Recall how climate change skeptics use the tactic of picking a year when the average global temperatures were unusually high as their starting point and then arguing that the relative flatness of temperatures for some years after that year ‘showed’ that global warming is a myth. Kevin Drum says that Donald Trump may be using that same tactic when it comes to his claims about the effectiveness of a wall in reducing crime, when he uses the border town of El Paso as an example. In his State of the Union speech, Trump said, “The border city of El Paso, Texas, used to have extremely high rates of violent crime — one of the highest in the country, and considered one of our Nation’s most dangerous cities. Now, with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of our safest cities.”

Of course, as with almost everything Trump says, that is a lie.
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No, this is not the usual story that one might have expected to read. Instead it is a story told by a woman that illustrates a point that I made before, that once people support a public figure, they are reluctant to admit that they made a mistake because it reflects poorly on their judgment, so they stick with them, treating them as one might treat allegiance to a sports team. This is a special case of a more general phenomenon where once people believe something because it seems plausible, then it is very hard to change their minds later with new evidence, because they can rationalize the new evidence away to justify their initial belief. This is why governments rush to give their versions of events (always favorable to themselves) whenever something happens because they know that later evidence that contradicts it and shows that they were lying has a good chance of being ignored.
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I of course think it is and so, I would guess, would many of this blog’s readers but it seems that Howard Schultz is sensitive to it too and prefers the term ‘people of means’ and ‘people of wealth’. Here he is responding to a question from Anand Giridharadas, author of the book Winners Take All about whether billionaires have too much power over the political process.

Howard Schultz says billionaires should be referred to as “people of means” or “people of wealth.” pic.twitter.com/I3apM0h7aa

— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) February 5, 2019

Well, too bad, Howard. ‘Billionaire’ is probably the least pejorative label that is going to be used on you. Trust me, there are a whole lot worse that can and will be used as you continue your vanity project.

He also says that what he is trying to do is “walk in the shoes of the American people”. Does everyone wear Gucci and Prada shoes now?

… because some of them are asking that Donald Trump be brought in to salvage Theresa May’s floundering efforts and twist the arms of the Irish over the intractable border issue.

Conservative MPs, who oppose the prime minister’s European Union exit deal, want her to approach the US president and request that he lobby the Irish government to give ground in negotiations, Sky News reported on Tuesday.
…

But senior EU figures have resisted calls to reopen negotiations, in part because of opposition from the Irish government to altering the backstop.
…

The demand comes amid concerns that the new US Congress would side with Dublin against any changes that would put at risk the Good Friday Agreement, which was negotiated between the UK and Ireland with the help of the US.

That way lies madness. There is no situation so bad that Donald Trump’s intervention would not make worse.

Venezuela is a good example of how the US political-media-business communities unite to overthrow governments that it dislikes, especially when it comes to South America. The Trump administration seems to be laying the groundwork for overt military intervention in Venezuela to complement the US’s long-standing covert efforts at destabilizing that country and supporting coups, actions that were also done by the Obama administration. Readers may recall the coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002 that the US government and the media (with the New York Times being among the worst culprits) and political establishments in the US quickly endorsed, only to find Chavez regaining power. The media quickly assigned that disgraceful episode to the memory hole and it is rarely brought up again, though recent events in that country would surely justify doing so.
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