Why Ocasio-Cortez scares the political establishment

People newly elected to the House of Representatives are usually considered political nonentities. Nobody outside their districts pays any attention to them, they get put on minor committees that deal with issues on the fringes, and have to slowly work their way up the seniority ranks before they are taken seriously. So the prominence of the new batch of Democratic congresspersons, especially the women, is something different. And of these, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the standout.
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Searching for the McConnell

During the shutdown crisis, the usually noisy creature known as the McConnell has suddenly disappeared into the undergrowth. Stephen Colbert finds nature documentary footage of the behavior of this animal when threatened, which explains the lack of recent sightings in the wild.

Why are the Flat Earthers taking such a big risk?

There is a report that the Flat Earth International Conference is organizing a big sea cruise for its members. But they seem to have overlooked one important detail.

“Ships navigate based on the principle that the Earth is round,” said Henk Keijer, a former cruise ship captain who sailed all over the globe during a 23-year career.

“Nautical charts are designed with that in mind: that the Earth is round.”

Keijer, who now works as a forensic marine expert for Robson Forensic, said the existence of GPS, the global positioning system, alone is proof that the Earth is a sphere, not a flat disc. GPS relies on 24 main satellites which orbit the Earth to provide positional and navigational information.

“The reason why 24 satellites were used is because on the curvature of the Earth,” Keijer said.

“A minimum of three satellites are required to determine a position. But someone located on the other side of the Earth would also like to know their position, so they also require a certain number of satellites.

“Had the Earth been flat, a total of three satellites would have been enough to provide this information to everyone on Earth. But it is not enough, because the Earth is round.”

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The realignment on war policies

Glenn Greenwald writes that now that Donald Trump is president, Democratic party members have become more likely than Republicans to want to continue the many wars that the US is in, and the reactions to Trump’s call to withdraw troops from Syria illustrates this.

Both GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the country’s most reliable war supporters, and Hillary Clinton, who repeatedly criticized former President Barack Obama for insufficient hawkishness, condemned Trump’s decision in very similar terms, invoking standard war on terror jargon.

But while official Washington united in opposition, new polling data from Morning Consult/Politico shows that a large plurality of Americans support Trump’s Syria withdrawal announcement: 49 percent support to 33 percent opposition.

That’s not surprising given that Americans by a similarly large plurality agree with the proposition that “the U.S. has been engaged in too many military conflicts in places such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan for too long and should prioritize getting Americans out of harm’s way” far more than they agree with the pro-war view that “the U.S. needs to keep troops in places such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan to help support our allies fight terrorism and maintain our foreign policy interests in the region.”

But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents overwhelming favor their removal. The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent.
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The danger posed by extreme minority rule

The November 2018 issue of Harper’s Magazine magazine has an article by Jonathan Taplin with the rather alarming title of REBIRTH OF A NATION: Can states’ rights save us from a second civil war? (possibly behind a paywall). The fundamental problem that he points out is that the US constitution has insufficient elasticity to accommodate the changes that have taken place since it was first written. Many of its features were included as part of compromises to gain acceptance from each of the 13 original states and one that he points out is the provision that gives each state two senators irrespective of its size. As a result, small states have disproportionately greater representation and power in the senate. Currently twenty-six states with 18 percent of the population elect a majority of the senate’s 100 seats, while nine states with an absolute majority of the population elect just eighteen senators.
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“We’re #1” – Not

Some time ago, comedian Jim Jeffries delivered a sobering corrective message about the boast about America being the greatest country in the world that every American politician repeats incessantly and which many others repeat, and to which the rest of the world responds with snickers. At the end, he provides a new patriotic song that can be sung at all sporting events that represents a more accurate picture. This message is needed even more now as the country goes through this ridiculous shut down over a stupid wall that makes it the laughing stock of the world.

Clarification on the Brexit situation

Thanks to all who commented on my earlier post expressing my bafflement as to where things stand with respect to Brexit. It was helpful in clarifying the situation somewhat. Via commenter Jeff, I read this article that explains what is at stake and it is worth reading. The article is by Tim Russo who described himself as “an American Clintonista who worked on all three of Tony Blair’s Labour victories” but discovered his own “radical lefty zeal of the recently converted during Corbyn’s rise”.
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Maybe this could end the government shutdown

It appears that due to the government shut down the US government is delinquent on its water bill if $5 million to the Washington DC water authority, which has raised the question of what should be done about it

The government is the largest water customer in the city, and because of the ongoing federal shutdown, its water bill is past due. The large unpaid bill left DC Water officials wondering what their options are, and whether turning off water to the White House is among them.

“We received an email Wednesday, January 2, from an individual at the bureau of fiscal services at the treasury,” said Matthew Brown, chief financial officer at DC Water, speaking during the water authority’s first board meeting of the year. He went on to read from the email: the federal government would not be paying $5 million of its $16.5 million quarterly water bill.

“That brings up an interesting question,” responded DC Water board chairman Tommy Wells. “Is there a time from nonpayment when we cut someone’s water off?”

“1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, is that what you’re talking about?” asked another board member, to laughter.
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