National Stew

  After reading the report: 1. Did not exonerate Trump. 1. Did not exonerate Trump. 2. Made no suggestion for criminal charges beyond the ones made in an earlier iteration and noted below. 3. Durham found no reason for opening a full investigation into Trump/Russian collaboration at that time. 4. Suggested that the FBI should have opened a preliminary investigation. The implication being that a preliminary investigation would have led to a full investigation. 5. Durham said that it was possible that the FBI needed to put some reforms in place. In addition, the investigation as a whole did see an earlier iteration that made 3 criminal charges: One plead guilty, the 2 others were tried and acquitted. I am awaiting the Durham appearance before congress to do a full report. I have an inescapable sense that there is something else going on here. Similarities between this report and the Müller report like something is being left out of the story by both. Somewhere in my reading, I ran ac...

  There was a period of reverse immigration! That is, more people headed south than north, between 2008 and 2016. The Republicans began running on border security in spite of this fact. What do you think happened? The “Quick, let's get in before the opportunity closes!” idea kicked in! We saw a resurgence of immigration not seen in decades! It goes like this: Before Trump: reverse immigration.  Trump lies and threats: massive migration.  Trump regulations: Four years of border backup.  I t's Biden's fault  Today: Biden resets after ending Trump regulation: System working legally and properly with backup gone and new people processed by sending those with no credible claim home and the 1 to 2 percent of credible claims through!  Republicans: But, but, but, where's Hunter? Inflation We all agree that too much money chasing too few goods caused inflation, so what is the solution? Raising interest is not it! Producing more goods is! Why do we have a shortage o...

  In this case take her Literarily, not Literally.  That is my editorial paraphrase of what the judge said in an exchange in the E. Jean Carroll case as seen below: Take Her Literarily, Not Literally

  Carlson’s Firing: Was it Over Liability or Money? Like a rousing game of Pong, the Tucker Carlson saga continues to amuse.  In this case I run up against two of my favorite concepts for making judgments. The law of parsimony, and the principle of “follow the money” There may be others involved but these are, for the reason mentioned already, the most obvious: Parsimony: The simplest answer is almost always the right answer! That is Parsimony, also often called Occam's Razor, named for the hometown of Willam of Ockham.  Liability Carlson was fired because he was a legally indefensible liability to Fox particularly after several liable trials including the last one with Dominion voting systems.  If this is the case, a couple of other questions come to mind: Will Carlson's firing mitigate the legal case involving future legal action involving Carlson which occured before his termination? Will Carlson be on his own in any such future legal battles? Follow the money: At...

   Socialism and Economic Nationalism are just the two wings of the same scavenging Collectivist bird! Socialism By the normal definitions of socialism as it has been since its inception, socialism is an economic system based on collectivist ideas of equality of outcomes by government ownership of the means of production. Its political system is usually Communism. National Socialism and Fascism It is very much like its collectivist twin brother National Socialism, a term used by several different groups and based in the collective ideology of Fascism. In economic terms, Fascism incorporates elements of capitalism and socialism. Fascist economists favor self-sufficiency and private profit, but seek government subsidies of corporations and industrial policy.  It is really not Socialism by the definition given above but a form of Populist Nationalism similar to what we see today inside the American right. It seeks to control the outcome and output of private owners, via indu...

  Congress passes off more of its power to the administrative state! Congress delegates more of its non-delegatable authority to unelected officials. See if this makes sense to you. Endowing the Secretary of Commerce with: Power to "...determine what is an “undue or unacceptable risk...” Power of “...sole and unreviewable discretion...”  Power to “...otherwise mitigate...” Think about this, the unelected official is given the authority to determine what problems exist, and has no one to challeng him and can have no challenges, and has the power to do whatever he thinks best to deal with these issues! This is the best description of a monarchy I have ever seen! The bill is properly named. It is intended to RESTRICT anything the Secretary of Commerce thinks is an issue, and do anything about it he wishes to do, all with congressional approval! Text of t he Restrict Act

  Patterns of Silliness, Nothingberders and Coveffee! Patterns, we start to see them if we observe. Some of them are simple and we catch on quickly. Some are not and it takes more time or distance.  Chaos theory is a good example of those patterns. If we were distant enough in time and/or space and continued to observe, we would see these patterns emerge, and know that nothing happens without cause and effect.  The pattern Every day Red State sling some gibberish onto a page and it passes unnoticed except by the most calcified of trumpist minds.  Then about one day a week they will post something by a little known but not yet totally rejected writer, covering a story from an opinion piece from some other writer of some notoriety on the fake right, proclaiming that irrefutable evidence has proven that something the other side says or does has been destroyed and the whole movement is about to fall and then Republican Nirvana will be revealed!  Every week this happ...