Chopin wrote this piece when he was eleven years old. It’s his earliest surviving work, but not the earliest he wrote. He was a child prodigy not just in playing but in composing:
I think the pianist is thirteen here.
The very brief and election-motivated “crackdown” by the Biden/Harris administration on illegal aliens entering the country …
… has predictably ended.
Fancy that:
The Biden administration is quietly rushing to implement new policies that will loosen restrictions on migrants who entered the US illegally — a parting attempt to thwart President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration crackdowns and mass deportations, sources tell The Post.
And the Big Apple will be ground zero for these changes.
The outgoing administration intends to launch an ICE Portal app starting in early December in New York City that will allow migrants to bypass in-person check-ins to their local ICE office.
Homeland Security sources tell The Post the app will make it easier for migrants to flee authorities in part because the software has proven to be glitchy and unreliable.
Even when it’s working correctly, the new app doesn’t check for past arrests or outstanding warrants — something the current system tied to in-person appointments does, sources said.
Up to 100,000 migrants will be enrolled in the first wave of the program, sources said.
I guess New York is being punished for not voting as blue as before.
There’s something to be said for shortening the period between elections and inaugurations.
Spambot of the day
It was a exceptional starry night in the city.
Thanks for sharing.
Why would anyone continue to want to elect Democrats in California?
And why would anyone want to vote for someone like Gavin Newsom for US president?
Those are rhetorical questions, of course. Efforts to recall Newsom failed. He might even have gotten more votes than Harris had he run for president this year.
Here’s what made me think of Newsom:
March 2023: Gavin Newsom promises to build 1,200 tiny homes by Fall
Fall: Newsom's Senior Advisor on Homelessness offers a word salad explanation for the nonexistent tiny homes
August 2024: $750 MILLION gone & not a single tiny home constructed pic.twitter.com/rI6wwNFnKC
— BAY AREA STATE OF MIND (@YayAreaNews) November 20, 2024
You get a lot of bang for your tax buck in California. Apparently those houses are so very tiny that they are microscopic.
As for why people keep voting for Democrats in a place like California, this piece – by someone in the greater Philadelphia area, rather than California – comes to mind. It begins like this:
I am a woman living alone near Philadelphia with a cat, so I guess you could call me a “childless cat lady.” I never wanted children, so I never had any. Since I have dedicated my life to helping other people, for many years I subscribed to all of the social justice causes. That began to change when the neighborhood I live in became a hotbed of crime and leftist intolerance.
The writer goes on to describe the violence and chaos that has descended on her neighborhood in recent years, then explains her state of mind these days:
A few months ago, there was a meme on Facebook that showed a white woman saying, “I don’t feel safe in my neighborhood,” and a man answered her, “You literally voted for this.” I now understand that my situation resembles this cartoon.
I have voted Democrat all my life. I supported soft-on-crime candidates because I didn’t want to see people go to prison and lose their chance at a better life. But now I see the ruin that we have to live with as a result of these policies. The white liberals in the suburbs do not live with the consequences of their votes. I do. …
Like most people, I just want to be safe. I want to live in a place where I can leave my apartment without fear that the man who saw me watch him attack a woman will come back and attack me. I want to live in a place where I’m not risking verbal violence for engaging in private phone conversations while taking a walk.I want there to be police who are here to protect me and other innocent citizens who just want to do our jobs, buy affordable food, and go to the YMCA in peace.
Is that too much to ask? Democrats seem to think it is. Many of my liberal friends expressed horror that “Americans value their pocketbooks more than my human rights.” Apparently wanting to pay the rent and afford food and medications is something we should be ashamed of.
My entire life, I saw myself on the left. But now I understand that the left has left me. I am a childless cat lady for law and order. I want a government that will protect me and my cat, that cares about the price of food and doesn’t say people should be satisfied with a lot of new minimum wage jobs that will not allow them to support their families. I am tired of being told my safety doesn’t matter and that I’m racist for pointing out that there is crime on the streets of my neighborhood.
That is how a mind changes.
I’m not 100% sure that this lady is ready to vote for Republicans across the board, but I suspect that she is. If so, she’s not alone – in most blue cities, the GOP gained a substantial percentage of votes compared to 2020. But when will it be enough to really change things in a place like Philadelphia? Or in California?
Meanwhile, Newsom declares he’s going to “Trump-proof” the state:
Newsom’s office told The Associated Press that the governor and lawmakers are ready to “Trump-proof” California’s state laws. His announcement Thursday called on the Legislature to give the attorney general’s office more funding to fight federal challenges when they meet in December.
Newsom and other governors seem to think – or continue to want their voters to think – that Trump threatens “reproductive rights.” And yet Trump has said very clearly that he thinks that abortion should be left to the states. In California, Democrats control everything and there is zero chance that the state won’t have liberal abortion laws. As for birth control and/or IVF, the GOP isn’t against them. But Democrats think it’s a winning strategy to say they are, and to cast themselves as the brave liberty-lovers who will defend those practices against all big bad Republican threats.
And then there’s the issue of illegal aliens and their removal. Another topic for another post.
NOTE: This post makes me think I should start a new category, “Election 2028.” But I’ll desist for a while.
JFK was assassinated sixty-one years ago today
Like most people of a certain age, I remember where I was: in school. I found out piecemeal – first that someone had shot at him, then that he was injured, then that he was dead.
Then all the rest.
Regular readers of this blog know I believe Oswald did it alone, and I see the evidence of this as completely and utterly overwhelming. I’m not the least bit naive about it. I’ve read voluminously on the subject, and I find that all theories to the contrary have enormous holes in them.
Rather than write a new post going into all of this, I’ll draw your attention to some previous efforts of mine: this, this, this, and this.
I find that these posts usually generate a lot of comments from those who believe in one or more of the myriad conspiracy theories that have swirled around the JFK assassination from the moment it happened. I’ve answered them and answered them, but I find that rarely do any minds change (sound familiar?) and almost never do people take my advice to read approximately the first 550 pages or so of the Bugliosi book on the subject: Reclaiming History. It might sound like a lot to read, but it’s fascinating – and it’s online and searchable. The latter part of the book – if memory serves, it goes to over 1000 pages – deals with every single conspiracy theory one by one. Looking the book up just now, AI tells me that it is 1,648 pages long. As I said, no need to read all of that. But it is the definitive work.
And if you follow the link to the Bugliosi book , I highly recommend pages 1444 to 1459 for people who are into the idea that Oswald may have done it but that he did it for some agency or entity such as the CIA or FBI or Mafia or Castro whatever it is you think that entity might be.
For those of us who remember the JFK assassination, the recent shooting of Trump was particularly horrific – that is, for those who don’t hate his guts and wish him dead (sigh; unfortunately, there are quite a few Boomers in that latter group). We know only too well what it would have looked like had Trump not fortuitously turned his head at the last moment.
Open thread 11/22/2024
Gaetz out; Bondi in
House member Matt Gaetz was a controversial AG nominee from the start, and there was plenty of speculation that he wasn’t nominated with the intent of his actually being confirmed. At any rate, he’s withdrawn his name, saying:
While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition. There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1.
I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful President in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I’m certain he will Save America.
Trump wasted no time in nominating a replacement, Pam Bondi, who was Florida’s AG for eight years. She also was one of Trump’s lawyers in his first impeachment case which went to a trial in the Senate, and is a loyal supporter. She’s a more conventional choice in terms of her job history, but one I am pretty sure would also be a tough cookie in the post of AG.
Sounds like a good pick to me.
[ADDENDUM: I see a lot of hysterics about Bondi’s appointment at other blogs from people saying she appointed Corey, the prosecutor in the Zimmermann case, and is therefore some sort of viper. It actually was Rick Scott who made the appointment, although I would guess that Bondi concurred. That was a long time ago and a lot has happened since then with both Scott and Bondi, Trump, and for that matter all of us.
The mighty encyclopedia: doing research in grade school in the 1950s
The blue volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia stood tall on the shelves of my brother’s room, the only reference books our house had except for a dictionary and a thesaurus. But the World Book was king, an essential tool for homework when I was in grade school.
Need to do a report on Cyrus McCormick, inventor of the reaper – whatever that was? Turn to the “M” encyclopedia, and copy the text. Or, actually, don’t quite copy it – that’s cheating. How did we get around it? Change the wording a bit and hope for the best.
We didn’t have computers with the world at our fingertips. Going to the library was a long journey, even if moms drove us. And then there was the card catalogue and books that existed on the index cards but weren’t on the shelves. And who knew how to find what you were looking for, even if the books were there?
We also looked things up in the big fat heavy Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature. That was a bit better, and often led to a magazine article or two. But the library might not even carry those magazines.
And in the winter we walked ten miles in the snow, barefoot.
Speaking of Cyrus McCormick, I went to Wikipedia – today’s World Book to the tenth power – and found this:
McCormick has been simplistically credited as the single inventor of the mechanical reaper.
Oopsies! Yes, the World Book was probably way simplistic. Wikipedia adds:
He was, however, one of several designing engineers who produced successful models in the 1830s. His efforts built on more than two decades of work by his father Robert McCormick Jr., with the aid of Jo Anderson, an enslaved African-American man held by the family. He also successfully developed a modern company, with manufacturing, marketing, and a sales force to market his products.
There’s a ton more at the link. What an interesting life, including this:
McCormick had always been a devout Presbyterian, as well as advocate of Christian unity. He also valued and demonstrated in his life the Calvinist traits of self-denial, sobriety, thriftiness, efficiency, and morality. He believed feeding the world, made easier by the reaper, was part of his religious mission in life.
And using Wikipedia once again, I am surprised – very surprised – to learn that the World Book is still published. Yes, folks:
World Book was first published in 1917. Since 1925, a new edition of the encyclopedia has been published annually. Although published online in digital form for a number of years, World Book is currently the only American encyclopedia which also still provides a print edition. The encyclopedia is designed to cover major areas of knowledge uniformly, but it shows particular strength in scientific, technical, historical and medical subjects.
World Book, Inc. is based in Chicago, Illinois. According to the company, the latest edition, World Book Encyclopedia 2024, contains more than 14,000 pages distributed along 22 volumes and also contains over 25,000 photographs.
And for a mere $839.00, it can be yours from Amazon.
The dynamic duo: Musk and Ramaswamy
They explain their plans for government efficiency (sounds like the oxymoron to end all oxymorons, doesn’t it?):
Musk and Ramaswamy are correct: unelected bureaucrats passing “rules and regulations” have detracted America from what the Founders framed in the Constitution.
DOGE is there to stop it.
“The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic, and politicians have abetted it for too long,” the entrepreneurs wrote. “That’s why we’re doing things differently. We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs.”
And before Trump was a politician, he was a real estate developers and TV personality.
Musk and Ramaswamy say that they want to concentrate on three areas: regulatory rescissions, administrative reduction, and cost savings. They also plan to help transition the workers whose jobs are eliminated into the private sector.
It’s nothing if not ambitious, and also needed. Will they succeed? I haven’t a clue.
In the weeks since the election, it occurs to me that Trump and the people he’s recently surrounded himself with must have thought there was an excellent chance he would win. They seem to be ready with Cabinet appointments and lots of plans.
In the computer age, are objections to a national ID outdated?
It’s long been my impression that objection to a national ID stem from World War II, when they were often mechanisms of tyranny. But the world has changed a great deal since then, and even without a national ID the government has taken on the worst aspects of Santa: they see you when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake, they know when you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake. “Good” by their definition, that is.
Computers and ubiquitous videos make it all possible. DNA is the icing on the cake.
So, why not have a national ID card?:
… [T]here is a single, simple, technical solution to minimizing illegal immigrant employment and voting in the United States—a solution which would also simplify the number of documents needed to prove your ID and could help with passing new privacy laws governing what for-profit corporations can do with your personal data. There really is such a technical panacea: a national ID for every American citizen.
Thanks to modern technology, the ID can be digital. The EU is creating a new “digital wallet” for every citizen. The digital identity can be used for multiple purposes, including accessing public services, opening a bank account, filing tax returns, proving your age, checking into a hotel, or renting a car. Far from being a threat to privacy, the new digital wallet will limit the information that private companies now routinely demand from users of their services. In Estonia for the past two decades citizens have already been using the digital identity system—the “e-ID”—to vote, pay bills, sign contracts, access health information, and perform other activities.
National ID cards—both physical, and increasingly, digital, are the norm in the 21st-century world, with at least 170 out of almost 200 countries in the world using them.
The author argues that a national ID will simplify and streamline what has already happened in terms of government control, and would facilitate voting security as well as cut down on employment of illegal aliens. I generally tend to balk at the idea of a national ID, but I agree that we probably have already surrendered every single bit of privacy and liberty that a national ID might threaten to take away.
Here’s an interesting tidbit:
In the aftermath of the election, many stunned Democrats may be wondering if they have accidentally imported the next generation of Republican voters. (If I may engage in some Tom Friedmanesque taxi-driver sociology, I would like to point out that two Uber drivers I recently hired, one a recent Nigerian immigrant and the other a Venezuelan, had both entered the country under Biden. Both men said that if they could vote, they would vote for Trump.)
That possible irony has occurred to me, as well.
But back to IDs:
Open thread 11/21/2024
Trump has learned who his friends are – and who they’re not
Trump had a bunch of handicaps first time around:
– The Democrats didn’t think he had a mandate, because of his failure to get the popular vote. Or just because.
– He knew very little about Washington and how it worked.
– Even people on the right didn’t know much about him and were hesitant to work for him.
– He had to rely on others to make recommendations for people to appoint, and their suggestions often involved establishment figures who weren’t onboard with Trump’s agenda. Some were even actively – or secretly – against it
– The “resistance” was out to undermine him and was powerful and quite successful at it, and I doubt he expected the strength of their resolve and the lengths to which they would go.
Now a lot has changed, and all to his advantage. He’s been president before and knows the ropes. Most world leaders already have had dealings with him. He won the popular vote. He has slightly more cooperative GOP leaders in Congress. He’s assembled an interesting group of iconoclastic and often-brilliant allies to help him – at least for now. He’s appointing people who support his agenda. He is seen as having more power. He know what the forces arrayed against him have been and what they’ve been willing to do. He’s older, perhaps wiser, and certainly tougher. The left is still be determined to undermine him, but for the moment they are demoralized and divided.
For the moment.