up a nuclear deal designed to prevent war and assassinated a top Iranian military leader. 

Moreover, Israeli leaders have lobbied every president in the 21st century to go to war in Iran; Trump is the only one who said yes. This suggests the key variable is less Israeli power over US foreign policy generally than the specific preference set and worldview of this president.

I think he protests a bit too much. But maybe not too too much.

Beauchamp then reminds us that we were in Syria in 2019 when Shannon Kent was killed was under President Trump.

I think a Candace Owens running with this letter is indeed antisemitic. I think that there may be some people already crafting a "framing story" for when the finale of this war indeed turns stupid. I know Kent has himself flirted with white nationalists.

But, I don't think this is all about antisemitism in Republican opposition to the war. Also, whether Kent is right or wrong on his framing, one can say that intervention in Syria was, if not "manufactured" by Israel, then at least "pushed" by it and not be antisemitic. 

Beyond that, Syria under the Assads was long seen as an ally of Iran and a conduit for Iran to work with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Beauchamp either knows that and is protesting too much, or doesn't know that and should shut up. That's rhetorical; I know he knows this. So, why is he doing something that is gaslighting, or at least halfway there? 

The Dissident, in his second piece about Kent's resignation yesterday, in large part focusing on Beauchamp, reminded us of what Seth Harp said in the must-read "The Fort Bragg Cartel": 

Washington’s efforts to overthrow Assad, who, like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi, was an outspoken and belligerent foe of Israel, redoubled amid the Arab Spring protests. One of the most expensive CIA programs in history, a billion-dollar fiasco code-named Timber Sycamore, plowed thousands of tons of guns and ammo fresh from German and American factories into Syria. ... Chief among the Sunni extremist groups that benefited from the instability in Syria and the flood of black-market arms into the country was the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, known by the acronym ISIS.

There's that. 

Also undercutting Beauchamp? Klippenstein weighs in. Re the current war?

It is true that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agitated for war, but the Israeli military is operating more and more of one mind with the U.S. military. The two countries have shared a common war plan against Iran since the Biden administration. That level of cooperation has solidified under Trump, driven more by a true affinity and affection for the technologically and operationally sophisticated friend than anything Donald Trump (or Benjamin Netanyahu) has ordered.

There you go. He doesn't mention what Kent says on Syria, or Kent's odious personal background, but talks about larger objections to the war in both parties.

He does agree with me that this is inside baseball. On that? How Kemp phrases the letter? 

Finally, was this a smear attempt? Max Blumenthal indicates so, noting that Beauchamp was once co-president of "Brown Students for Israel," an avowedly Zionist organization:

Brown Students for Israel aims to be a big-tent community united by the belief in Israel’s right to exist as a state for the Jewish people in all or part of their ancestral homeland. By hosting Israeli cultural events, organizing political programming that reflects a range of pro-Israel perspectives, and commemorating Israeli days of significance, BSI aims to create a place for Zionists — and those curious about Zionism — to connect, celebrate, and engage with one another.

Also, Zack was an intern for Andrew Sullivan (yeah, that guy) when Sully was still at The Daily Beast. Was he forced to intern for him? Probably not. 

As for where Beauchamp stands? Per his own essay at Vox, it would be as a liberal Zionist, I think. But, even before Oct. 7, 2023, one-time liberal Zionists like Peter Beinart realized that modern Israel — and not just Bibi — had narrowed the grounds for that so much as to make it purely aspirational. Beauchamp, assuming he identifies with his essay, obviously doesn't agree, all the more so since it was written after the attacks.

Here's a good critique of his piece, and how unrealistic the idea is given current Israel, not just the middle-aged and older ruling class, but even more, younger Israelis. 

The real, real issue was raised by Beauchamp but not pursued more fully by him — the idea that Trump is an empty vessel.

This is a tool to allow MAGA loyalists, Trumptards, whatever, to maintain allegiance to Trump while calling out specific actions of him. It doesn't have to be Israel who's called out. It could next be Volodymyr Zelensky and the nation of Ukraine, if Trump asks for big new defense spending. It could be the prime minister of Denmark or the EU's Ursula von der Leyen if Trump formally agrees to take his hands off Greenland. 

In other words, you have members of a cult enabling Trump, or the idea of Trump, or the eikon or idol of Trump, because they're still afraid of Trump, and the rest of the cult. 

That said, even Klippenstein may have "bit" a little, or at least not questioned someone else advancing that same idea:

“For a Hegseth who only wants the ‘warrior’ answer, Israeli swagger and combat competence is catnip,” the officer says. 

The source adds that while Trump loves a winner, and he loves action, it is Hegseth and his “impetuousness” that pushes the relentless destroy-the-target, no-rules. no-quarter style of warfare that has unfolded.

Isn't that doing what Kent did? I mean, we all know that "impetuous" is Trump's middle name. Trump has no rules, but will give quarter if you punch back enough and others don't support him. And that's where we are right now.

Is Kent a rat deserting a sinking ship? As of March 11, 17 percent of Republicans said Trump was prioritizing Israeli interests over American ones. Per the Beeb, and other polling a day or two later, 90 percent of self-professed MAGAts were still backing the war.

I otherwise quote from the AP about the reality of what this means:

A special forces combat veteran with ties to right-wing extremists, Kent was considered as much of a loyalist as Trump could have in the government’s top counterterrorism post.

That's about right. Nobody on the left should be running Joe Kent up the flagpole and saluting him. He's a 2020 election "truther," palled around with white nationalists and is a COVID semi-denialist or worse.

When social book reviewers get it wrong — wronger than the book

I just recently finished "The Bright Ages," which as you might guess, is a claim that the Middle Ages weren't all the Dark Ages. Between bad framing, narrow focus and outright errors, I knew halfway through that it probably wasn't even a 3-star book and the question was (since no half-stars from Goodreads after its self-vaunted [can others vaunt you?] website overhaul) was whether it would even hold 2 stars.

It doesn't, and shall also get only 1 even on Storygraph.

That said, what's funny, or more, "funny" with scare quotes, is the preconceptional whiffs of other 1-star reviewers, and a few 2-starrers.

A full one-quarter go full wingnut/Trumpy on their reviews, talking about "woke" presentation of women at this time and more.

And, almost as many of the reviewers on the "other side" (there's more than two sides by far here, per Idries Shah and as I shall show) actually exemplify "woke" (in the wrongful sense) attitudes, using words like "mansplaining" or "whitesplaining" in their takes.

It's neither. And I knew that before I checked it out from the library.

It's Catholic apologetics, or Catholic-splaining to use a modernized mash-up.  And, not getting that is why both the Trumpys and the Wokeys blew it. And, it's Catholic-splaining with a twist. Per a Google, after coming across this Medium piece which was a rejected form of an LARB of the book, David Perry is Jewish. Could have fooled me. The book still reeks of Catholic apologetics. That said, having seen this person's Twitter feed on it, no, the LARB editors were right in rejecting the original. The reviewer seems engaged in check-marking appropriate boxes, like calling out Gabriele and Perry for not mentioning "trans and queer folk," yet, since he has the option of doing so himself on Medium, not doing so! And, his review has other problems. It references "African Europeans," whose book website says: "As early as the third century, St Maurice—an Egyptian—became leader of the legendary Roman Theban Legion." Yes, true, but you couldn't have gone "up the ladder" to Emperor Septimius Severus? There's also the issue that both St. Maurice (patron saint of the HRE, namesake of St. Moritz) and the the Theban Legion are fictional.

That said, while the book is largely pabulum, it’s NOT pabulum for the reasons Trumpy 1-star reviews claim. (The wrongfully woke are closer to the mark, bad narratives and framing aside.) And, yes, their reviews reek of it, even as they ignore the reeking above because it doesn’t fit THEIR narratives. That then said, the portion of 1-starrers that call it out for "mansplaining" also miss the boat, though not quite as bad as the Trump-splainer types.

What follows is a selected version of my review.

The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe by Matthew Gabriele
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Brights book …. Flip side of Dennett’s Brights, it comes off as being!!! But, no historian has called all of the Middle Ages the Dark Ages. That said, if we look at the remains of the Western Roman Empire, the period 843-962, from the end of the Carolingian realm to the start of the HRE, could honestly merit the moniker. Those dates being the Treaty of Verdun ending the unitary Carolingian lands, then the start of the HRE.

So, yes, from the start, we’re going to be in the lands of strawmanning and cherry-picking. And, all in the service of Catholicism. And, yes, it still seems that way. To me, the whole book reeks of the Catholicism of its authors. While a modern evangelical half of fundagelical Protestants might have written a book like this, a traditional Lutheran, Calvinist or practitioner of Orthodoxy would not, nor would have a secular historian. And, yes, the word “reek” is deliberate. And, yes, it still seems that way.

Interesting to see Myth of Martyrdom author Candida Moss blurb it when the intro talks about a bunch of Catholic saintly martyrdoms that likely didn’t happen. (Sidebar: As people in the book publishing world, or familiar with it, know, this exemplifies one or both of two things. First is, that unless specifically barred from doing so in some way, marketing staff often take blurb comments out of context. Second is that blurbers often don't read the full book.) Those claims start, chronologically, in this book, with Peter in Rome, which certainly never happened.

Then, there’s other fun stuff, like the claim that the Western Roman Empire didn’t end when Odovacer deposed Romulus Augustulus. Oh, yes it did. And, yes, Rome became a sinkhole of population and other decline that was nowhere close to fully replaced.

Then, the claim in a chapter on Charlemagne that the HRE didn’t come until the later 12th century, not 962. Yes, the “sacrum” in Latin didn’t attach until Barbarossa, but any history book will tell you it began with Otto the Saxon.

Then, in the chapter on Vikings, I learned the Dneiper and Volga rivers are in western Asia! Neat! I halfway seriously wonder if this was a deliberate take, to de-Europeanize either Russia or Orthodox Christianity. Given that Slavic lands are nowhere further discussed, nor are details of the rise of Kievan Rus, I’m sure it’s deliberate.

There’s also a weird, and AFAIK, totally untrue claim that the Khazars later became Muslim. (I personally believe the bulk, tho not all, after the fall of the Khanate went on to become PART of Azhkenazi Jews. This is not anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist, contra the likes of Wikipedia, in one of its more iffy entries. The Ashkenazi/Sephardi split is itself a linguistic one, not an ethnic or sub-ethnic one, after all. And, I don't give a fuck if David Perry his own self sees this part. It's true.

First Crusade chapter overlooks cannibalism at the Siege of Ma’arra. Besides the cannibalism, the intolerance of Frankish surrender terms go unnoted. BUT, the authors DO engage in a nice bit of “presentism.” As in, a LOT of it.

Petrarch as in inventor of the idea of Renaissance is mentioned, mainly a an object of polite opprobrium. The earlier 12th-century Renaissance is mentioned in passing.

Weirdly NOT mentioned by two Catholic authors a Catholic author and a fellow traveler is previous reformations before THE Reformation. These surely would have fit the “bright ages” idea.

So, too, would the conversion of the last portions of Europe, the Balto-Finnic lands. Not mentioned.

Other one-star reviews go into more depth. Several go into Trump-splaining, with their takes perhaps even worse than this book.

View all my reviews

Sidebar: Not sure whether the bigger time-waster was this book or the Medium review.

Texas Progressives look at US House history and more

The Republicans may not hold the same degree of advantage in the House in the Newt and post-Newt era as Democrats did from the Depression to Newt, but they do have an advantage. A new book by a Larry Sabato staffer, excerpted here, explains why. For Democrats, among other things, it means moving beyond ConservaDems and Rahmbo strategies. It also looks at how Poppy Bush's DOJ and flunkies including people now on the Supreme Court, enabled race-based redistricting, which looked like it was great for Black Democrats at the time but was an overall ding for the party — and by extension, for both some Black Democrats and even more for the nation.

The Biden 2020 campaign's Texas allies, such as Wendy Davis, who filed a lawsuit against the city of San Marcos et al last summer has now expanded that suit after it's been shown on recording that the city's deputy police chief and a ranking corporal, among others, heard about a Biden campaign bus' call for help after being repeatedly buzzed by Trump Train drivers, with at least one collision involved, and laughing at the dispatch calls while refusing to provide an escort or accept an escort handoff from the city of New Braunfels.

Wingnut legiscritter Matt Kruse seems to be on a mix of fishing trip and intimidation with his "investigation" of school district textbooks re the state's new law banning critical race theory in schools, which of course recently and infamously led Southlake to talk about "alternatives to the Holocaust."

Off the Kuff takes note of the second lawsuit filed over redistricting, filed by the National Redistricting Action Fund to challenge the Congressional map on behalf of Voto Latino.

SocraticGadfly discusses several climate change related issues in the news, including a realistic long-term look at nuclear power as part of a post-fossil fuel mix.

DosCentavos tells us about a protest at the local Dem HQ, and the outcome locally and in DC.

The Texas Signal asks if the new Congressional and legislative maps can be "out-organized" by Democrats. 

Grits for Breakfast notes that violent crime was actually down last year.

Texas Monthly celebrates a 1981 slasher movie set in Austin that was a shiming example of our state's contribution to the horror genre.  

Mean Green Cougar Red analyzes the latest conference-hopping moves among the AAC, C-USA, and the Sun Belt.

As with Jade Helm, there are wingnut Texans guzzling the Strangeabbott Kool-Aid on Operation Lone Star. 

Dan Patrick and Tim Dunn et al got their redistricting wish, not only squeezing Dems but getting wingnut but non-wingut squared GOP state Sen. Kel Seliger to retire.

Fake Indians in Texas? The Observer investigates.

Status Quo Joe ain't leaving Afghanistan and Liz Cheney ain't leaving the GOP

I hived this off from what was originally going to be the weekly Texas Progressives Roundup after there were no regular contributors of national news.

And, since Lizzie Cheney, after her 40 whacks with her axe failed to kill the head of Donald Trump, is now officially voted out as head of the House Republican Conference, it's good to separate it.

And, since I had originally written it in this order, am not a member of the duopoly at national political level and pretty much loathe BlueMAGA aka BlueAnon, it will stay in this order and you'll have to see new lying by Status Quo Joe Biden first.

Biden and Afghanistan

Since most of BlueMAGA doesn't regularly read Counterpunch, you can thank your stars that this member of the Texas Progressives Alliance does. And, that's the source of the header.

Turns out, per Noam Chomsky, that those 2,500 US troops Biden says he'll withdraw aren't all of them that Merika has there. There's an extra 1,000 floating around. Plus 16,000 contractors mercenaries. What happens when one of those 1,000 get killed? Are they flypaper? Or, what if actual left-of-center Congresscritters confront Status Quo Joe about those 1K and he removes them? And then, one of Erik Prince's Blackwater Xe Academi mercenaries gets killed? Flypaper?

Per Noam, human rights, if they're women's rights, will be abandoned, as will other things.

That said, Chomsky has long been a duopoly-fellating, anti-Green good Democrat, so he doesn't have a lot of room to talk.

More national-global? Status Quo Joe still hadn't abandoned Article 42, and other recent actions of his in re Ill Eagles are head fakes, gaslighting or whatever other term you prefer.

China's greenhouse gas emissions are more than the rest of the developed world combined. That said, Merika, remember that we exported a lot of that, along with other pollution.

Elizabeth Cheney and today's GOP

Although Cheney lost the vote battle, for her,  going back a full year or more, it's a battle for the future of the GOP. With her being booted, as that link makes clear, the battle's not over for her. She's still a neocon warmonger, so don't normalize her or any other Never Trumper. Within the House GOP, there's the added issue that she is not doing much in the way of fundraising for Ever Trumpers. And, more and more, Huckleberry J. Butchmeup, aka Lindsey Graham, as well as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, is willing to fellate Trumpism. Don't laugh, #BlueMAGA; most of you will fellate neoliberalism, and speaking of neocons, fellate Bibi as well.

On Cheney's side, though, she sees fellating Trump as hurting the GOP in swing districts, and says McCarthy, the RNCC and RNC have suppressed or ignored polling that supports this fact.

Adding to this? Trump seems to be taking this personally. Adding to that, some claim that it's part of a larger blood feud against GOP dynasty families.

Does Cheney regret taking a pass on the Senate, not once, but twice?

 

==

 

Now, per the top of the page, looking at the vote?

 

First, there's plenty of cowards in the House GOP. Despite requests by Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the GOP caucus conducted a voice vote, not a roll call, and won't make it public.

 

Second, beyond the post talking about Trump yakking more, and starting his new blog and RSS feed (which it didn't mention) since Feb. 3, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has become even more a squish.

 

Third, as for Dems, as well as some Never Trumper Republicans, saying, this could be dangerous vis a vis losing youth, minorities, etc.? Demographic ain't destiny. Gilberto Hinojosa and his Texas Dem honchos have been claiming a demographic-based blue tide has been coming for 15 years or more. They remain wrong, even as they have misanalyzed those demographics. 

Third, part 2? Nothing will happen to the national GOP until Trump croaks. (His sons and sons-in-law are incompetent even by his standards and won't be able to pick up his flag. Ivanka doesn't want it.)

Fourth, no, Never Trumpers are not leaving the GOP. David Jolly and Jeff Greenfield both pick this one apart. (That said, Jolly ignores that most independents are really Rethugs or Doinks in drag trying to pretend to be what they're not.) Greenfield says we've heard this all before, and notes that many of the Never Trumpers are nonetheless vote-suppressors, etc.

Authenticity, Germanness, cultural DNA and appropriation, and Trumpism and German-Americans

As usual in a blog post like this, I'll tie all the threads in the header together.

Let's get started on that.

Muenster, Texas, has a Germanfest spring “Germania” heritage festival, and has had it for 45 years now, consecutively, minus a COVID interruption a year ago.

I recently saw a person who currently lives in the Metroplex but was born in Germany. He had several comments about the authenticity, or lack thereof in his mind, of the Germanness on display at Germanfest.

That started with the pronunciation of the city, noting that auf Deutsche, to use English values for vowels, it should sound like MOON-ster and not MUN-ster. And, on that one, he’s right, or more right than wrong. I pronounced it that way myself the first few weeks I was here, and quickly realized I was basically a party of one. (It actually should be between MOON-stir and MIN-stir with the first syllable kind of swallowed.

 I have seen places that still do an even deeper dive into German heritage. Having lived in Michigan, the town of Frankenmuth comes immediately to mind. Fredericksburg here in Texas, of course.  That said, we’re not in Michigan or the Hill Country, Toto, and we’re also not in Nordrhein-Westfalen. 

He is right about the number of things Germans have contributed to the world as a whole and to American culture in particular. A couple are even more Texas-specific. He said four Germans died at the Alamo and that the chicken-fried steak is a riff on German schnitzel. I’ll take his word on the Alamo, and I can buy the schnitzel idea, as Texas Germans may have adapted Wiener schnitzel, but this isn’t guaranteed. 

Some other things he aren’t necessarily so authentic themselves, though, or, to rephrase, they’re authentic to some ethnicity, but not necessarily that of Germans. 

Budweiser beer? The original is from the town of Budweis, as its called in German. Nice German name. But, it’s in today’s Czech Republic and Czechs call it České Budějovice. In fact, American Budweiser, though it’s continued to fight trademark battles in the European Union, does not own the “Budweiser” name over there. The Czech town actually had two breweries originally; the larger, which had today’s European Budweiser, was Czech-owned in an area of mixed linguistics. Linguistic divisions do not necessary reflect “ethnic” or “subethnic” divisions. See Switzerland, the North Tyrol and many other places. 

Some of the food items at Germanfest have become authentic but weren’t at one time, because they didn’t even exist, at least not in Germany. Potatoes? Almost as iconic in German culture, with German potato salad and other things, as in Irish lore. (My dad says that my great-grandpa Schneider used to end his saying grace prayer at the start of dinner with an immediate transition to “Kartoffeln bitte.”) More than 500 years ago? Not authentic, of course, because they only existed in the “New World.” 

Ditto on sauerkraut.

Other things? 

To current German residents, quite authentic, though perhaps not to our correspondent. Currywurst comes immediately to mind. It has a specific invention date of 1949, and was inspired by British occupation soldiers in Germany. Since then, under the influence of Turkish immigration, the sausage for currywurst at many locations its halal-pure, the Muslim equivalent of kosher. 

But, doorknob forbid a German-American admit cultural appropriation. In fact, among European white ethnic and subethnic groups, German-Americans voted for Trump more than any other. Maybe, as with Serbians over Kosovo, there is something such as cultural DNA. It got knocked out of Germans in Germany after 1945, but, if anything, flowered yet more strongly here. On the other hand, per our correspondent, maybe it didn't get knocked out of all Germans, either.

As for promoting heritage tourism? Well, neither the city of Muenster nor our correspondent is allowed to have their cake and eat it on my pages. 

Compared to Frankenmuth or Fredericksburg, Muenster is second-class on such heritage tourism, even as a new move-in to the town wants to build a whole German market and biergarten centering condos and shit around it. (That said, for now at least, said idea seems to have bit the dust.) In other words, to use some German words, said person wants to peddle some ersatz schmaltz with a capitalist bullshit smile painted on it. 

But, since cultural appropriation DOES happen (but not in an SJW tsk-tsk way), said Metroplex correspondent doesn’t get to tut-tut everything in Muenster, either. And, as for tut-tutting “German pizza” (I didn’t try it, or even look for what was on it), our correspondent missed out on something from his heimat: Alsatian flammekueche. And, to finish completing the circle? Some varieties of this product have Munster cheese in addition to fromage blanc or crème fraîche for the sauce. 

Well, the circle isn’t quite yet complete. Munster cheese, and yes, that’s the correct spelling, is named after the town of Munster, in Alsace. (Alsace may be part of France today, but for 1871-1918, and before that was part of the Holy Roman Empire until 1648. It has nothing to do with the German town that was the source of Muenster’s founders.

In short, an authenticity that is frozen in amber is no authenticity. I suspect that for many German-Americans, that's part of being frozen in amber in general.

To move to another culture, is somebody going to call flour tortillas inauthentic? Well, pre-Columbus, they are, just like potatoes for German Sunday lunches.

Back to the complainer one last time.

He referenced other inventions or other Germanic contributions to America and the world.

One was the car. But, Wiki says the first steam-powered "horseless carriage" was invented by one of those damned Frenchmen, Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot, back in 1769.

The second, albeit not by name, was Wernher von Braun. How he got to the US, and of course, the degree of his ties with the Nazis, use of slave labor, etc., were overlooked by our correspondent.

Essentially, parts of the complaint looked like they could have been written by a Stalinist claiming the USSR, or Mother Russia, had invented the radio, TV, etc., Or else by a BJP/RSS disciple of Narendra Modi today.

Yeah, right on a Patriot Party (or MAGA Party, or whatever's next)

Trump's helicopter-fueled fade to black from DC this morning included these not-so-Stentorian words: "Have a good life. We will see you soon."

That said, per yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Trump allegedly hopes to see people soon as head of a new Patriot Party.

Which is to laugh. 

First, this would be as big a clusterfuck as anything else created by Donald J. Trump, especially with no inherited daddy money, let alone daddy tax-dodging loans. His kids would be of no more help.

And, every day further that he delays on this, the more he becomes yesterday's news, especially with no post-presidential Twitter megaphone.

Any Rethuglicans who might be tempted, yet know Trump's weathervane mind, are going to wait for him to take the first official steps. Those include MONEY for ballot access and state-level party formation.

Second? Speaking of state-level party formation? The anti-third party laws in various states, pushed through both by Trump's current Rethuglicans AND Trump's former Democraps, handicap even legit attempt at forming new parties, like the Movement for a People's Party. A Trumpian effort would be binned from the start if it involves Trump's lazy, flighty ass leading it.

The big question is, how much would this hurt Rethuglicans?

Meanwhile, someone like Matt Welch, largely agrees.

UPDATE: Egged on by someone in Arizona, he's still talking about it, but now calling it a "MAGA Party."

And, with that, and per the image, associated with this 2019 story, if Trump thinks he can still MAKE money by blathering about a MAGA party without actually doing anything to start one? He's there in a New York minute, because, as P.T. Barnum knew, "There's a MAGA-sized sucker born every minute."

'Melanin and Me,' er 'Melania and Me': Resist a read

Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is an updated and expanded version of my Goodreads review, where I said that I was torn between one and two stars.

I occasionally turn book reviews into blog posts, but much more commonly with in-depth intellectual books.

But, because The.Resistance.™ (I see what I did in this blog post's title) has touted this baby, this is the rare occasion where I do that with a political book.

Let me start by saying that, by the 50-page mark, I not only felt no more sympathy for pre-White House Melania Trump than before (which was basically zero), but was feeling less and less for author Stephanie Winston Wolkoff by the page.

I also switched from reading to skimming and grokking. No way I wanted to plow through this boring nightstand read word for word.

Wolkoff calls herself a people pleaser. I'd use two other, closely related words, instead. One is "suck-up" and the other is "sucker."

On the suck-up side? She worked for First Lady Melanin for free for a reason. Access, or beyond that, exposure. And, rich people can work for the coin of "exposure." You and I can't. The name-dropping of couturiers, etc., makes it clear to this reader that Wolkoff, with her Anna Wintour connections (also name-dropped repeatedly) that she liked this "exposure." And, since that's the way "society" New York City works, I have little doubt she hoped to turn this exposure into money. And, maybe, despite bemoaning her legal fees, etc., she DID! And, I'm sure that she's already making a penny off her getting dumped. She may not be a biological descendant of Harry Winston, but she got enough skin in the game.

On the sucker side? Not every people pleaser is a sucker. Actual or self-alleged people pleasers who are in a position to stop it, and keep doing it anyway, are suckers. They're even more suckers when they try to make excuses over being just a people pleaser. To put it more bluntly? Claiming you're a people person when you're really a sucker who's a busted suck-up is a high level of passive aggressiveness.

The fact that Wolkoff knew who the Donald was in advance and still voted for him speaks volumes, including that she almost certainly knew who Melanin was all along but thought "it will never happen to me."

Shock me, though, that media glitterati like Anderson Cooper and Madcow Maddow would be suckers for this book, per this review.

As for Melanin?

Not only do I not have any more sympathy for her than before, I have less. In Wolkoff's telling, she comes off as even more sociopathic in some ways than Donald. And that's hard to do.

As for other tidbits, like Ivanka supposed sabotaging Melanin's speech that plagiarized Michelle Obama? Somebody on Ivanka's staff might do that. Ivanka herself might have signed off, if she heard about it. But Ivanka's too dumb to orchestrate that. That said, the belief that she would says something, both about what Wolkoff thinks about Ivanka and about the lengths she would go to, to defend Melanin.

So, actually, the tidbits I learned are probably the only thing keeping this from a one-star rating.

Seriously, if you're a #TheResistance Dem, and you "need" this book to help fight Resistance battles, you're almost as bad off as Wolkoff.

Speaking of, in today's new era? With her having name-dropped the likes of Harvey Weinstein? How much "enabling" has Wolkoff done elsewhere? 

And, this good capitalist also wants to know how much of an advance Wolkoff got for this book, and how far in advance she and Simon and Schuster kept this thing on the QT with the early fall publish date as a target?

This good skeptic also wants to know how much of the book was actually written by SWW and how much is a ghosting product?

View all my reviews

Texas Progs / coronavirus, wk 27: Truth and lies about Trump

The big news this week, of course, is that Trump "got it" and had to go to Walter Reed, even as questions abound about White House testing laxity and protocols.

Well, no, that's not the big news. The big news is all the sycophancy surrounding this, starting with Trump's doctor refusing to give straight up information, then the Trump Train falsely using HIPPA to try to defend this, then culminating in Ivanka Trump defending her daddy with a staged photo.

Nothing can stop him from working for the American people. RELENTLESS! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/2ZSat782qe

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) October 4, 2020

Well, I answered that (more than once):

Note the image, the DESPERATION of RELENTLESS sycophancy of #TrumpTrain hacks AND FAMILY w/staged pix.
A White House and Ivanka so desperate for PR that they can't even fix Trump's combover.
Trump was in bed at 5:25 p.m., showing how sick he is.
RELENTLESS DESPERATION

— The Notorious Roy G. Biv, GSNRF* 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 4, 2020

Then, there's the lies claiming these photos' EXIF were manipulated by AP. Answered that, too:

As to whether it's more likely an AP photog wld lie by data manipulation or Trump ld engage in a cheap & stupid PR stunt?
AND? No. 3: A White House & Ivanka so desperate for PR they can't even fix Trump's combover.
No. 4: Trump in bed at 5:25 p.m., showing how sick he is.

— The Notorious Roy G. Biv, GSNRF* 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 4, 2020

Sadly, there's some Democraps (or beyond??) claiming the other way around, that Ivanka et al manipulated data on pix a week old.

Followed by us learning more about how bad Trump's condition really is behind Ivanaka's bullshit.

I think we need to trust not their words but trust the signals of what drugs they have given Trump. Dexamethasone use clearly puts Trump as now a SERIOUS #COVID19 patient based on WHO guidelines for use of this drug. No way to justify mild to moderate case anymore. https://t.co/MfJ9xlw2Pj pic.twitter.com/HmfuOErAXP

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) October 4, 2020

Sad.

And learning more about Dr. Conley's apparent lies and restatements on Trump's infection timeline indicate he likely PERSONALLY AND WILLFULLY INFECTED OTHERS. And, not just Republican or Democratic pols, people like White House service staff and Bedminster staff.

Here's the skinny, from New England Journal of Medicine, on dexamethasone and COVID. I quote.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) is associated with diffuse lung damage. Glucocorticoids may modulate inflammation-mediated lung injury and thereby reduce progression to respiratory failure and death.

Now we see the level of Ivanka's PR lies.

And, with all of this and more, if Dr. Conley has Trump released by the end of the day today, he's violating his Hippocratic Oath and so are any Walter Reed doctors that sign off.  And, they did, even acknowledging that he was NOT yet outside a window of concern. Yeah, he would have left anyway, but you still do your duty and he's marked as booking it against doctor's orders.

Meanwhile? Don Jr. reportedly is actually worried about Daddy Warbucks, or at least his actions.

Speaking of?

To wrap one post from the regular roundup in here?

SocraticGadfly has semiregularly, for several months, split off coronavirus news from other items in his version of the weekly Texas Progressives Roundup. Last week, he tackled COVID political tribalism coming from MULTIPLE sides and called ALL of it out.

Speaking of THAT? Coronavirus issues are dividing black and white churches, at least in Georgia.

Meanwhile, yours truly noted that not all COVIDIOTS inside the Beltway are Trump Trainers. Looking at you, WHCA.

In a great longform, Zeynep Tufecki explains that on coronavirus, even more than R0, the spread rate, epidemeologists are talking about k, the dispersion rate. That is, how much of the problem is due to superspreader "bursts" vs more steady "drips."

Finally? Julia Ioffe describes her own journey through multiple negative tests until physical symptoms finally got a doctor to override test results.

COVIDIOTS abound in the Beltway's chattering classes, and not all of them ride the Trump Train

And no, it's not just Trump himself, who as you know if you haven't been on Mars, has it.

It's his family, of course. And, who let them do this? The plutocrat corporatists at the Commission on Presidential Debates, ultimately.

More here:

Mayo Clinic required universal masks, but let Pence meet patients without one.

Cleveland Clinic was supposed to enforce mask rules, but let the Trump family flout them. pic.twitter.com/APodXlQtph

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) October 2, 2020

That said, will he break quarantine? Click the link to vote. Or just look below.

#TrumpHasCovid

What are the odds that he actually observes a full 14 days of quarantine?

— The Notorious Roy G. Biv, GSNRF* 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 2, 2020

But, it's more than just his family.

It's also people like Maskless Mark Meadows.

“If you can’t protect the President, how can you be trusted to protect the country?” - question to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows after he spoke with reporters for just seven minutes about #TrumpCovid outside the White House. @CBSNews pic.twitter.com/7dOD4Lk4Nk

— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCBS) October 2, 2020

Or Larry Kudlow.

Trump’s cabinet just now trying to figure out how to put on masks.

(photo of Larry Kudlow today, by Oliver Contreras) pic.twitter.com/MNMuY2BuJs

— Laura Bassett (@LEBassett) October 2, 2020

Speaking of, if Trump does break quarantine, will they say anything? Click the link to vote. Or below:

#TrumpHasCovid

If Trump does break quarantine early, what are the chances that the #TrumpTrain is still so feckless as to cuddle up to him?

— The Notorious Roy G. Biv, GSNRF* 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 2, 2020

But, it's not just Trump, or his family, or his sycophantic flunkies.

It's the Beltway culture:

So, re Mark Meadows? WHY THE FUCK are White House correspondents continuing to cover the White House in person right now?
.@WHCA are you all THAT ADDICTED TO "ACCESS"? https://t.co/K6r3kofoIg

— The Notorious Roy G. Biv, GSNRF* 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 2, 2020

Per the Tweet? Yes, they ARE addicted to access.

This is even more clear with word that Trump's press stonewaller, Kayleigh McEnany, also has it. 

Update, Oct. 7: Now we have a ButtFeet reporter not showing up for her "shift," and someone from Politico pinch-hitting.

That said, it's time to move to the Mopac Beltway and America's favorite wingnut Lite Guv, and remarks of his several months ago.

Dan Patrick? Danny Goeb? Ohhhh, Dan Patrick .@DanPatrick

You are SO GETTING OWNED.

Donald Trump is over 70.

By your own past comments?

HE HAS A DUTY TO DIE, doesn't he?#TrumpHasCovid #Hypocrisy

— The Notorious Roy G. Biv, GSNRF* 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 2, 2020

Well, what about it?

NO worries. Surely John Cornyn is on the job:

Be smart; don’t panic. We will get us through this #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/SyvOAWXItK

— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) March 14, 2020

And, I've already taken care of that one too:

John Cornyn, ohhhh .@JohnCornyn ....

In case you haven't heard, #TrumpHasCovid I mean #TrumpHasCorona ...

Speaking of, you bringing a six pack of panic-free Corona to Walter Reed to "get us through"?

Yeah .... #Schadenfreude is a bitch! https://t.co/Z784j4pfdS

— The Notorious Roy G. Biv, GSNRF* 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 3, 2020

Let's not forget climate change denialists crosspollinating into or as coronavirus denialists.

Where will you find black Republicans?

Not a joke but it does sound like a set-up for a great punchline.

First, they do exist, as past and present members of Comgress attest. But, contra Allen West, Tim Scott, Will Hurd and J.C. Watts, they neither live in the part of the country, the South, nor have all the right background, to make them the most likely of black Republicans.

By part of the country, the area of country around the Utah of former Congresscritter Mia Love is where you should look, according to political scientist and data scientist Allen Downey.

But, Love doesn't fully fit the bill either, unless you consider Mormons to be born-again Protestants. (That said, she is a convert to Mormonism.)

Otherwise, as far as her overall background, as someone arguably less wingnut-lite even than Hurd, if the GOP wants to have a future with African-Americans, it will have to be with people like her.

But, until the worst of the TrumpTrain virus is purged from the GOP, it will be hard to recruit people like her.

Back to that link?

Besides out west, making money, NOT graduating college, and born again? That's a weird combo. Born-again Protestantism is not strong in the west, which is in general the least religious part of the country. It's also, outside the actual coastal cities of the West Coast, the least black portion of the country. That said, given the past history of Mormonism, it was weird of Mia Love to convert.

Per my review of a recent book, "Blessed," though, it's not weird overall to see non-college grads, born-again Christians, and more than $100K a year as prime demographics. Modern black megachurches promote this entrepreneurialism as part of the success gospel. That then said, to tie back to Love, Mormonism has its own versions of the success gospel, as noted in my review.

Trump Caved: Who won, who lost, what next?

First, wingnuts, he caved. By the ever-shriller tweeting of many of you on Friday, escalating from #BuildTheWall to #BuildTheWallAndCrimeWillFall exactly as "Rose Garden" started trending, you know it. Many of those of you like that still refuse to accept it consciously, but you know it subconsciously precisely through this.

Others of you, along with national conservative commentariat, both Trumper and non-Trumper wings, knows it, accepts it consciously and to some degree, discusses it — or spins it a little more suavely than the deranged.

As the shutdown continued, he started losing "at the edges" supporters. Mainstream media had plenty of stories — and polls to back that up. Whether cognitive dissonance will return for some or not remains to be seen.

But, as I see it, and others whose insights on Twitter I value, what caused the cave was neither decaying Trump support nor Nancy Pelosi's political genius.

Rather, it was the rise of blue flu among airport workers. Interestingly, whether deliberate targeting or not, airports heavy in business travel, like Atlanta and eventually LaGuardia, seemed to have the biggest sickness problems. I can't help but think that some mix of big biz folks and a few Senators leaned on Trump hard enough.

And, somewhere, if only subconsciously at this time, Donald Trump knows he lost, too. How the president will react in the next three weeks will tell us if the American public won or lost.

Senate Republicans also lost, even if any of them were pushing Trump at the end.. Per the Nixon-era term, they committed suicide at Credibility Gap. How much they lost remains to be seen, but I pummeled Cornyn and Cruz on Twitter. They need to be. Cruz has of course always been this way.

Cornyn, when paired with Kay Bailey Cheerleader in the Senate, of course looked more conservative than her, but at least gave the impression of not being a kneejerk type.

Now, it has to be said bluntly, some of that should be re-examined as to how much it is actually impression rather than reality.

Reduplicated as losers? Per the Bezos Post, the credibility of Coryn, which I also fed to him on Twitter. Even Mitch the Turtle was more honest in that piece. And that's hard to do.

Also a loser, in a way? Ted Rall, for seeing the MAGA heads as enlightened Zen masters. First, they worry themselves. Occasionally, halfway, occasionally, more, about the right things, while continuing to blame the wrong people, and still delusionally believing that a trust fund tax-chiseler is someone to follow rather than someone to blame.

The general public of anything more enlightened than the entrenched MAGA-heads may also be a loser. Many of them will surely try to whistle in the dark enough to try to whistle away their cognitive dissonance, even as, per the second paragraph, people like Rod Dreher have said not only that Trump lost, but his cheap cave-in shows that he never cared that much about the reality of the wall in the first place. Dreher, referencing Ann (Whore To) Coulter (think Dorothy Parker and bad puns, folks) said that if Trump HAD cared, he would have gotten the money before the November election.

No, what he cared about was trying to push around Congress. The Art of the Deal.

And, because the MAGA-heads will double down on their cognitive and emotional dissonance, the rest of America loses.

Other losers? The Beltway stenos, neolib Dem pundit version. Ezra Klein, Washington Monthly, et al anointed Miss Nancy, Nancy Pelosi, for her alleged genyus in ending the shutdown. While denying Trump the Capitol as a State of the Union platform might have had a small effect, it was clearly the airport flu that was the tipping point. GFY on this one, folks.

The rest of America, as per the previous section, is also a bit of a loser on this, too. The spinning by the Ezras of the world enthroning centrist Dem Pelosi, even as many of Ezra's fellow stenos just got shit-canned by Puff Hoes or ButtFeet, could boost the image of Beltway steno as Beltway sage. To the degree that happens and people bite on it, we all lose.

The Wicked Witch of the West, Coulter, is a win/lose. Calling Trump the biggest wimp since Poppy Bush will help with the more rabid, but not with others. Ditto on the grasping-for-relevance Rush Limbaugh, who took a "wait and see" stance after the Trump Cave. Rusty knows that Trump caved, and his listeners do, too. I predict a drop in listeners.

==

The "what next"?

I am not a Beltway steno or Beltway stage.

But, given that Trump will feel less guilty, if he did, about unpaid federal employees, and his staff may have brainstormed new workarounds, I offer a 50-50 odds we're back at this point in three weeks, or else Trump tries to go the national emergency route, which I still see as less likely.

As of Feb. 3, per comments by Sen. John Hoeven, I stand by that prediction. Trump is circling back to the national emergency, egged on by Hannity et al, but Mitch the Turtle has warned that the Senate, as well as the House, could produce an official resolution of disapproval. After that? Theoretically, we're in court to test the power of that resolution.

Tired of trying to understand conservatives?

A number of people have recently written about that.

My take is different.

A certain amount of red-state "everyday" conservatives are easy to understand. I get fears of your economic future. I also "get," while rejecting, bashing immigrants for doing jobs that white Americans won't — or bashing Obama as a secret Muslim, etc.

It's called being a mudsill, which I have written about here, here and here. (I have at least one further installation, and probably two, if not more, already planned.)

I halfway get believing in trickle-down economics. You've been brainwashed over nearly 40 years now, and you've also been brainwashed to think the only reason it hasn't worked better is because of Clinton, Obama, Mezzcans and some black Americans.

Well, you let yourself be brainwashed at some point.

I get the intersection with neocons. Both of you believe that America is a Christian nation, unless you're a Jewish neocon, in which case you believe it's good that others believe this.

That's not going to get you 'everydays' a better job. It might get one of your kids signing up for another unnecessary war because he or she can't get a better job. It will get you more taxes, because the rich big-biz conservatives aren't going to pay for more bombs, more weapons and more wars themselves.

The big-biz conservatives are more cosmopolitan on social issues. Of course, they, as they shade into full-on libertarians at one end and into right-neoliberals at the other, are internationalists who don't care if America crumbles more as long as their stock and hedge fund portfolios continue to ride high.

What I do not get, the two-dimensional picture above (a generalization, but NOT a stereotype), is why some libruls (not leftists!) think listening tours or whatever are necessary. Like Arlie Russell Hochschild with "Strangers in Their Own Land." Conservatives in general will by no means become more open-minded because of this. And, they're certainly not going to reciprocate on open-minded listening tours.

So, why try?

I guess librulz think this is what they're supposed to do. And, they think that after understanding comes "respect." Wrong. And in the MSM, at the WaPost, surprisingly, Paul Waldman totally gets that that's a mug's game.

The right has a gigantic media apparatus that is devoted to convincing people that liberals disrespect them, plus a political party whose leaders all understand that that idea is key to their political project and so join in the chorus at every opportunity.

And Waldman is NOT some leftist. Maybe some librulz halfway get it.

Many don't, though. 

And, that's another reason why I'm a leftist.

Isaiah's "Come, let us reason together" applies to all parties, not just selectively.

And, the Trump Train doesn't want to reason. In many cases, it wants to play the martyr.

And, per Jaguar's comment and my response, that's the bottom line as I see it. And Trump's vocalness on both bigotry and misogyny has given them even freer reign to do this.

Beyond that, the real issue, which I failed to note?

Lack of reciprocity.

Show me a conservative, especially stereotypical Trump voter, who talks about trying to understand liberals, or beyond.

And, given that, I'll probably do a follow-up, with different header, and that idea, after my next couple of mudsills posts are in the hopper.

Sometimes, conservatives don't want to be understood, because they don't want to understand, or accept, reality.

Take Harley-Davidson, getting a ton of Trump Tax Scam breaks, then turning around and closing the plant in Kansas City, while announcing plans to open one in Bangkok.

Here's welder Tim Primeaux:

“I blame the company more than I blame the president," he said in the NBC News interview.

 I think the church has a blessing about this. Oh, yes –

"The self-willed ignorance that passes all understanding."

==

Update, March 8, 2019
This:

President Trump is signing bibles for  volunteers and survivors at a Baptist church in Alabama. pic.twitter.com/9b8VfyZiKF

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) March 8, 2019

is yet another reason this leftist, contra Arlie Russell Hochschild and fellow librulz, doesn't do "listening tours."

And actually, Trump autographing bibles (did he sign the first page of "Two Corinthians"? did he get his "cracker" [of the many crackers there]?) is only half as vulgar and one quarter as irreligious as the people who asked him for the autographs.

And, it's not just "the left" calling Trump out, contra fellow travelers at Red State:

I don’t know who it is a worse commentary on: Trump actually signing Bibles in Alabama, or the people asking him to sign a Bible.  Lordy Moses.

— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) March 8, 2019

That said, if Obama also did it, even for MLK's family, it's still theologically grotesque in my corner of the world.

But, that's Merikan Xianity.

'A Higher Loyalty' — to his own self-image?

A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership by James Comey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Four stars for the center Clinton-Trump material; loses a star for other items.

A few introductory notes.

First, at the presidential level, I did my "duopoly exit" at the start of this century. Related to that, I dislike a lot of the structure of the national-level American polis, above all, the whole strong-presidential system that is wrapped up with the modern electoral college having pushed America to a two-party system. (The civil liberties of our constitutional amendments are great, except that we need a few more like an explicit right to privacy; the body of the constitution is largely anachronistic dreck.)

Second, re the candidates of said duopoly? Beyond having little regard for their parties, I have even less regard for the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton that were foist on us. Trump is a boor who has a history of racism that provoked a suit by HUD over racism in housing. He also has a history of mafia ties, which also include the further hypocrisy of him hiring illegal immigrants, as many believe he still does today.. Clinton has a sense of entitlement and a willingness to manipulate Democratic Party leadership and actions to that end. Both have long histories of corruption. Trump in his housing and other properties, his 4x bankruptcy, and his willingness to play footsie with foreign leaders, or yet more shady characters — that link above talks about his connection to Russian as well as American mobsters. Clinton has a history that goes back to her and WJ Clinton's Whitewater; you have to really be a died-in-the-wool "Hillbot" to believe it was just luck that led her to a $100K killing in cattle futures. The pair's corruption has continued through some of the less ethical activities of the Clinton Foundation.

Third, while I do believe in some sort of "deep state," I don't believe it is some sort of massive, unified apparatus out to "get Trump." Even worse are wingnut Members of Congress like Nunes et al playing with this. (And, about as bad are the likes of Ray McGovern, trading on his CIA knowledge to tout Nunes as a truthseeker rather than denounce him as a political hack, even as McGovern plays two-siderism on this issue. Worse yet, McGovern voted for Stein, and knows what two-siderism is.)

Fourth, I do not believe Vladimir Putin caused Trump to win. He may have orchestrated some meddling, but even there, the first round of DNC emails was likely stolen by Seth Rich or somebody else inside the DNC, not hacked. Even if most alleged Russian-related meddling was actually caused by Russia, its effects were minuscule. The Facebook groups' spending was a drop in the bucket. Also related? I highly resent "Hillbot" insinuations that third party candidates were tools of Vladimir Putin. And also related? Whatever meddling Putin did officially or semi-officially do is less than the US did in two 1990s elections in Russia, let alone elsewhere in the world.

I felt all of this introduction was necessary to background my review of what is certainly a contentious book. I see a lot of "two-siderism" in a lot of reviews, and I'm telling you there's more than two sides in American politics and thus in reaction to the book.

OK, the book!

First, James Comey himself. He comes off as a generally straight shooter. But not always and not totally; more on that below. Sometimes, it seems like the letter of honesty but not the spirit. However, he also comes off as sometimes sanctimonious, perhaps strongly so at times. I think this backfired on him after AG Loretta Lynch met Bill Clinton on the Phoenix tarmac. The title of this book attests to that. More on that below. Another s-word, besides sanctimonious, also comes to mind. Comey can be smarmy at times. And, often, these two s-words intersect with a "by the books" version of honesty and nobody is served well.

I think this is a largely accurate view of what happened in the 2016 election vis-a-vis James Comey's part in it, from the Clinton emails and server issues, through post-election Trump trying to get mafioso-type loyalty from Comey. (See what I said above about Trump's long history of mob ties, some of which Comey surely knows about, beyond Comey's own investigation of non-Trump mob cases.) George Will, recalling a sick suck-up event last June, supports this. I think Comey's personal assessment, and his assessment of DOJ assessment, of just how penalizable Clinton was, is also correct. That said, I do agree with Comey, despite the fact that the FBI can nail anybody for lying to it, that Petraeus should have been specifically charged with this, and should have done jail time.

At the same time, Comey is not totally write about Trump's personality. Per Quora, I am reminded that, if the roasting Obama gave Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner pissed Trump off, he still laughed about it in public. More here.

Comey is right that Hillary Clinton's issues were largely her fault. As for the "Colin Powell used private email," Comey responds — maybe the first time I've directly read this – that Powell and others who did this never sent classified material over a personal email account, but Hillary Clinton did. And, that's not to mention the private server, which Hillbots generally avoid like the plague.

I think the investigation was generally decently handled, per two paragraphs above, until the Phoenix tarmac. Lynch had already started showing her cards before that with the insistence on the word "matter." Comey did the best he could with that — or at least presents himself that way, but he should have kept that in mind post-Phoenix and acted differently. If he felt this was like Lynch dumping something in his lap, he should have told her so, and then asked that she have Deputy AG Sally Yates take over as the DOJ public face. He should then have talked to Yates directly. Or he should have asked for a special prosecutor. He should NOT have assumed this was "his baby." That's the sanctimoniousness. If the apparent lack of communication between Lynch and Yates became bigger, that too should have been kept as purely their baby, not his.

Yates, not him, then would have (presumably) spoken to Congress. Ditto on Yates deciding what public communication was needed when new Clinton e-mails popped up in the Weiner-Humedin chain.

If Yates refuses? And Lynch won't "person up"? You either resign on principle or leak about this on principle right then.

Trump probably still would have fired Comey soon enough. But, Comey's hands would have been even cleaner than they actually are.

Speaking of things Trump, the New York Times gets Bureau and DOJ staff on background saying Comey mishandled the early Russia and Trump campaign ties investigation that started in 2016. They say he should have used different agents from the Clinton investigation, and shouldn't have consolidated them in general and let alone at headquarters. What led to that?

And, was Comey's refusal to announce the investigation a form of bet-hedging? What would have happened had he not announced the late re-opening of the Clinton investigation? Even more, what if he had, as noted above, punted back to Lynch in summer 2016?

Comey also carefully phrased that what he did that he details in the book after the firing wasn't a leak. More recent discussion, and not just by Trump Trainers, says maybe so, maybe not. The fact that Comey insists on this comes off as sanctimonious, doubly so since he claims his memoranda about each Trump meeting is personal, not government, property, but doesn't include them in the book. Some other of his Trump-scenes paintings look smarmy.

Other matters? Comey is too nice to Lynch on the Phoenix tarmac issue. She should have known the optics were horrible, especially when the meeting stretched to 30 minutes. So, too, should have the Slickster. Did Lynch have an ulterior motive? Who knows. Bill surely did, even if it was not the one of creating a conflict of interest; it may have been one of strong hubby Bill fighting to protect Hillary.

In any case, Comey drops a smug, smarmy hint that Lynch might have problems in general on the investigatin, then says, "It's classified," on his source for that.

The book, outside of Trump-Clinton, is weak in other ways. In talking about a new post-Ferguson wave of minority distrust of cops, and the FBI's difficulty in recruiting minorities, Comey never mentioned COINTELPRO. Nor did he mention that FBI several arrests of alleged terrorists, in the minds of many, were entrapments. Nor – beyond the fact that many people will pay for it — does he make any real effort to understand the side of Apple et al on smartphone encryption strength. No discussion of the possible wrongs of the Patriot Act and related law.

The sanctimoniousness on the leak-or-not is more than just that, though, and ties with this. It's a bit of "the ends justify the means" stance. Comey makes that clear with phone encryption; on the things not mentioned, he probably believes alleged terrorists were never "really" entrapped; the FBI just did what it needed to. Ditto on COINTELPRO.

Above all, so is Comey's Al Haig-like "I'm in charge now" on the last months of the Clinton investigation. How much of that was in Comey's older cultural DNA and how much is him as FBI director, I am not sure.

Update, June 8: Related to all of this, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz has reportedly found that Comey disobeyed lines of authority at times; the word "insubordinate" is allegedly used in a draft report. Horowitz's report also allegedly rebukes Lynch.

And, the story of White Boy Rick points out the real FBI, not Comey's PR bullshit.

June 14: More information and details from the Horowitz report.

First, rank elitism, not Deep State conspiracy theory blather, is a good explainer about many FBI agents, if Peter Strzok is representative of others in saying Bernie Sanders "is an idiot like Trump." (Related: As that link reminds us, per the FBI that Comey wants to turd-polish, Strzok and Lisa Page were having an extramarital affair. That's not only unethical, but in any investigative agency, leaves one open to blackmail.

The report also reveals that Comey made his public announcement about the October re-opening of the Clinton case not out of selflessness, but out of job security CYA, per Atlantic. And, per my SOP comments above about talking to Yates, apparently he, or someone in his circles, DID tell Yates this. And, the NYT also jumps on his smugness.

And Comey himself still doesn't get it, or doesn't want to, as far as Horowitz's calling him insubordinate, as his June 14 NYT column indicates.

That said, for both the Trumpers and Clintonistas who have worshiped the ground he has walked on at various times, the idea that he's ultimately a typical FBI director never comes to mind, apparently. That said, now that Trump is proving to be more a warmonger than in the election, and Clinton was always that way, and both have sometimes more similar than dissimilar stances on parts of their domestic background that is related (the Patriot Act came from materials already under discussion in Bill's presidency), this is probably something that both say is a credit rather than a demerit. But, that's yet another reason I did my "duopoly exit."

Peter Van Buren adds that it would have been nice to hear more about the Bush-Ashcroft-Gonzales-Addington stuff. I agree; other earlier stuff might also have been nice, including more on Giuliani.

Even more than that, without him claiming "it's classified," beyond the bare bones of the Steele dossier, I would have liked to hear more of Comey's take on "Putin did it." To the degree that Vladimir Putin actually did interfere with the 2016 presidential elections, it was surely less than we interfered with 1990s elections in Russia. However, neither Hillbots nor MAGA-heads want an honest discussion of this issue, and I suspect that establishmentarian Comey wouldn't give us much of one.

As for the personal anecdotes about Trump's perma-tan, and not having THAT small of hands? Maybe Comey was trying to personalize the meeting. Maybe he was trying to look neutral by the variety of descriptors. To me, it wasn't a big deal, unlike some reviewers. I did find it mildly interesting, no more.

In any case, because the book gives us, unintentionally, a decent look at Comey the man as well as the Trump and Clinton incidents, it's still worth a solid three stars. Comey the person, at least on the issues in this book, may only be worth two, though.

Many of the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon give good examples of the two-siderism that has been the bane of America for two full years.

View all my reviews

Update, May 14: Former Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein has turned both barrels on Comey, calling him a "partisan pundit" who trampled "bright lines that should never be crossed."

The specific target of his ire is how Comey handled reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails adn server after then-AG Loretta Lynch had had her conflict-of-interest inducing meeting with Bill Clinton on the Phoenix tarmac.

Rosenstein is totally right. It was grandstanding, as I said at the time, and not SOP, either. Then-Assistant AG Sally Yates should have been contacted by Comey and she should have been asked to get Lynch to officially recuse herself, then take over.

Rosenstein said he would have handled Comey's firing differently had it been just him, not Trump, but that Comey deserved to be fired.

He did.

Period and end of story, Donut Twitter and Resistance.