Cruel, incoherent “activism”

I read the story a few times — it’s short — and I still don’t know what these “activists” were trying to accomplish. At the time of the Nevada Democratic debate, a group calling themselves P.U.T.I.N. (“Pigeons United To Interfere Now”) glued little red MAGA hats on the heads of pigeons and released them in Las Vegas. Why? I don’t know. Was it to protest Russian interference, to mock the Republicans, or to ridicule Democrats? I have no idea. It just seems to be a petty exercise in animal cruelty with no point.

It’s not even funny or clever, only ineffective and confusing. It’s a good demonstration that, while it’s good to be motivated to do something, some thought needs to be put into your plans and you must have specific goals that are served by your actions. Whoever pulled this stunt was heedless of the animals they were coercing.

Did I say I was voting for Sanders?

I did! But then last night I didn’t watch the whole debate, just bits and pieces here and there, but I saw enough to feel a primal urge to bow down before the fierce goddess and worship her. Elizabeth Warren was on fire, and that’s what I need from my candidate. I’m not saying I’ll abandon an intellectual commitment to Bernie Sanders on election day, but Warren is what my heart wants.

It was very nice of Michael Bloomberg to volunteer to be the punching bag of the evening, and to spend what, $400 million dollars for the privilege, but man, did he get flensed alive. If Bloomberg was the proxy racist, sexist billionaire on the stage, Trump ought to be terrified at the thought of facing Warren after the primaries are over. I say “ought to be” because he’s probably too squidgy-brained to care. He also got torn up by Clinton in the debates, and it didn’t matter.

I was amused by the post-debate from the Bloomberg camp that he did very well in the debate — that was a definitive trouncing. He went so far as to claim that he delivered the most potent zinger against Bernie, accusing him of owning three houses. That’s right, a billionaire accusing a man of being a little bit rich was the strongest riposte he could think of.

Also notable: Klobuchar did a fine job of torpedoing Buttigieg.

The Minnesota presidential primary is less than two weeks away and I’m going to have to make up my mind: I’m torn between the savage warrior wonk and the dedicated sage. Of course, my wife is going to unlimber a couple of arms, wave a sword and trident and a severed head at me and tell me to vote for Bernie, and I have to respect that ferocity, too.

Bloomberg just lost the rural vote

And mine, but that goes without saying. He declared that any idiot can be a farmer.

I might think that agriculture has a little too much influence on our elections, but that is unadulterated nonsense. Farming is difficult, and it requires a great deal of gray matter, and always has. Evaluating soils and weather and making decisions about what to plant and when is hard enough, but it also requires sound economic judgment, which you’d think Bloomberg would appreciate. Farming is a sophisticated enterprise, far more than some yokel digging a hole and putting a seed in.

Trump has screwed over farmers throughout his reign, and we could count on at least some of them defecting to the Democrats, at least as long as we don’t nominate Bloomberg. Is there any portion of the electorate that wants that guy, other than the billionaires and Wall Street bankers?

Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book

You really don’t want to find your name in it. It’s his aspirational list of who a creepy rich pedophile thinks are the important people in his world.

While we await subpoenas and depositions—if they ever come remains to be seen—there is a road map of sorts in the form of Epstein’s so-called “little black book,” 92 pages of names, emails, and phone numbers of people Epstein knew, or wanted to know, but in any event had detailed information about. Wall Street people comprise a significant amount of the entries. “He was a kind of wholesale collector of people, including people he didn’t know,” one of the Wall Street guys in the black book tells me. “I guarantee you that 90% of the people whose names are in his book, he’s not in their book. Many of these people don’t even know him.”

What the book tells us is that Epstein knew, or aspired to know, some of the biggest names on Wall Street and in Washington. Sure there are the Trumps—Donald, Ivana, and Ivanka—and Bill Clinton’s surrogate Doug Band in the book. But once you get past their names, there is the horde of Wall Street executives. The contact book is dated for sure, replete as it is with misspellings and incorrect or superseded phone numbers, emails, and addresses. It remains something of an enigma: What was the book’s purpose? “I don’t think it means anything,” the Wall Street executive continues. “…I didn’t really know Jeffrey. He was like Boo Radley in the corner of the room. After I met him, he became Jeffrey Epstein, he had no interest in me. He knew right out of the box who the players were, the people who would stay out all night, people who had interests in extracurricular objectives, and who the hitters were. That wasn’t me.”

That unnamed Wall Street executive has the words we’re going to hear a lot of in the future: I didn’t know him. He didn’t know me. I don’t think it means anything. Right. Except that it does mean something. It means you were a wealthy plutocrat who came into the orbit of a man who was looking for an angle on rich people everywhere. You are a member of the looter class.

So, also on the list of greedy people we find David Koch, Mike Bloomberg, Steve Forbes, Conrad Black, etc., etc., etc. You don’t need to be a super-brilliant detective to see a pattern in the names.

I am confident that I am not in the book.

Ugh. Maher.

Bill Maher soft-pedaled Mike Bloomberg’s racism last night. You know, this Bloomberg, who bragged about targeting minorities for selective policing.

Maher was addressing the tape of Bloomberg from 2015 that re-emerged this week, wherein the former mayor of New York City admitted—to a crowd of rich, white folks in Aspen—that his stop-and-frisk policy, which was unconstitutional, led to thousands of dubious marijuana arrests, and ruined many lives, was about targeting “minorities.”

“Ninety-five percent of your murders and murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description and Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities 15 to 25…That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city in America. And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed,” said Bloomberg.

He continued: “People say, ‘Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana who are all minorities!’ Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why’d we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you should get the guns out of the kids’ hands is throw them against the wall and frisk them.”

Bloomberg is terrible. He’s the worst choice among the Democrats, and I say that as someone who detests Biden. I’m still going to vote Democrat if Biden is the nominee, but if it’s Bloomberg…I might not. Allowing Bloomberg to buy his way into the presidency is the end of the party and democracy in general in the US. It means we’re a total plutocracy, and that our representatives have willingly sold out. Besides, Bloomberg is a stone cold racist piece of shit.

Maher joked about that, and got booed.

“Bernie Sanders won Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s also leading in the national polls, which means we have a new frontrunner… Michael Bloomberg? What the fuck?” offered Maher, adding, “Well, Bloomberg must be the frontrunner because liberals are calling him a racist.”

When the audience began booing Maher’s joke castigating liberals for calling Bloomberg a racist, he sniped, “Keep booing—that’s how you lost the last election.”

He’s not the frontrunner, no matter how much the media and rich phonies like Maher get starry-eyed over him, and liberals are calling him racist because he said racist things. Why is Maher glossing over the blatant, outrageous things a rich man with power said? Those remarks are not a minor issue.

What’s interesting, though, is that Maher has lost his audience. Part of that is almost certainly that revealing accusation: “you lost the election.” Maher does not identify with his audience, and does not identify with those of us who are suffering with the election of Donald Trump. Maher’s got his, he’s feeling no pain, and his audience of centrist liberals can go fuck themselves.

Why does Maher still have a show? Why do you (that’s right, I don’t identify with people who watch him) continue to watch his crappy program and his smug face? When will he find himself unemployed, so he can more righteously complain about his cancellation?

“Silent Sam”? I think you mean “Shady Sam”

An interesting development in the Silent Sam saga. Silent Sam was a Confederate monument at the University of North Carolina that was toppled by protesters, which prompted the university to immediately and generously hand over $2½ million to a sleazy racist organization, the Sons of Confederate Veterans to lovingly care for the beloved statue of a racist traitor. It was weird. The SCV had scarcely declared their intent to sue when the university immediately handed over millions of dollars to this shakedown by a low-rent gang of nobodies.

Well, never mind. A judge just voided the whole arrangement.

A judge has overturned a contentious settlement that the University of North Carolina system reached with the Sons of Confederate Veterans over the Confederate monument known as Silent Sam.

The November 2019 agreement required the UNC system to give Silent Sam to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, along with $2.5 million for its preservation and display. It was announced within minutes of a lawsuit filed by the group.

There’s something going on at that university, and it’s not to be trusted. The board of governors apparently has so much power, and certain biases, that they can just cavalierly fling huge sums of money at a mob of Confederate rats who just ask for it.

After the statue came down, it was put into storage. The university system’s board of governors gave no indication about what they planned to do with the monument before a sudden announcement that the system had reached a deal with the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

As NPR reported in December, “The university system insisted it was settling a lawsuit, but court records show the board of governors’ chairman agreed to the deal before a lawsuit existed.” Baddour signed off on the deal just seven minutes after the lawsuit was filed.

The UNC system’s Board of Governors never held a public meeting to discuss options for what to do with the statue.

UNC is a state and federally funded institution that needs to have its money management policies closely scrutinized. No matter what side of this decision you favor, there is something seriously wrong with how the board decides to spend money.

Another abuse of power

Yet again, the Republicans demonstrate their fondness for voter suppression. They’ve scheduled a Trump rally for the day of the New Hampshire primary, with the explicit goal of screwing up traffic to hinder voters.

The president relished the idea of dominating the stage in New Hampshire and stealing some of the media oxygen from the Democrats. Advisers hoped that Secret Service moves in downtown Manchester to secure the area for the president’s arrival would make it harder for Democratic candidates and their supporters to transverse the state’s largest city in the hours before the primary’s first votes are cast.

This is legal? And sweet Jesus but I’m tired of this president’s incessant bigotry rallies, which seem to alternate with his golfing weekends. When does he actually do the work we elect a president to do?