Aug 06 2019

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Eugene Robinson: To get sensible gun control, Democrats must take the Senate

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and the Republican Party might not have pulled the triggers, but they still bear some responsibility for the weekend’s atrocities. The only way to keep military-style weapons of war out of the clutches of would-be mass killers is to take away McConnell’s power — which means electing a Democratic majority in the Senate next year.

It is also necessary, of course, for a Democrat to defeat President Trump, whose racist rhetoric gives aid and comfort to white supremacists such as the gunman who allegedly killed 22 innocent people at a Walmart and shopping center in El Paso. But even with Trump gone, McConnell will continue using his power over the Senate’s agenda to keep sensible gun-control measures from even being considered.

The Republican Party’s absurd “analysis” of the weekend’s double horror — first El Paso and then, just hours later, the killing of nine men and women in Dayton, Ohio, by a young gunman — would be laughable if this were a moment for laughter. Trump blamed the carnage on the Internet, violent video games and mental illness, in that order. But all of these phenomena are present in every other industrialized country, yet none suffers the kind of horrific gun violence we routinely experience in the United States. Japan, where a culture of violent video gaming is deeply rooted, has essentially no gun violence at all.

The difference? Our nation is awash in guns, and anyone can obtain one. In Sydney or Seoul or Stockholm, a delusional racist bent on a killing spree cannot easily, quickly and legally get his hands on an AK-47-style assault rifle. Here, no problem.

Paul Krugman: Trump’s China Shock

What the heck is going on?

I didn’t know that the Dow was going to drop 750 points, so my latest column is El Paso-related. Probably the right choice anyway, because US-China is moving so fast that anything in the print paper would be out of date.

But it does look as if I should try to explain (a) what I think is happening (b) why the markets are going so nuts. By the way, given Mnuchin’s declaration just a few minutes ago that China is a currency manipulator, tomorrow’s market action should be … interesting.

So here’s the thing: neither Trump’s tariff announcement last week nor, especially, the depreciation of China’s currency today should objectively be that big a deal. Trump slapped 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese exports, which is a tax hike of 0.1 percent of US GDP and 0.15 percent of Chinese GDP.

In response, China let its currency drop by about 2 percent. For comparison, the British pound has dropped around 9 percent since May, when it became clear that a no-deal Brexit was likely.

So why are these smallish numbers such a big deal? Mostly because we’ve learned things about the protagonists in this trade conflict, things that make a bigger, longer trade war seem a lot more likely than it did even a few days ago.

Frank Figliuzzi: I Predicted More Hate-Based Violence. El Paso Won’t Be the End of It.

President Trump has yet to apologize for painting people of color as outsiders and invaders.

Three days before a mass shooting that killed at least 21 people in El Paso, I predicted in these pages that we were on the path to a frightening uptick in white nationalistic hate violence. The El Paso terrorist appears to have been motivated by a racist ideology that cited other mass shootings, including in Christchurch, New Zealand. The F.B.I. has labeled it domestic terrorism and the governor of Texas has suggested that it be prosecuted as a hate crime. I have never felt so badly about being so right.

I made that prediction because I learned from 25 years in the F.B.I., including during a stint as head of counterintelligence, to trust my gut when I saw a threat unfolding. Now, my instinct and experience tell me that El Paso will not be the end of it, and that we are headed for more hate-based violence potentially stoked by a divisive president. (The motive for a second mass shooting on Sunday in Dayton is less clear.)

Yes, President Trump has fallen short of calling for violence against minorities and immigrants. And yes, he condemned racist violence and white supremacy on Monday. But he has yet to apologize for painting people of color as outsiders and invaders, for calling for them to be sent back to where they came from, and for asserting that no humans would want to live in certain American cities. As a consequence, he has given license to those who feel compelled to eradicate what Mr. Trump himself has called an infestation.

 
George T. Conway III and Neal Katyal: It’s time to debate gun control on its merits

The senseless shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, should lead every American to contemplate what to do about guns. Policymakers have largely been paralyzed, partly because the public debate has been dominated by extremes. The loudest voices on the political left seek to take away as many firearms as it can, of all kinds, and to overturn Supreme Court decisions recognizing the Second Amendment right of individuals to keep and bear arms. The loudest voices on the political right, for their part, oppose virtually all gun regulation, both on policy and constitutional grounds, fearing that a slippery slope will lead to the abolition of firearms.

But both are wrong, because of one simple reality. And acknowledging that reality opens up the space for sensible regulation of firearms, regulation that both owners and non-owners of guns should embrace.

The reality is, guns in America aren’t going away. That’s because the Constitution actually does protect an individual right to keep and bear them. Certainly there was an argument to be made that the Second Amendment didn’t vest individuals with any rights at all, given its reference to a “well regulated Militia.” But as the Supreme Court explained in two landmark decisions, District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the weight of the evidence — including the Second Amendment’s textual structure and its historical context — makes clear that the right to keep and bear arms wasn’t meant to be confined to members of militias.

Moustafa Bayoumi: Trump’s response to the weekend massacres show he is an ethical black hole

Donald Trump continues to play his cynical game of dodging responsibility, shifting blame and exploiting tragedy. In a press conference called to address the horrors of two mass shootings in the United States over the past weekend, the president said nothing about his pivotal role in stoking fear and racism among certain segments of the population, said nothing about the fact that five of the 10 deadliest shootings in American history have happened since 2016, the fact that he has become a figurehead in the dark underground of the global white nationalist movement.

Instead, Trump blamed the internet, blamed video games, blamed Congress and blamed “mental health issues”. By tying legislation for tougher gun laws to immigration reform, as he tweeted earlier, Trump also and by extension blamed immigrants, who themselves are the victims of the very racism that has been unleashed by this president.

With this ethical black hole of leadership and narcissistic exploitation of other people’s tragedy, Trump proves once again – as if we needed any more proof – that he is unfit for the office he occupies. But the tragedy is larger than his job. It’s also what he’s doing to our country.

How are we, the ordinary people of this country, supposed to go about our daily lives in this country any more? The victims in Ohio were doing nothing but enjoying themselves before they were gunned down. The killed and wounded in El Paso were doing nothing but back-to-school shopping.

 

Aug 06 2019

Tuesday Noon

I haven’t felt very funny this weekend. Trevor, Stephen, and Seth have cheered me up a bit, but I warn you I’ll be traveling again tomorrow so there might be some stuff or maybe not. I’m also very busy today with meatspace so I can’t promise prolific output at all.

I probably won’t talk about the tragedies directly, Republicans have promised the same thoughts and prayers they always do. They have claimed the shooters were Leftists, you could do as much damage with a knife, it’s mental illness, it’s the Internet or violent video games.

Never a word about the pervasive Racism, Misogyny, and Bigotry their Party endorses and encourages. Never a word about the rampant incitement to violence by their Political Leaders.

Never a word about guns.

It is amazing to me that so far this year, in 2019, we have experienced more than one mass shooting a day.

Every day.

Trevor

Stephen

Seth

Aug 06 2019

The Breakfast Club (Quarrels)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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This Day in History

The United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan during World War II; LBJ signs the Voting Rights Act; Pope Paul VI dies; Scientist Alexander Fleming born; Funk singer Rick James dies.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

Winston Churchill

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Aug 05 2019

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Ali H. Soufran: I Spent 25 Years Fighting Jihadis. White Supremacists Aren’t So Different.

We can’t fight domestic terror groups efficiently until the law treats them the way we treat foreign ones.

When a young Muslim man, self-radicalized online, kills in the name of Islamist ideology, we have no trouble calling him a terrorist and connecting him with groups like ISIS. When a young white man, similarly self-radicalized, kills in the name of racist ideology — even when he publishes a manifesto to that effect — we tend to call him disturbed. We speak about him as a troubled loner, rather than a member of a wider network.

The disparities are not limited to cultural perceptions. America’s law enforcement agencies, intelligence community and court system all treat these two scenarios differently. Those differences in treatment mask instructive similarities between these two forms of organized hate. Having spent almost 25 years fighting jihadi terrorism here and abroad, I see disturbing parallels between the rise of Al Qaeda in the 1990s and that of racist terrorism today.

White supremacists, like their Islamist counterparts, explicitly seek to use violence to create a climate of fear and chaos that can then be exploited to reshape society in their own image. Their recruitment videos share an emphasis on the lifestyle they purport to offer recruits — one of “purity,” militancy and physical fitness. While jihadis share beheading videos, right-wing extremists glory in the live streaming of the deadly attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. While Islamic State supporters communicate through an online platform called Telegram, white supremacists tend to do so through another platform, 8chan.

Charles M. Blow: Terror and Policy: 2 Sides of White Nationalism

The white supremacist terrorists and the white supremacist policymakers share the same mission.

Be warned: There is nothing soothing and uplifting in this column. I will not somberly mourn and point to our better angel and American resilience. This is not that kind of column.

I have a warning to deliver, a truth to tell, and it is as unsettling as it is obvious. [..]

It is not lost on me that this summer is the 100th anniversary of the “Red Summer,” when violent anti-black white supremacists rioted in cities across the country, killing many, just as the Great Migration — the mass migration of millions of black people mostly from the rural South to the urban North — was getting underway. Violence is the way the white terrorists respond to demographic shifts and demographic threat.

It’s not simply a matter of whether Trump’s rhetoric, or that of any other politician, led these shooters to do what they did. Maybe. It is also about recognizing that all of these people are on the same team and share the same mission and eat from the same philosophical trough. It’s just that their methods differ. The white supremacist terrorists and the white supremacist policymakers are bound at the hip.

Paul Waldman: How Trump’s biggest broken promise will make white supremacist terrorism even worse

In the wake of two horrific mass shootings over the weekend, particularly the one in El Paso where 20 people were allegedly murdered by a man who apparently left an online message echoing some of the themes of President Trump’s rhetoric, many have been putting blame at least partially at the president’s feet. We can debate how justified that is, but for the moment I want to shift focus just a little. There’s another vital question we need to ask: not whether Trump is inspiring murderers, but whether he is now, and will in the future, disappoint them in ways that could lead to more deadly violence. [..]

In 2016, with his disturbingly sharp instinct for locating and stimulating the worst in people, Trump understood something other Republicans missed. The party’s base was angry and hungry, hungry for someone who would dispense with dog whistles and insinuations and give explicit voice to their rage and resentments. Trump gave it to them, and over and over again we still hear it from his supporters: “He says what I’m feeling.”

For many of them, that’s enough. To hear their sentiments echoed from the highest office in the land provides enormous satisfaction, even if the results don’t match the rhetoric.

But others, the less stable and the more heavily armed, will not be assuaged. They may well see in Trump’s presidency nothing but failure. After all, didn’t he promise a return to when people like them were on top? The Muslims would be banned, the minorities would be shown their place, a “big beautiful wall” would be built from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico — and Mexico would pay for it.

Jennifer Rubin: Democratic candidates grasp the moral seriousness of this moment

On Sunday, in the wake of two more horrific mass shootings, one inspired by the hateful replacement conspiracy-mongering that casts immigrants as “invaders” and less than human (e.g., “infestation,” “animals”), the Democratic presidential candidates seized the high ground and, in the absence of a president who could exert moral leadership, directed attention to the central challenges we face: A white nationalist-supporting president and a country flooded with semiautomatic guns. The toxic combination has created a pandemic of hate crimes and mass violence the likes of which we have never experienced in America.

The candidates grasped the moral seriousness of the moment. [..]

It was quite a transformation from last week’s debates in which candidates were scolding one another and castigating President Barack Obama’s legacy rather than focusing on President Trump. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) dredged up a nearly 40-year-old op-ed to accuse former vice president Joe Biden of opposition to working women, an accusation so at odds with what we know of Biden — a single father after losing his first wife, married to Dr. Jill Biden, advocate of issues such as equal pay — that it not only fell flat but also made Gillibrand seem desperate. Likewise, attacks on Obama, the au

thor of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, for excessive deportations sounded weird when the current president is ripping children from parents arms and stoking white nationalism. And after Dayton and El Paso, these tactics seem even more ludicrously tone deaf.

Robert J. Spitzer: There’s No Second Amendment Right to Large-Capacity Magazines

But conservative judges may block common-sense measures for a long time to come.

The right-wing political extremist who gunned down nearly two dozen people at an El Paso Walmart on Saturday and the man who shot and killed nine people only hours later in a downtown area of Dayton, Ohio, both unleashed their savage attacks thanks to military-style rifles. Just as culpable for the carnage, however, were the large-capacity magazines that enabled these shooters to discharge many rounds of ammo without reloading.

Once all the rounds in a magazine are fired, reloading takes time. That chunk of time is often the crucial moment in which citizens are able to flee (or fight) and law enforcement is able to arrive and gain some control of the situation. When shooters can fire off dozens of shots before reloading, the potential for mass casualties heightens.

The lethality of military-style rifles is self-evident: Six of the deadliest mass shootings in the last 10 years all included military-style firearms. But large-capacity magazines — generally defined as ammunition-feeding devices holding more than 10 rounds — are arguably even more dangerous than the guns themselves: A study last year found roughly half of recent mass shootings involved them. A growing consensus among criminologists is that, as deadly as military-style weapons are, the critical factor that multiplies the mayhem is not necessarily the style of the weapon but the size of the magazines.

Aug 05 2019

The Breakfast Club (What’s Goin’ On)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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This Day in History

Actress Marilyn Monroe dies; Cornerstone laid for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal; ‘American Bandstand’ debuts on network TV; Actors Richard Burton and Alec Guinness die.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

We’ve got a deeply flawed political system with an insane overreaching extremist element, with a Supreme Court that is completely loony.

Lizz Winstead

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Aug 04 2019

The Breakfast Club (DIY)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

photo 807561379_e6771a7c8e_zps7668d00e.jpg

 

AP’s Today in History for August 4th

Nazi police arrest Anne Frank and family; Britain declares war on Germany in World War I; Three civil rights workers found slain in Mississippi; The Bordens axed to death; Jazz great Louis Armstrong born.

 

Breakfast Tune Hello, Dolly · Roger Sprung, Progressive Bluegrass, Vol. 3

 

Something to think about, Breakfast News & Blogs below

 

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
The Onion (Biolerplate / MadLibs DIY Edits)

(CITY, STATE) — In the hours following a violent rampage in (STATE) in which a lone attacker killed (NUMBER) individuals, including a (GOOD GUY WITH A GUN), and seriously injured at least (NUMBER) others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded (DAY OF WEEK) that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place.

“This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said (STATE) resident (RANDOM PERSON), echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations.

“It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.”

At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”

 

 

Something to think about over coffee prozac

 
Arlington, Texas, Police Officer Shoots, Kills Woman While Aiming At Loose Dog
Ryan Grenoble, Huffington Post
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Aug 04 2019

Pondering the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

Pondering the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

On Sunday mornings we present a preview of the guests on the morning talk shows so you can choose which ones to watch or some do something more worth your time on a Sunday morning.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on Sunday’s “This Week” are: Former Vice President Al Gore; Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro; and Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.

The roundtable guests are: ABC News Political Director Rick Klein; former North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp; Democratic strategist Stefanie Brown James; and LA Times columnist Jonah Goldberg.

Face the Nation: Host Margaret Brennan’s guests are: Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX); Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC); 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO).

Her panel guests are: Amy Walter, Cook Political Report; Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic; David Nakamura, The Washington Post; and Susan Page, USA Today.

The guests on this week’s “MTP” are: Director of the United States National Economic Council Larry Kudlow; 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ); and Gov. Steve Bullock (D-MT).

The panel guests are: Pfof. Eddie Glaude, Jr., Princeton University; MSNBC commentator Kacie Hunt; Eliana Johnson, Politico; and former Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC).

State of the Union with Jake Tapper: Mr. Tapper’s guests are: Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX); Director of the United States National Economic Council Larry Kudlow; 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ); and South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

His panel guests are: Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA); former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake; Kristen Soltis Anderson, Republican pollster; and otherwise unemployable right wing hack, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA).

Aug 04 2019

Six In The Morning Sunday 4 August 2019

 

Texas Walmart shooting: Twenty killed in El Paso gun attack

Twenty people have been killed and 26 injured in a mass shooting in the Texas city of El Paso.

Governor Greg Abbott described it as “one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas”.

The massacre happened at a Walmart store near the Cielo Vista Mall, a few miles from the US-Mexican border.

A 21-year-old man is in custody and is believed to be the sole gunman. Mr Abbott praised the police officers who apprehended him.

The suspect has been named by US media as Patrick Crusius, a resident of Dallas-area city of Allen, about 650 miles (1,046km) east of El Paso.

Third Mexican journalist killed in a week amid record murder rate

A journalist shot in his own home despite being offered official protection reflects Mexico’s struggle with rising violence

Reuters

An investigation has been launched into the death of a reporter in the Mexican state of Veracruz after he became the third journalist to be murdered in a week.

As the country grapples with a record murder rate, Mexican officials in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz where Jorge Ruiz Vazquez worked for the Grafico de Xalapa newspaper in Veracruz’s capital, said the investigation would examine why procedures to protect him failed.

“The prosecutor will investigate why protection measures granted to the victim and his family, which were active, were not enforced,” the state’s prosecutor said.

Battle for Tripoli: The secret network fighting to end Libya’s war

Meet the group of activists risking their lives to provide a ‘third voice’ in the conflict

Borzou DaragahiInternational Correspondent @borzou

A network of Libyan activists in the country’s east opposed to warlord Khalifa Haftar’s months-long offensive to seize the capital, Tripoli, has emerged; evidence that the civil society idealists who originally began the 2011 uprising against the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi persist, even if they are often cowering in fear.

Ahmed Sharksi, a 29-year-old activist and petroleum engineer now living in exile in Tunisia, is one of the coordinators of the Society for Civic Cooperation, a largely secret network of activists in eastern Libyan cities including Benghazi, Ajdabiya and Beida – the metropolises that make up the ancient Roman province of Cyrenaica.

Murder in FrankfurtThe Struggle to Find Answers to Random Crime

On Monday, an eight-year-old boy got pushed in front of a train in Frankfurt and died. The crime has horrified the entire country and right-wing populists have sought to instrumentalize it. But can such acts of violence really be prevented? By DER SPIEGEL Staff

It is Friday evening in Frankfurt, three days before an 8-year-old boy will die at the city’s central station after a stranger suddenly shoves him in front of an incoming ICE long-distance train. A 42-year-old Eritrean who has lived in Frankfurt for 30 years stops his Peugeot in front of a hotel at the convention center. An aunt of his is staying there and his girlfriend accompanies the aunt to her room. He says that in the time that his girlfriend was in the hotel, he got out of his car to make a phone call.

At exactly that moment, he says, a man ran up to him from the direction of the train station and jumped into the passenger seat. He spoke Tigrinya, one of the languages spoken in Eritrea. He told me: “Drive! The police are following me!” Then, the 42-year-old continues, “he tried to convince me to drive him to the Swiss border.” When the Peugeot driver refused and waved the hotel porter over for help, the man got out of his car and disappeared into the darkness.

Riot police fire tear gas to disperse Hong Kong protesters

By Jessie Yeung and Ben Westcott, CNN

Here’s a rundown of today’s protests

The protests in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district have wrapped up on this ninth consecutive weekend of mass demonstrations.

Here’s what happened today:

  • Rival protests: There was the main anti-extradition bill, anti-government march in Kowloon, and a smaller pro-police assembly in Causeway Bay’s Victoria Park that ended in the late afternoon.
  • Illegal assembly: The Kowloon march began in Mong Kok, but instead of finishing at the designated end point, protesters continued to Nathan Road. By deviating from the police-approved route, the march became an illegal assembly.
  • Siege on police station: The protests quickly got ugly as night fell, with protesters surrounding and vandalizing the Tsim Sha Tsui police station. They broke car windows, lit a blaze outside the station, threw eggs, shone laser pointers at officers’ faces, and graffitied obscenities onto the station walls.

PUSHING OUT THE BORDER: HOW THE U.S. IS WAGING A GLOBAL WAR ON MIGRATION

Cora Currier

A PRINCIPAL GOAL of the Trump administration’s policy at the U.S.-Mexico border —and in Central America, considered of late only in relation to that border — has been to get other governments to handle the increase in migrants seeking to enter the United States.

This means getting Mexico to send troops to its border with the U.S.; to enforce the system of “metering,” which limits the number of asylum-seekers who may approach a U.S. port of entry each day; to surveil caravans; and to deport more non-Mexicans than the United States does. It means sending Mexican forces to the border with Guatemala — and ignoring those forces’ record of human rights abuses, particularly of migrants.

 

Aug 03 2019

The Breakfast Club (Melting Glaciers)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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This Day in History

Christopher Columbus sets sail; Europe slides further into World War I; A Cold War case heats up Capitol Hill; Air traffic controllers in the U.S. go on strike; NBA founded; Singer Tony Bennett born.

Breakfast Tunes

Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac

Future generations are not going to ask us what political party were you in. They are going to ask what did you do about it, when you knew the glaciers were melting.

Martin Sheen

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Aug 03 2019

Six In The Morning Saturday 3 August 2019

 

Boris Johnson could be the last prime minister of the United Kingdom

Analysis by Luke McGee, CNN

Updated 0737 GMT (1537 HKT) August 3, 2019

Boris Johnson, the UK’s new prime minister, wants you to know that he loves his country.

Specifically, he wants you to know that he loves the Union between the four nations that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Unfortunately for Johnson, this love is not always reciprocated. During his visits to the four nations earlier this week, Johnson was confronted by a number of protesters who took issue with his “do or die” approach to Brexit. Johnson has not been coy about his commitment to leaving the EU on October 31. And he’s made it perfectly clear he would do so without a deal.

New wave of terrorist attacks possible before end of year, UN says

UN report warns threat from Islamist extremist groups remains high

The United Nations has warned that a recent pause in international terrorist violence may soon end, with a new wave of attacks possible before the end of the year.

In a report, specialist monitors at the UN security council paint a worrying picture of a global Islamist extremist movement that continues to pose a significant threat despite recent setbacks.

The authors raise concerns about up to 30,000 foreigners who travelled to the “caliphate” to fight and who may still be alive.

World’s first human-monkey hybrid created in China, scientists reveal

Researchers pledge to continue using primates in search for transplant organs

Jane Dalton @JournoJane

Scientists say they have created the world’s first human-monkey hybrid in a laboratory in China.

The researchers, who want to use animals to create organs for human life-saving transplants, say creating the hybrid was an important step.

And they pledged to continue their experiments using primates.

The team revealed that they had injected human stem cells capable of creating any type of tissue into a monkey embryo.

Russia: Demonstrators defiant ahead of opposition rally in Moscow

A recent police crackdown on protesters pushing for fair local council elections in the Russian capital has not deterred demonstrators. Thousands are expected to rally again over the weekend.

“A walk along the boulevards” in Moscow — that’s how organizers have billed the upcoming rally on Facebook. Saturday’s planned protest has not been authorized. It is to be the latest in a string of demonstrations fighting for the registration of independent candidates for elections to the Moscow parliament.

Last weekend’s rally saw nearly 1,400 people arrested, with images of police violence that sent shock waves around the world and garnered condemnation from both German and French government officials. The independent monitor OVD-Info told DW that the number of those arrested was a “record.”

Sudan’s military council and main opposition coalition agree to a constitutional declaration

Sudan’s military council and its main opposition coalition have agreed on a constitutional declaration to usher in a new period of transitional government, an African Union mediator told a news conference in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The document, which outlines the powers and the relationship between the branches of the transitional government, comes after weeks of protracted negotiations brokered by the African Union and neighbouring Ethiopia amid sporadic bouts of violence in the capital Khartoum and other cities.

Lebatt said that the delegations will continue talks on Saturday over the technical details of the signature procedures but did not elaborate further on the contents of the declaration.

TEPCO starts dismantling exhaust stack at crippled Fukushima plant

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc has begun dismantling part of the damaged and contaminated exhaust stack at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

After the deadly earthquake and tsunami in 2011 hit the plant and disabled its cooling functions, TEPCO released highly radioactive vapor through the exhaust stack as the utility scrambled to reduce pressure inside the No. 1 reactor’s containment vessel that had increased.

TEPCO aims to reduce the risk from the 120-meter joint exhaust stack for the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors after finding fractures in metal poles supporting the chimney structure.

 

Aug 02 2019

Moving the Needle

Boris Johnswon’s seat as Prime Minister got immeasurably more tippy in a Wales by-election that reduces his Parliamentary Majority to a single vote.

In a flash, Boris Johnson’s working majority in Britain’s Parliament is now just one seat
By William Booth, Washington Post
August 2, 2019

In February, three Conservative members of Parliament quit the party over Brexit to form a new independent group in the House of Commons.

There have also been five by-election contests since the 2017 general elections — two lawmakers faced recall petitions, two resigned from office and one died.

If Johnson’s pledge to get Britain out by October is threatened, many assume he might call a snap election to seek a greater majority in Parliament — but this result makes it unclear how he and his party would fare.

In the Brecon-district by-election in Wales on Thursday, Conservative Chris Davies tried to hold on to his seat, but was beaten by Liberal Democrat candidate Jane Dodds.

What makes this doubly interesting is that the Liberal Democrats have emerged as the most potent voice in British politics for stopping Brexit and have increased their clout by forging a “Remain Alliance.”

In the election in Wales, the Liberal Democrats teamed up with other anti-Brexit parties, including the Greens and Wales’s Plaid Cymru, which both agreed not to put forward candidates, to increase the Liberal Democrat candidate’s chances.

“Boris Johnson’s shrinking majority makes it clear that he has no mandate to crash us out of the E.U.,” the Liberal Democrats’ new leader, Jo Swinson, said Friday. She added that she envisioned the Remain Alliance growing to fight Johnson’s Brexit plans.

“The country doesn’t have to settle for Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn,” she told BBC Radio, referring to the opposition Labour Party leader, who can’t seem to make up his mind on whether Labour supports leaving or remaining in the E.U.

Dodd, the winner in Wales, said the Liberal Democrats “are the party that want to stay as part of the United Kingdom. We want to stay in Europe. We see that as healthy for our communities. We have to stay in Europe, and we have to stay in this bigger team.”

Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian politician and a leader for the European Parliament’s Brexit talks, tweeted his congratulations to the Liberal Democrats, asserting that “the party goes from strength to strength & it really could change everything.”

The Liberal Democrats took 13,826 votes and the Conservative Party garnered 12,401, a margin of 1,425 that overturned the Tories’ previous majority of more than 8,000.

The voting district backed leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Johnson was jeered this week as he visited Wales. The new prime minister met with chicken farmers and sheepherders who are worried that if Britain crashes out of Europe without new customs and trade arrangements, their roasters and lamb chops could immediately face high tariffs in Europe that would make their meats far less competitive.

“October, November and December are peak times to sell Welsh lamb,” Dodd said Friday. “There are two issues for farmers — firstly, how are they going to cope with 40 percent tariffs on their lamb exports. The second is mental health. Farming is the profession with the highest suicide rate. These are real concerns.”

Witching hour (October 31st) approaches.

Aug 02 2019

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

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Paul Krugman: Why Was Trumponomics a Flop?

Neither tax cuts nor tariffs are working.

Donald Trump has pursued two main economic policies. On taxes, he has been an orthodox Republican, pushing through big tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, which his administration promised would lead to a huge surge in business investment. On trade, he has broken with his party’s free(ish) trade policies, imposing large tariffs that he promised would lead to a revival of U.S. manufacturing.

Donald Trump has pursued two main economic policies. On taxes, he has been an orthodox Republican, pushing through big tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, which his administration promised would lead to a huge surge in business investment. On trade, he has broken with his party’s free(ish) trade policies, imposing large tariffs that he promised would lead to a revival of U.S. manufacturing.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates, even though the unemployment rate is low and overall economic growth remains decent, though not great. According to Jay Powell, the Fed’s chairman, the goal was to take out some insurance against worrying hints of a future slowdown — in particular, weakness in business investment, which fell in the most recent quarter, and manufacturing, which has been declining since the beginning of the year. [..]

To be fair, the economy remains pretty strong, which isn’t really a surprise given the G.O.P.’s willingness to run huge budget deficits as long as Democrats don’t hold the White House. As I wrote three days after the 2016 election — after the shock had worn off — “It’s at least possible that bigger budget deficits will, if anything, strengthen the economy briefly.” And that’s pretty much what happened: There was a bit of a bump in 2018, but at this point we’ve basically returned to pre-Trump rates of growth.

But why has Trumponomics failed to deliver much besides trillion-dollar budget deficits? The answer is that both the tax cuts and the trade war were based on false views about how the world works.

Harry Littman: Two big reasons the Senate should swiftly reject John Ratcliffe

John Ratcliffe, President Trump’s nominee to serve as the next director of national intelligence, faces two high hurdles to earning Senate confirmation.

The first is the Republican representative’s well-earned reputation as a political partisan and a toady to the president, an attribute particularly ill-suited to the job of director of national intelligence (DNI), who must provide objective national security information as opposed to what he or she thinks the president wants to hear.

The second involves charges of Ratcliffe dramatically exaggerating his own experience prosecuting terrorism cases. The allegation is worrisome in itself, but also again particularly with respect to the DNI, who is required by law to have “extensive national security experience.”

As to the charge of toadyism, it is established, and disqualifying in itself.

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