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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Wednesday
Aug312022

September 1, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Biden will travel to Philadelphia on Thursday for a prime-time address in which he will accuse Republicans loyal to ... Donald J. Trump of embracing a form of extremism that is a direct threat to the United States.... A senior White House official said the president would state in direct language how 'MAGA Republicans' have put the nation's institutions at risk and undermined democratic values. The focus on threats to democracy is a return to the issue that Mr. Biden said drove him to run for the presidency, after white supremacists marched through Charlottesville, Va., in 2017."

Alan Feuer & Ken Bessinger of the New York Times: "The top lawyer for the Oath Keepers militia, who was with the group's leader outside the Capitol on Jan. 6., 2021, was charged on Thursday with conspiring to obstruct a joint session of Congress that day as lawmakers met to certify the results of the 2020 election. The lawyer, Kellye SoRelle, was the latest member of the right-wing extremist group to be indicted in connection with the Capitol attack. The indictment, handed up in Federal District Court in Washington, also accused Ms. SoRelle, 43, of tampering with evidence connected to the Justice Department's grand jury investigation of Jan. 6 and illegally entering and remaining in a restricted area of the Capitol grounds."

Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "Virginia 'Ginni' Thomas, the conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pressed lawmakers to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory not only in Arizona, as previously reported, but also in a second battleground state, Wisconsin, according to emails obtained under state public-records law.... The new emails show that Thomas also messaged two Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin: state Sen. Kathy Bernier, then chair of the Senate elections committee, and state Rep. Gary Tauchen. Bernier and Tauchen received the email ... on Nov. 9, virtually the same time the Arizona lawmakers received a verbatim copy of the message from Thomas.... Thomas sent all of the emails via FreeRoots, an online platform that allowed people to send pre-written emails to multiple elected officials."

Annie Karni of the New York Times: "The Senate's Republican campaign chief on Thursday appeared to escalate an ugly quarrel with ... Senator Mitch McConnell, in the latest sign of the G.O.P.'s eroding confidence about winning back the majority in November. Without naming Mr. McConnell, Senator Rick Scott of Florida ... lashed out in a blistering opinion piece in The Washington Examiner at Republicans he said were 'trash-talking' the party's candidates, an apparent reference to comments last month in which Mr. McConnell said that 'candidate quality' could harm the G.O.P.'s chances of retaking the Senate. Mr. Scott called such remarks 'treasonous' and said those who make them should 'pipe down.' 'Unfortunately, many of the very people responsible for losing the Senate last cycle are now trying to stop us from winning the majority this time by trash-talking our Republican candidates,' Mr. Scott wrote. 'It's an amazing act of cowardice, and ultimately, it's treasonous to the conservative cause.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie. Wait, wait! It's an act of treason to suggest that Herschel Walker or Dr. Oz is unqualified to join the Senate?? Well, hang me by my toes.

Sarah Mervosh of the New York Times: "National test results released on Thursday showed in stark terms the pandemic's devastating effects on American schoolchildren, with the performance of 9-year-olds in math and reading dropping to the levels from two decades ago. This year, for the first time since the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests began tracking student achievement in the 1970s, 9-year-olds lost ground in math, and scores in reading fell by the largest margin in more than 30 years. The declines spanned almost all races and income levels and were markedly worse for the lowest-performing students. While top performers in the 90th percentile showed a modest drop -- three points in math -- students in the bottom 10th percentile dropped by 12 points in math, four times the impact." CNN's report is here. MB: On the upside, parents, the kids are now as dumb as you are. Maybe your efforts to help them with their homework will now be useful.

Speaking of Dumb, Education Was Wasted on Tom Cotton. Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "After Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Sarah Palin in Alaska's special election Wednesday, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., discredited the voting system used by Alaska voters that they chose to implement in their state. Cotton tweeted that Alaska's new ranked-choice voting system 'is a scam to rig elections,' casting doubt on the outcome of the process to fill the seat of late GOP Rep. Don Young. '60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion -- which disenfranchises voters -- a Democrat "won,'" Cotton said in a separate tweet." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: See, Tom, in theory, ranked-choice voting should have favored Palin in this election. Both she & the third-place candidate Nick Begich are Republicans. Therefore, you would expect that Palin -- rather than a Democratic candidate -- would get most of Begich voters' second-choice votes. But she didn't. Palin lost because a majority of voters didn't want the former half-governor to win this election, not because there was something unfa-a-a-air about the system. Dimwit.

~~~~~~~~~~

** Uh, Wow! Nathaniel Herz of the Washington Post: "Democrat Mary Peltola has won a special election for the U.S. House in Alaska, defeating Republican Sarah Palin and becoming the first ever Alaska Native to win a seat in Congress as well as the first woman to clinch the state's at-large district. Peltola, who's Yup’ik,is a tribal fisheries manager and former state representative who led in initial counts after the Aug. 16 election. But her win wasn't assured until Wednesday, when Alaska officials made decisive second-choice counts using the state's new ranked choice voting system. Republican Nick Begich III, was eliminated, and his supporters' second choice votes were redistributed.... She will serve the remainder of a term left open by the sudden death of GOP Rep. Don Young in March. Young represented Alaska in Congress for 49 years." CNN's report is here.


Marie: For many hours I have been hearing experts on the teevee opine that Tuesday night's court filing by the Justice Department demonstrates that Donald Trump has no defense for his unlawful stealing & hoarding of presidential papers, including many, many classified documents. But I have found one. Remember that joke about the guy stealing wheelbarrows? Well, Trump wasn't stealing U.S. secrets or presidential papers that belong in the National Archives. He was stealing cardboard file transport boxes. And the U.S.A. is not going to arrest a former POTUS* for running off with a few cardboard boxes. Case closed. ~~~

     ~~~ Peterr at emptywheel offers another, much more creative response to Donald's Quandary. If your kids are having trouble understanding the Great White House Heist, Peterr's "That Bratt-I-Am, that Bratt-I-Am, I do not like that Bratt-I-Am" will help. Many thanks to RockyGirl for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: That rug! When I first saw the photo, I thought it must have been taken in the FBI's cheap motel. But I quickly learned the pic is a typical evidence photo that was taken at Mar-a-Lago. And I've since learned the rug is probably expensive ($80-$100/sq.ft.) wall-to-wall custom carpet "made out of a mixture of wool and silk, or a shiny cotton-based substitute." Thanks to a friend for the link to the tweet.

Trump Answer: Of Course I Stole, Hoarded & Hid Classified Docs. "They're Mine!" Marshall Cohen of CNN: "... Donald Trump argued in a court filing Wednesday that the National Archives should have expected to find classified material among the 15 boxes Trump turned over in January from Mar-a-Lago because they were presidential records. The filing acknowledged that classified material was found at Mar-a-Lago, but argued that it should not have been cause for alarm -- and should not have led to the search of Trump's Florida residence earlier this month. Trump's new filing on Wednesday is his platform to formally respond to prosecutors' assertions that members of his legal team engaged in 'obstructive conduct' by concealing documents at his Florida resort and by providing untrue information to investigators about how many classified documents remained on site.... Trump's lawyers argue that under the Presidential Records Act, the Archives should have followed up with a good faith effort to secure recovery of presidential records, rather than referring a criminal probe to the Justice Department." ~~~

     ~~~ Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump's legal team on Wednesday aggressively renewed its push for an independent arbiter to review documents the F.B.I. seized in its Aug. 8 search of his Florida residence, telling a federal judge that he had merely possessed 'his own presidential records.'... A hearing is scheduled for Thursday in Federal District Court in West Palm Beach.... The Presidential Records Act of 1978 ... makes clear that the government, not a president or former president, owns White House files generated during his time in office. (If Mr. Trump also had files generated by other agencies and departments, those have never been understood to be owned by presidents.) Mr. Trump's lawyers argued that the Presidential Records Act has no enforcement mechanism, suggesting that the government had no basis to seize the files..., brush[ing] aside the fact that a magistrate judge who issued the search warrant ... had done so not on the basis of the Presidential Records Act, but on other laws against concealing government records."

     ~~~ Here's the legal filing, via CNN.

Alan Feuer & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump may have thought that he was playing offense when he asked a federal judge last week for an independent review of documents seized from his residence in Florida -- a move that, at best, could delay but not derail an investigation into his handling of the records. But on Tuesday night, the Justice Department used a routine court filing in the matter to initiate a blistering counteroffensive that disclosed new evidence that Mr. Trump and his legal team may have interfered with the inquiry.... It was as if Mr. Trump, seeming not to fully grasp the potential hazards of his modest legal move, cracked open a door, allowing the Justice Department to push past him and seize the initiative....

"Covering [the] final page [of the DOJ's response to Mr. Trump's complaint] was ... an image of five yellow folders marked 'Top Secret,' and a red one labeled 'Secret,' lying on the ground beside a box of magazine covers. The image, which seemed to be a standard evidence photo, was the sort of thing the government collects all the time for use at possible trials. But ... on Wednesday ... Mr. Trump attacked the image. 'Terrible the way the FBI, during the Raid on Mar-a-Lago, threw documents haphazardly all over the floor,' he wrote on his social media platform. He went to say...: '(Perhaps pretending it was me that did it!)'"

Perry Stein, et al., of the Washington Post: "Newly public details from the Justice Department's criminal probe of documents taken to Mar-a-Lago suggest enormous legal peril for two of Donald Trump's attorneys -- and considerable uncertainty for Trump himself, intelligence and legal experts said.... The evidence laid out in the filing, experts said, could build a legal case that Trump attorneys Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb obstructed the government's investigation.... The [DOJ's] filing states that when officials visited Mar-a-Lago in June, Trump's lawyers did not let them search boxes in a storage room where the documents had been kept. Trump's custodian of records, who was not identified by name in the filing but previous reporting has shown is Bobb, signed a sworn statement in June pledging to officials that a'diligent search' for classified materials had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago. Corcoran allegedly told investigators at that time that all classified documents had been returned.... Three people close to Trump ... said Bobb is no longer expected to play a role in Trump's legal defense.... Left unanswered were key questions that could determine Trump's legal fate: Did he direct Corcoran and Bobb to mislead the government, either before or after the FBI raid of his Florida home and club? And, if so, why did he want to keep reams of top-secret classified documents there?" ~~~

     ~~~ Charlie Savage & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Two lawyers for ... Donald J. Trump [-- Evan Corcoran & Christina Bobb --] are likely to become witnesses or targets in the investigation into how he hoarded documents marked as classified at his Florida estate -- and secretly held onto some even after they claimed all sensitive materials had been returned, legal specialists said.... In its filing late Tuesday, the Justice Department noted that ... '... the former president's counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room....'... [Trump's initial] complaint also claims that after [the DOJ's Jay] Bratt asked to inspect the storage room, investigators were escorted there, and once their inspection was completed, an F.B.I. agent said: 'Thank you. You did not need to show us the storage room, but we appreciate it. Now it all makes sense.'... The prospect that investigators may seek to obtain information from Mr. Corcoran, Ms. Bobb or both would almost certainly meet strenuous resistance from them and from Mr. Trump."

This Does Not Look Too Good. Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Just six days before the Justice Department subpoenaed to recover highly sensitive documents housed at Mar-a-Lago, one of ... Donald Trump's attorneys scoured the estate searching for records in response to a separate legal matter. The attorney, Alina Habba, told a New York State court that on May 5, she conducted a search of Trump's private residence and office at Mar-a-Lago that was so 'diligent' it included 'all desks, drawers, nightstands, dressers, closets, etc.' She was looking for records in response to a subpoena issued by New York Attorney General Letitia James.... The same filing also includes an affidavit from Trump himself, indicating that he 'authorized Alina Habba to search my private residence and personal office located at The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida for any and all documents responsive to the Subpoena.' Habba indicated she conducted similar searches at Trump's residences and office at his Bedminster estate. The filing submitted to the New York AG's office raises key questions in relation to ... whether Habba ended up handling any of the documents that DOJ later discovered at Trump's club; and, if so, whether she has the clearance to have done so..... After [the] subpoena [in the presidential papers case] was issued, Trump indicated that he responded by ordering staff to conduct a thorough search of the property for documents marked as classified. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Looks as if Habba is about to become another Trump lawyer who finds out the true meaning of MAGA: "Make Attorneys Get Attorneys."

When Fox's Steve Doocy Is the Voice of Reason. Colby Hall of Mediaite: "Steve Doocy asked the question that most reasonable people have following a midnight DOJ filing that revealed stunning details surrounding the search and seizure at Mar-a-Lago.... 'Keep in mind, according to the filing, the agents found three classified documents in Donald Trump's [desk],' Doocy noted with a level of shock. 'What were they doing in the desk?!' [Referring to the photo of classified documents that accompanied the DOJ's filing, Doocy said,] 'And when you look at these particular things right here, at least five yellow folders marked top secret and another secret SCI -- that stands for sensitive compartmentalized information -- these are the biggest secrets in the world!.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "One does not need ... a therapist's license to conclude that defeated former president Donald Trump's nutty rant insisting that he be made president immediately or the 2020 election be rerun is the sign of an unhinged personality. Under pressure from the increasingly potent espionage investigation, he might be losing his grip. For a change, you don't hear Republicans rushing forth to support his latest insane demand. Trump's posting of QAnon messages and implicit threats (in increasingly unintelligible syntax) suggests that he is losing the ability or desire to control his impulsive outbursts. This is the guy whom millions of Republicans want to nominate for president.... Just how [Republican politicians] expect to rid themselves of someone like Trump is unclear."

Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "John Eastman, the lawyer who developed strategies to block certification of the 2020 election, is 'probably a target' in the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Donald J. Trump's election loss in Georgia, one of Mr. Eastman's lawyers said on Wednesday. Mr. Eastman spent the morning appearing before an Atlanta special grand jury looking into the matter. The assertion that Mr. Eastman could face indictment in the Georgia case came from Harvey Silverglate, a well-known Boston-area criminal defense lawyer and civil liberties advocate who is representing Mr. Eastman. In a statement, Mr. Silverglate and another of Mr. Eastman's lawyers, Charles Burnham, said they advised Mr. Eastman 'to assert attorney client privilege and the constitutional right to remain silent where appropriate' in Wednesday's grand jury appearance. Mr. Silverglate said that his client had not been identified as a target by Fulton County prosecutors in Atlanta...." An NBC News story is here.

Here's the White House's transcript, as delivered, of President Biden's speech in Pennyslvania Tuesday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Noah Weiland & Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized the first redesign of coronavirus vaccines since they were rolled out in late 2020, setting up millions of Americans to receive new booster doses targeting Omicron subvariants as soon as next week. The agency cleared two options aimed at the BA.5 variant of Omicron that is now dominant: one made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech for use in people as young as 12, and the other by Moderna, for those 18 and older." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "A bronze plaque commemorating the Ku Klux Klan should be removed from the science centre at West Point, a congressional commission said, even though it falls outside the panel's remit because the racist terror group was formed after the American civil war.... The eight-member panel is tasked with recommending which US military assets should be renamed, to remove associations with Confederates who fought to maintain slavery." MB: The commission originally said it could not recommend removal of the plaque because memorials to post-Civil War organizations were outside its authority.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida Gubernatorial Race. Matt Dixon of the Tampa Bay Times: "Rep. Charlie Crist is resigning from Congress to focus on his bid for Florida governor, a move that was expected after his huge primary victory over Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. The seat will remain vacant until the November election." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) MB: Turns out Democrats aren't down by a single member inasmuch as Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola will replace a Republican.

Michigan. Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "A state board in Michigan refused on Wednesday to place an abortion rights referendum on the November ballot because of a dispute over word spacing on the petition, an embarrassing blow to abortion rights supporters who had gathered more than 750,000 signatures. The decision, which came when the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked along party lines, could still be overturned by the courts. But it injected further uncertainty into the fate of abortion in Michigan, a swing state where enforcement of a pre-Roe v. Wade abortion ban has been temporarily blocked by a judge and where many closely watched races are on this year's ballot.... Reproductive Freedom for All, a group supporting the amendment, accused the canvassers of disenfranchising voters and vowed to challenge the decision in court. The two Republicans on the board voted against placing the issue on the ballot, while the two Democratic canvassers supported presenting the question to voters." The AP's report is here.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Thursday are here: "An International Atomic Energy Agency team is facing delays of up to three hours, held up by Ukrainian forces, on its way to inspect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a spokesperson for the agency told The Washington Post. IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi has 'personally negotiated' with Ukrainian authorities to be able to proceed and remains 'determined' that his mission will reach the plant Thursday.... The IAEA team is aware of 'increased military activity' in the area near the plant, Grossi said Thursday before heading to the site from the city of Zaporizhzhia.... 'The Russians are shelling the pre-agreed route of the IAEA mission,' Ukraine's regional governor for Zaporizhzhia, Oleksandr Starukh, said Thursday on Telegram.... The number of Ukrainian refugees who have left the country has hit 7 million, according to the United Nations.... Moscow and its separatist allies in Ukraine have forcibly transferred hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to Russia since the start of the war, according to U.S. officials and human rights investigators. Many are sent through a vast and punitive 'filtration' system that includes detentions, interrogations and mass data collection, reports Claire Parker."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (13)

With apologies to Dr. Theodor Geisel:

https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/08/31/that-bratt-i-am-that-bratt-i-am-i-do-not-like-that-bratt-i-am/

August 31, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterRockyGirl

IlinkedthroughtotheMichiganabortionpetitionraw materialsandconcludethatassholesisonewordnottwo.

September 1, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

Now that columnists like Rubin and Milbank are writing regularly about the Pretender's mental health and concluding, as we here have, that the man is nuts. it's only a short step to concluding that anyone who supports him is likely equally so.

The diagnoses might differ, but the conclusion is the same: these folks are certifiable.

Let's consider:

A sick attachment to money.

Inferiority complexes of various sorts

An array of phobias

(One obvious "cure" for the above their unhealthy attachment to guns)

Racism (that might verge on phobia and might call for an arsenal)

Outright delusion (the Pretender won; climate change is a hoax; there was no Russian collusion; a long list growing longer where everything you don't like is a "hoax" or deliberate directed at paranoid little you...)

So great a sense of loneliness and so weak a sense of self and agency, they rush to join to a cult that provides a sense of belonging, confirms their delusions, and provides a sense of shared power.

I'll give the R's one thing: Since there are millions of them whose behavior qualifies them as nuts, chances are they may be right when they ascribe gun violence to mental sickness.

There is a lot of it going around.

September 1, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

FIRED FOR FOMENTING:


"Bandy Lee MED ’94 DIV ’95, a formerly Yale-affiliated faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry in School of Medicine, filed a complaint against the University on Monday alleging “unlawful termination… due to her exercise of free speech about the dangers of Donald Trump’s presidency.”

University spokesperson Karen Peart declined to comment on the specifics of the case. Yale was the only named defendant.

Lee’s complaint alleges that Yale fired her in response to a January 2020 tweet that characterized “just about all” of former president Donald Trump’s supporters as suffering from “shared psychosis” and said that Alan Dershowitz, a lawyer on Trump’s legal team, had “wholly taken on Trump’s symptoms by contagion.” Dershowitz responded to the tweet with a letter to Yale administrators, in which he complained that Lee’s tweet constituted “a serious violation of the ethics rules of the American Psychiatric Association” and requested that she be disciplined. "

"The legal action listed five causes, including breach of contract, breach of good faith and wrongful termination."

I will give the link to this story below. Would be interested in getting your take on this. Another example of Trump's influence infecting not only our elementary schools but universities.

September 1, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterP.D. Pepe

P.D.

What a coincidence.

Seems the same contagion (or should we call it a an unhappy convergence of the mentally ill?) was on both our minds.

Think there might be something to the communicability of mental illness (the Pretender as a Super Spreader?) , but suspect much of it was already prevalent.

Fortunately, being an unemployed societal parasite, I can't be fired from a job I don't have...

September 1, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

@Patrick. Thanksfortheinfo.Ithoughtso.

@Societal Parasite: Anyone who has spent decades as an educator has earned the right to goof off in his golden years.

September 1, 2022 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Also one word: Asshat--one who has their head up their ass, thus
wearing their ass as a hat.

Also one word: Asswipe--an annoying person who is a jerk and only
cares about themselves.

Also one word: Assclown--someone who doesn't know what they're
talking about, makes stupid BS comments.

My computer says those aren't real words so don't know if they'll go.

September 1, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterForrest Morris

Tom Cotton IS an idiot, either that or, just like every other MAGA douchebag, he needs to attack any election a Republican loses as rigged and unfair.

When I first read about Alaska’s new voting system, my first thought was “Geez. Another red state adopts a can’t miss electoral process that favors R candidates”. Think about it: why would any red state, in the current anti-democracy, MAGA climate EVER choose a system that gave Democrats even a fighting chance? It ain’t happenin’. Palin lost because she sucked as a (half term) governor, she sucked as a VP candidate, she sucked as a representative of Alaska in general, and she sucked this time around too.

But we’re going to hear this sad refrain ad infinitum during this election season. Any Republican candidate who loses could only have been beaten by fraud and electoral shenanigans. This is Trump 101.

September 1, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

Since education or its lack is in the news, foolishly clicked on a Times Op-Ed and even more foolishly read most of it.

These guys really piss me off:


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/opinion/us-school-knowledge.html

My comment:


Though I don't know him and have to leave room for a possible attempt at failed humor here, judging my his logic I'd suspect that anyone who believes so little in what he does is himself a very poor teacher.

Not surprising really, considering he is a member of the faculty at the Koch's George Mason school of economics, where they teach mostly nonsense.

Much to disagree with here, but I'll limit my dungeon to only two points.

First, the author reveals himself by suggesting that the only real education is one directed at getting and keeping a job. That's plain silly, but a typical remark by someone who detests the liberal arts, often because well-taught, a liberal education promotes perspective and critical thinking, both anathema to the Right.

Second, the truism that those who don't use it lose it applies here.

People forget what they don't use, in the case of education, what they don't continue to reflect on and apply, and those who don't continue to reflect, think and learn demonstrably include a large portion of the populace.

The numbers the author waves at would support that contention, and I would hazard a guess which portion of the population that would be--and likely who they voted for in the last two Presidential elections.

September 1, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterKen Winkes

You would think that Rank Choice in Alaska would return a Republican, it is a pretty conservative state.

But it is also one of those states where people know each other, and have a lot of time (winter) to think about who's who.

So although I have not done the math, and could be wrong, it seems to me that anyone who did NOT rank Palin #1 would either rank no one as #2, or someone "not Palin" as #2. Because if you don't like her enough to vote for her, you actively don't want her representing you. This is because people in Alaska really know who she is, for good or ill. And it appears mostly ill.

September 1, 2022 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick

@Patrick: Right you are. Peltola won because some Republicans didn't want Palin representing them. Those Republicans picked Besich, but they were not about to make Palin their second choice.

September 1, 2022 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Do Rs think that ranked-choice voting is just Wordle for politics?

September 1, 2022 | Unregistered Commenterunwashed
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