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Open thread 4/13/22 — 47 Comments

  1. Iowa birds may not be noted for their gorgeous plumage, but one of them let fly at JoJo yesterday: “Not even the birds approved of President Biden in Iowa on Tuesday — as a winged spectator defecated on the beleaguered commander-in-chief as he gave a speech inside a barn. Biden’s blue suit took a direct hit as he began a 25-minute address in which he blamed the US’ 8.5% annual inflation rate on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine rather than his own actions . . . . After he finished his remarks, Biden mingled with a couple dozen guests at the facility, none of whom notified him of the unsightly addition to his attire.”

    Photos of Brandon’s new lapel decoration at the link: https://nypost.com/2022/04/12/bird-poops-on-biden-as-he-claims-us-is-in-dumps-due-to-putin/

  2. Ha! Maggie Hassan(D) just came out in favor of completing the Trump wall on our southern border.

    In Biden’s speech yesterday he said something to the effect that, sure 8% inflation isn’t good, but it is nowhere near the 15% inflation we had in the early 80’s. Keven Hassett was on Fox Biz, and said that 8% number is a year/year number. If you look at the data for the latest month and then annualize it, you get a 14% inflation number.

    It’s also true that one month long numbers will be relatively noisy and possibly have seasonal variations.

  3. What beautiful birds and according to PA+Cat’s comment, politically astute as well.

  4. Interesting FB exchange last night with the usual liberal Ds. Again, as far as I can tell these are not raving leftists, just run-of-the-mill liberal Ds. This time decrying the Constitution and how the make up of Congress is so wrong: the Senate should be abolished as it gives equal weight to Wyoming vs California or NY…never mind that’s the intent. And, in the House, reps should be strictly on population eliminating the 3 rep minimum. Again, they hate the fact that small population states get a say. The parties seem very appropriately named, The Ds want a pure democracy with all the evils that go along with that.

  5. The parties seem very appropriately named, The Ds want a pure democracy with all the evils that go along with that.

    No, they want impediments to their agenda removed. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the appellate courts, the Senate, the House, the Presidency, or the state legislaturees. They haven’t the slightest interest in procedural democracy.

    NB, there is no ‘three rep minimum’. The minimum is two senators, one representative. Their complaint about the Senate presumes that small population states favor the Republicans and large population states Democrats. The small population states include Hawaii, New Mexico, Delaware, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, the large ones include Texas and Florida, and they’ve had control of the Senate nearly half the time since 1994. Nothing gets in the way of their sense of grievance.

  6. physicsguy,

    I used to call that push-button democracy. I have no doubt that the Democrat base wants that. The problem is that the Dem leadership has no interest in any kind on democracy. They are interested in machine politics of the Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall variety. They will talk democracy all day long, and then subvert it and the Constitution behind closed doors.

    To some extent that may be a continuation of the Woodrow Wilson notion that only elites and technocrats are smart enough to hold the reins of power.

  7. In Biden’s speech yesterday he said something to the effect that, sure 8% inflation isn’t good, but it is nowhere near the 15% inflation we had in the early 80’s.

    The highest year-over-year changes in the Consumer Price Index on record were recorded during the 1st World War and the wind-down therefrom and during the wind-down after the 2d World War, when price controls had been removed. From the end of 1947 to the present, the highest year-over-year inflation rates were recorded during the terminal phase of the Carter Administration (November 1979 to January 1981), with readings which varied between 12.6% and 14.8%. Ronald Reagan assured Paul Volcker in early 1981 that the Federal Reserve had the President’s full support in an effort to restabilize prices. Volcker brought the year-over-year rate down to 8.4% by January 1982 and down to 3.7% by January 1983. NB, Volcker wasn’t implicated in the catastrophe that was monetary policy from 1966 to 1981. Jerome Powell and his board own this situation.

  8. I used to call that push-button democracy. I have no doubt that the Democrat base wants that.

    No, they don’t want that. They want institutions of state to give them what they want, and they do not care about procedures. Court decrees, statutory legislation, competitive elections, referenda. They are all legitimate if they give the left what it wants and all illegitimate if they thwart what the left wants. If the procedures are demonstrably irregular, they just lie to themselves and others.

  9. To some extent that may be a continuation of the Woodrow Wilson notion that only elites and technocrats are smart enough to hold the reins of power.

    Where did Wilson ever say that?

  10. The “real” rate is likely closer to about 12-15%…and it’ll probably rise.

    What percent salary hike did members of Congress vote themselves just recently?

    That should be a pretty good indication.
    (Since why should THEY have to suffer from inflation…)

  11. The “real” rate is likely closer to about 12-15%…and it’ll probably rise.

    Well, why not call up the Bureau of Labor Statistics and tell them they need your counsel because they don’t know how to do their jobs.

  12. From Real Clear Politics:

    For example, in a 1912 essay, “The New Meaning of Government,” then-governor of New Jersey and soon-to-be president of the United States Woodrow Wilson worked out some implications of the progressive convictions that he had been articulating for decades both as a political scientist and president of Princeton University. Government, he argued, should be “an instrument of civilization and of humanity” managed by a new professional class of highly trained and scientifically adept technocrats. By virtue of their education and impartiality, they would rise above the mere “consent of the governed” in which the nation’s founders grounded the legitimate exercise of political power. They would discern “genuine public opinion” — that is, not the preferences people expressed through voting and the choices they made in all the other areas of their lives but the policies that the experts determined would promote the people’s better selves and best interests. Through efficient, rational, central administration, the experts would implement public policy that was unlimited by any consideration — including citizens’ expressed preferences — other than the experts’ authoritative reconstruction of “the purpose of the people of the country.”

    I imagine that Boss Tweed and his pals had no interest in any of that. But I wouldn’t be surprised if a number people in the Democrat leadership think that they just want the machinery of Tammany Hall politics, but with brilliant and responsible technocrats running it. And not aware that if that came to pass, those people would be pushed out eventually.

  13. I hear you. I cannot help but notice that that’s not what Wilson said. That’s Peter Berkowitz’ gloss on what Wilson said.

  14. They want institutions of state to give them what they want, and they do not care about procedures. Court decrees, …

    You might be right about that, but one could argue (weasel word alert) that they need avenues like court decrees because they don’t have push-button democracy.

  15. but one could argue (weasel word alert) that they need avenues like court decrees because they don’t have push-button democracy.

    One could argue, just not with a straight face. As late as 2008, California passed a voter initiative limiting marriage to one man and one woman. That’s the sort of push-button democracy they don’t like.

  16. So far it seems like the subway shooter is some sort of mentally deranged black supremacist. He seems very similar to the Christmas parade killer last November. Since this runs counter to their preferred narrative, it’s a safe assumption that the media won’t dwell on this story.

  17. Your video reminds me of the original Parrot Jungle of long ago in Coral Gables FL. There were huge flocks of parrots and other colorful birds that flew freely around the park and the neighborhood. Come 4 pm the air would be full of birds returning for feeding time. You could spend hours looking at all the different colorful birds they had. My wife and kids especially loved the little theater where the parrots did tricks, like rollerskating on a high wire.

  18. The Truth is, indeed, “Out There,” and getting closer and closer to us “humans” every day.

    Some four years ago, after the appearance of New York Times 2017 front page stories about the Navy’s encounters with UFOs, and the revelation of the existence of the DIA’s AATIP (Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification) Program studying UFOs, Britain’s “Sun” newspaper sent a Freedom Of Information Act request to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency on December 18, 2017, requesting documents regarding UFOs which might have been generated by the DIA’s newly revealed AATIP Program.

    Last week–four years later–the Sun ran a front page story summarizing some of the contents of the 1,500 documents it finally received. *

    Along with the apparently obligatory mention of the more “woo woo” material referencing sightings of elves, spontaneous human combustion, and “unaccounted for pregnancies” listed in Appendix C—this was the Sun, after all–one particular Report titled, “Anomalous Acute and Subacute Field Effects on Human Biological Tissue” linked to below, was highlighted in that Sun article. **

    Looking at this title, you might note that it did not mention what might have generated these “Field Effects,” and reading through the body of this 35 page Report you will see that it’s author would not use the acronyms UFO or UAP, (which are used once in the Table of Contents to refer to material from MUFON (the volunteer civilian Mutual UFO Network), and in the titles of the MUFON and some of the other documents cited in the footnotes) but got around this by repeatedly referring to whatever was putting out these Field Effects causing “deleterious effects from exposure at close ranges” as a “perceived anomalous aircraft of apparent advanced design” (see p. 2 of the Report).

    In general this report is saying that the wide range of injuries sustained by those who have had close encounters with UFOs are the same types of injuries that people who have had accidental exposures to various human-generated frequencies of Electromagnetic Radiation have had, and that there is extensive medical and other literature describing these effects—often down to the cellular and DNA level–that those who have had close encounters with UFOs have also described and suffered.

    What I find interesting is the odd terminology, the fact that this Report is written from the perspective of what effects have happened to us “humans.”

    Thus, this is a serious analytical Report, one backed up by and giving specific cites to a deep and wide range of medical and other research literature.

    https://www.the-sun.com/news/5053647/ufos-injuries-radiation-burns-pentagon-docs/

    ** See https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/advanced-aviation-threat-identification-program-46849/ for the text of this particular report, plus a lot of other relevant and interesting DIA AATIP research reports.

  19. Art Deco at 1:39 pm,

    So true. I know someone who was livid over that CA Proposition. Especially because the black vote helped pass it.

    But the situation in Maine went the way it did in CA, only to be reversed to allow gay marriage via referendum some years later. See this. Democracy to the rescue.

    You see they just didn’t market it properly in CA. If I recall correctly (and I may not), there was a massive one-sided door-to-door canvassing campaign conducted in Maine prior to the 2012 vote.

  20. Where did Wilson say that?

    No mystery. Here, for example:
    _______________________________

    What is liberty?

    I have long had an image in my mind of what constitutes liberty. Suppose that I were building a great piece of powerful machinery, and suppose that I should so awkwardly and unskilfully assemble the parts of it that every time one part tried to move it would be interfered with by the others, and the whole thing would buckle up and be checked. Liberty for the several parts would consist in the best possible assembling and adjustment of them all, would it not? If you want the great piston of the engine to run with absolute freedom, give it absolutely perfect alignment and adjustment with the other parts of the machine, so that it is free, not because it is let alone or isolated, but because it has been associated most skilfully and carefully with the other parts of the great structure.

    What it liberty? You say of the locomotive that it runs free. What do you mean? You mean that its parts are so assembled and adjusted that friction is reduced to a minimum, and that it has perfect adjustment. We say of a boat skimming the water with light foot, “How free she runs,” when we mean, how perfectly she is adjusted to the force of the wind, how perfectly she obeys the great breath out of the heavens that fills her sails. Throw her head up into the wind and see how she will halt and stagger, how every sheet will shiver and her whole frame be shaken, how instantly she is “in irons,” in the expressive phrase of the sea. She is free only when you have let her fall off again and have recovered once more her nice adjustment to the forces she must obey and cannot defy.

    Human freedom consists in perfect adjustments of human interests and human activities and human energies.

    –Woodrow Wilson, “The New Freedom”
    _______________________________

    What Wilson says about Liberty sounds grand until one realizes that it reduces human beings to mechanical parts in a machine.

    And that vast intelligence in charge of designing, building and guiding the machinery? Wilson … and people like him, of course.

  21. “To some extent that may be a continuation of the Woodrow Wilson notion that only elites and technocrats are smart enough to hold the reins of power.” TommyJay

    “Where did Wilson ever say that?” Art Deco

    That exchange brought this quote to mind:

    “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.” Woodrow Wilson, address to the New York City High School Teacher Association on January 9, 1909

  22. “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”

    That’s pretty much common sense. You’re not going to make intellectual hobbyists out of aught but an odd minority. I’d qualify it to say people need the basics of literacy, numeracy, and civic knowledge and that in this day and age industry matters less, services more.

  23. What Wilson says about Liberty sounds grand until one realizes that it reduces human beings to mechanical parts in a machine.

    It was a metaphor.

  24. It was a metaphor.

    A very scary metaphor. Nice one huxley.
    ______

    I saw both of these articles below today and they caught my interest. The gist of them is that Democrats always pass the buck. When things go badly, someone else is always to blame. It’s very obvious to us here. But apparently not obvious enough to penetrate through to the average voter. Or maybe it is only the large minority of below average LIVs (low intelligence information voters) that fail to see it.

    My point other than highlighting the articles is: It beggars belief. How is this possible? That the buck passing goes on and on and on.

    https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2022/04/13/move-over-vlad-buck-passing-biden-wh-now-blames-gov-abbott-for-raging-inflation-n549782

    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/04/13/guess-who-democrats-will-blame-their-midterm-election-losses-on-n1589308

    From PJMedia:

    Some people own up to it, recognize their error, and improve,” [Jesse] Watters continued. “Others make excuses. Show up to work late? There was traffic. Miss a pop fly? The sun was in my eyes. Forget to do your homework? Of course, the dog ate it.”

    Watters concluded, “If you have been around long enough, you probably have a pretty good B.S. detector and [can] tell when someone is making excuses.”

    No rocket science from Jesse Watters. I’m guessing that in many instances, even the lamest of excuses is sufficient to avoid squarely facing the cognitive dissonance.

  25. David Bowie, Bee Gees fan.

    Very cool Neo.

    The Jean Genie loves chimney stacks
    (The Jean Genie) he’s outrageous, he screams and he bawls
    The Jean Genie, let yourself go, oh

  26. A very scary metaphor. Nice one huxley.

    TommyJay:

    Thanks!

    Pope Deco dismissed your point and mine all too easily, though typically.
    ______________________________________

    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever

    George Orwell, “1984”
    ______________________________________

    Another metaphor.

    As Deco points out, I’m sure we have no reason to read into it. I’m sure Orwell didn’t mean anything evil and power-mad by putting those words into O’Brien’s mouth.

  27. Off topic, no birds, or metaphors:

    Wednesday, April 13, 2022
    Finland and Sweden: Reinforcing NATO Northern Flank

    “From a historical and military planning point of view, it is hard to understate the sea change this represents not just for NATO but for the nations’ involved.

    Finland will launch an immediate debate on joining NATO, Finnish officials said on Wednesday, as the country reconsiders its longtime stance outside the Western military alliance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Prime Minister Sanna Marin said that a decision would be made in coming weeks.

    “There are different perspectives to apply (for) NATO membership or not to apply and we have to analyze these very carefully,” she said at a news conference in Stockholm, according to Reuters. “But I think our process will be quite fast.”

    Marin spoke alongside Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, who said Sweden was also re-examining its position outside NATO, after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine offensive plunged Europe into its most serious security crisis since World War II.”

    https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/

    Funny that Roosia’s neighbors see that a different existential threat has emerged.

  28. @ Art Deco > “That’s pretty much common sense. You’re not going to make intellectual hobbyists out of aught but an odd minority. I’d qualify it to say people need the basics of literacy, numeracy, and civic knowledge and that in this day and age industry matters less, services more.”

    That’s correct, up to a point.
    (Intellectual hobbyists? really? that was not the general meaning of “liberal education” until it’s current debasement under the leftist regime).

    The “elitist” problem, IMO, is that they demand to be the ones assigning who gets what kind of education.

    Wilson: “We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”

    Authoritarian designations of class are tyranny, as opposed to letting people choose for themselves where to go to school and what profession to enter, or at least supporting an open opportunity for people to qualify for the more rigorous liberal educational venues (which, as noted by many, are neither liberal nor rigorous in most of today’s colleges).

  29. Art Deco linked a comment on Turley’s post for some reason, rather than the post itself.
    https://jonathanturley.org/2022/04/13/187265/comment-page-1/#comments

    Dennis McIntyre says: April 13, 2022 at 11:39 AM
    Jonathan: Anyone who thinks, as you do, Elon Musk will “restore free speech protections to the site [Twitter]” is the one living in an Orwellian universe.

    (etc etc etc)

    The commenter’s warning about Musk setting himself up as the Top Twitter Censor in place of the current ones should perhaps be considered, but also take account of his other comment here:
    https://jonathanturley.org/2022/04/13/187265/comment-page-3/#comment-2174275

    Dennis McIntyre says: April 14, 2022 at 1:11 AM
    Jonathan: In endless columns you complain about how conservatives have been cast out–threatened with the loss of their “free speech” rights, or even their jobs, by determined liberal elites who want to stamp out “disinformation”. You must live in an alternate universe–not the one I see. Today, conservative and right-wing opinion is everywhere.

    (etc etc etc)

    Other commenters were not sympathetic to Mr. McIntyre’s views.

  30. “…not sympathetic…”
    Sounds like a “WHAT Left-wing media???” type o’ guy…(with all the extraordinary powers of observation that that entails).

    At the same time he’ll probably wax nostalgiac for the censorship for right-wing views…should it turn out that Musk will have any influence on the platform.

    (Holding two opposing views simultaneously is a sign of…well, something…)

  31. Authoritarian designations of class are tyranny, as opposed to letting people choose for themselves where to go to school and what profession to enter, or at least supporting an open opportunity for people to qualify for the more rigorous liberal educational venues (which, as noted by many, are neither liberal nor rigorous in most of today’s colleges).

    Whether you are using public funds, philanthropic distributions, or private pay, educational services are subject to considerations of scarcity and cost. What he’s saying is that as a matter of social policy, liberal education is for the minority, vocational technical for the majority. This is an allocative decision that has to be made through some method, and to the extent that education is publicly financed, it has to be made as a matter of public policy. A very learned man like Mortimer Adler would disagree furiously with that view. (I think Wilson was wrong).

    Have a gander at the data for tertiary schooling a half-generation later, in 1928. You had junior colleges, normal schools, teachers’ colleges, nursing schools, professional schools, colleges, and universities. You had some academic instruction in junior colleges and teachers’ colleges. The bulk was in colleges and universities. Even there, you had occupational instruction. At the time, colleges and universities were enrolling about 6% of each cohort. The majority of youths between age 14 and age 18 were not in school; they were working.

    The literary critic and essayist Joseph Epstein occasionally offers sketches of his own upbringing in Chicago. He is Jewish, about 11 years older than the moderator here, and the son of a small businessman. His father was born in Canada and never completed high school; his mother was born in the United States and did so, but followed what was called ‘the commercial course’. His parents had magazine subscriptions, but no books in their home. Don’t think this could be called unusual among people of his background and vintage.

  32. Other commenters were not sympathetic to Mr. McIntyre’s views.

    Turley’s comment boards have been over-run with people who appear to have been recruited by ActBlue to harass him. His son, who handles the technical aspect of the site, hasn’t figured out a way to put an end to anonymous posting, require a handle, and keep the system from arbitrarily locking out people using their handle, and to also keep people from impersonating others. His blockhead moderator has also banned a mess of people for random reasons, rather then clear out the ActBlue recruits. McIntyre is one of the people who regurgitate talking points at tiresome length. There are some intelligent people in the comment boards, but there is no intelligent back-and-forth between port and starboard anymore (and there was never much) because the portside consists of apparatchiks and rather loosely-wired people. Olly, mespo, Paul Schulte, Young , and one other whose handle escapes me are the people to follow. The coherent portside posters are Mike Appleton and Enigma.

  33. Correction to my post above about the DIAs UFO document dump–the dump consisted of some 1,500 pages of documents, not 1,500 different documents.

  34. Hey, Tom Grey, I just read an op-ed at the Wall St. Journal saying that something like one-third of Slovakians, mostly rural, are sympathetic to Russia in the Ukraine conflict, believing widely-shared Facebook posts about how Ukraine is rife with Nazis.

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