Where we are at

Alan Dershowitz is arguing that:

The procedural posture of Trump’s Senate impeachment trial as it ends is this: the Democrats asked for witnesses to help prove X, and the Republicans refused, on the explicit ground, put forth by Alan Dershowitz, that even if X were proven to be true, it could not — literally could not — be a valid basis for removing a president via the impeachment and conviction process.

This was, to put it in legal jargon, essentially a motion for summary judgment — that is, a procedure by which one party moves to end a proceeding on the grounds that, even if everything the accusing party is alleging is true, there still isn’t a valid legal basis for a judgment against the accused party, so therefore there’s no need for an actual trial.

What the Republicans agreed was true was this: That Donald Trump held up hundreds of millions of dollars of already appropriated aid to another country, because he was extorting that country’s leadership into announcing a fake investigation into the supposed corruption of the son of a political opponent. That’s what the Democrats alleged Donald Trump did, and that’s what Alan Dershowitz argued could not — again, not should not but could not, constitutionally — be a valid basis for removing a president.

Simpler translation:

And there isn’t a single Republican who recognizes the dangerous precedent this sets? To appeal to their naked self-interest, which is all they’ve got for a moral backbone, do they realize that they are greatly weakening the power and importance of the senate in order to strengthen the executive branch into a tyranny?

Puerto Rico leads the way!

The people of Puerto Rico have set up a guillotine in front of the governor’s mansion.

Excellent. Unfortunately, it’s only symbolic.

That would be a good message to send to the Republican in Washington DC, too.

Cry more, Cantwell

The neo-Nazi Chris Cantwell has been arrested again for making threats over state lines, which is rather interesting from a free speech point of view. They’re just words, right? First amendment! Free speech! Mere words can’t hurt people.

Then we see the words.

Cantwell allegedly pressured someone to give up what’s described in the indictment as “personal identifying information” about a man known by the “on-line pseudonym ‘VM.’”

“So if you don’t want me to come and f*ck your wife in front of your kids, then you should make yourself scarce,” Cantwell allegedly wrote in a June 16 message. “Give me Vic, it’s your only out.”

Last July, Cantwell allegedly used Telegram to threaten a lawyer suing him over his actions in Charlottesville, calling the woman anti-Semitic slurs and claiming that he and his followers “would have a lot of fucking fun with her.”

Well. That’s certainly repulsive, and marks Cantwell as a terrible and unpleasant person. We don’t arrest people for their personality.

However, it’s also an attempt to compel someone to do something against their will, or Cantwell will commit vile criminal acts. If I got a threat like that, I’d be asking the police to provide protection; I’d also have to spend money and time upgrading my home security.

It seems that words have power after all, and that “free speech” isn’t carte blanche to say whatever you want after all. Now if only the absolutists could figure that out.

More travel bans…WHY?

Our preznit has announced placing more travel bans on various countries. Why, I don’t know. What does this accomplish for us? I was just talking to an Ethiopian student who is concerned about our restrictive policies, and isn’t sure he can stay in the country. But we get the cream of the crop from other countries — people who enrich our culture, who contribute to our economy, who help build international ties…and Trump thinks this is bad?

In particular, he has announced new restrictions in travel from Nigeria, home of one of the largest, best educated, most prosperous populations on the continent. We have Nigerian students here, and they are an asset to our community. What possible reason could Trump have for punishing them?

Nigeria, the most high-profile country under consideration, has particularly come under focus from the White House. With Nigeria accounting for the third highest number of US visa overstays in 2018, the Trump administration has become tougher on Africa’s largest economy.

After indefinitely suspending its visa interview waiver for Nigerian applicants (the waiver allowed frequent travelers renew their visa without going through in-person interviews each time), the US also raised visa application fees for Nigerians by including additional “reciprocity fees” ranging from $80 to $303 depending on the class of visa. And even though the Nigerian government immediately slashed visa application fees for American applicants in a bid to get the US to reverse its price increase, the reciprocity fees remain in place. The clampdown measures have resulted in Nigeria recording the largest global drop-off in visitors to the US.

There is no reason. Our government is simply insane.

Watch the planet breathe

This is a dramatic video of arctic ice growing and shrinking.

It was presented at Davos, as if those rich assholes matter. We should spend less effort trying to persuade the wealthy to do the right thing, and more effort stripping the wealthy of their power. Let’s make the rich irrelevant!

Now I’m beginning to question my support for Elizabeth Warren

The New York Times editorial board has published their endorsement for the Democratic party nomination, and it’s two candidates, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. This makes no sense. We don’t get to vote for two candidates, but only one, and the problem with the Democrats right now is that they have a too-crowded field. The only way to interpret this is that the NYT wants people to split their vote in a winner-takes-all system and disrupt the process even more, effectively handing the election over to Trump.

Also, it’s clear in the write-up that they really hate and fear Bernie Sanders. Their two choices are Amy Klobuchar, because she’s as moderate as they come, and Elizabeth Warren. They promote Warren because they see all the excitement and good ideas are coming from the left, not the center, and so they are acknowledging Warren is the lesser of two evils (from their perspective) in the battle with Sanders, but they don’t want her to get too cocky or too successful either, so they balance her with a spoiler, Amy Klobuchar.

It’s a cowardly, divisive endorsement from a conservative newspaper, calculated to create more confusion than clarity. It is also effective at making me question my choices, because Warren has been my #1 preference so far, but jeez, if she has the endorsement of such a chickenshit establishment paper that hates Sanders, maybe I should join my wife in voting for Bernie in the Minnesota primary.

A few words from Martin Luther King Jr.

We have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights, an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We have been in a reform movement… But after Selma and the voting rights bill, we moved into a new era, which must be the era of revolution. We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.