Sunday 16 July 2017
Out of Africa
No, not the movie. :) We have been discussing migrations of people for some time now in the comments section and I just ran across this documentary about the first people of Europe. It seems to debunk some earlier theories of how our human ancestors developed, and is a good illustration of what could happen with the movement of massive amounts of people. So I thought you all might want to take a look if you have an hour to spare.
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78 comments:
Excellent documentary series, Lynnette. One of the things that bugs me about every TV depiction of Neanderthals is that the latex prostheses (needed to accurately show the wider, flatter noses and thick brow ridges that we know they had) are too immobile, like a bad botox job. The resulting zombie-like characters look more suited to the Michael Jackson Thriller video than cavorting with our European ancestors. It reinforces the idea of 'otherness', making it easy to forget that humans have interbred with anything that showed itself to be remotely compatible, wherever they have gone ;-)
[Lynnette]: "...the Vatican has condemned Obama's Jan. 23 repeal of the ban on U.S. funding for foreign family-planning aid groups that offer abortion services.
Isn't that the funding they always flip flop on? I mean, if it's a Democratic president the funding is on and if it's a Republican president the funding is off? I'm thinking that Trump eliminated the funding now.
Yes, I could see where the Pope might not approve of Obama's choice. But really all he had to do was wait. Personally I support what Obama did, so I guess I wouldn't be in good standing with the Pope either."
Yep, they always flip-flop on it. The Vatican always comments on it, and remonstrates with every Democratic president. The point is CNN manages to gloss over this completely, yet has inflated one liberal Jesuit's commentary into "Vatican" criticism of Trump. It's so wrong it's not even wrong. Though not all that surprising seeing them teaming up with the Catholic version of "fake news". ;-)
[Petes]: "Sounds to me like the sort of healthy skepticism that should be applied to every politician."
[Chumpy]: "Then you still miss the point. It was a transactional approach that applies uniquely to Shorthands in modern American politics. They don't admire him; they didn't vote for him because they liked him. They voted for him because he was going to build The Great Wall of Trump and then round up all the Hispanics and Muslims and toss ‘em back over the wall, or bring deep tunnel, labor intensive coal mining back to West Virginia, or bring the repetitive-motion factory jobs back to their mid-western communities (so they don't have to learn new skills, a prospect which troubles them), etc. For a certain percentage who, in fact, suspended all healthy skepticism because they wanted to believe in the faerie tale, it was a purely transactional vote."
Maybe there is a cultural disconnect here. (I hope so). In my part of the world, all voting is transactional. Quel problème? All ya seem to be sayin' is that Trump's supporters have a diversity of concerns. Good for them. Beats the boring liberal homgeneity of Obama's support any day.
[Chumpy]: "I think you probably need to quit worrying about Obama."
I think y'all jes' need to wait until I get bored with y'all again. Then ya can have the whinge fest echo chamber to yoreself again. In the mean time, I'll probably go on worryin' about whatever I feel like worryin' about.
There is the distinct possibility that I may be able to see the Aurora Borealis tonight. I seem to be in the viewing area. It won't make up for the solar eclipse I will miss, but I haven't seen this phenomenon for some time, so it will be a pleasure. :)
... humans have interbred with anything that showed itself to be remotely compatible, wherever they have gone ;-)
Yup. Procreation is a very strong instinct, and the idea that the two branches of our tree intermingled makes more sense than that one branch was destroyed by another.
The point is CNN manages to gloss over this completely, yet has inflated one liberal Jesuit's commentary into "Vatican" criticism of Trump. It's so wrong it's not even wrong.
So the Pope actually supports Trump's policies?
[Lynnette]: "There is the distinct possibility that I may be able to see the Aurora Borealis tonight. I seem to be in the viewing area. It won't make up for the solar eclipse I will miss, but I haven't seen this phenomenon for some time, so it will be a pleasure. :)"
Hope you're having a good aurora. I toyed with the idea of popping over for the eclipse, an event I've still never seen in spite of noting the date of the August 1999 one in the British Isles in my calendar 25 years in advance! Ironically, I ended up on a business trip in Colorado :(
[Lynnette]: "So the Pope actually supports Trump's policies?"
No ... but the Pope's a well-known liberal :) :) :)
Not to worry -- we don't get to replace him every four year, but he still has a time limit :)
I see your cops are still doing a sterling job ... woman in Minneapolis shot dead after reporting a burglary. Same thing happened last month to another woman in Seattle.
Still, guns don't kill people -- bad people with guns kill people. LOL. Or is it "bad people with guns make good people with guns jumpy so they accidentally shoot good people without guns"? It's all too confusing for me. Being of simple mind I can't help thinking: less guns = less dead people.
Hope you're having a good aurora.
*sigh* No. From where I am I couldn't see anything. Maybe too much light? Or I looked at the wrong time? Anyway, like you with your solar eclipse in 1999 I was out of luck.
No ... but the Pope's a well-known liberal :) :) :)
From what I hear he is a champion for the poor, so it wouldn't surprise me that he might not see eye to eye with Trump on some things. And then, of course, there are all of those Trump ex-wives hanging about. Even if he is a liberal I can't see where he would approve of that. Shocking!
Not to worry -- we don't get to replace him every four year, but he still has a time limit :)
A Pope with a short shelf life? Well, there you go, just wait a bit and you might get one of a different flavor. ;)
I see your cops are still doing a sterling job ...
I am starting to wonder if they are getting any training at all! Did they learn nothing from the Philando Castile shooting?
Still, guns don't kill people -- bad people with guns kill people.
You won't find many people in our government today, I am thinking, that will go up against the gun lobby, unless they are those nasty liberals. And until they can get guns out of the hands of people on the street, I can't myself advocate not arming the police. They would be sitting ducks. There are too many good cops out there to lead them to the slaughter. No, the problem seems to lie in training, and perhaps, culture. This police officer was only on the force since 2015. I wasn't there, obviously, so can't say for sure, but it sounds like he panicked. He shot from the passenger seat of the squad car out the driver's side door at the woman when she approached. Although from all accounts the alley is well lit in that area. She had called in a report that someone was being assaulted in the alley behind her home and apparently went out to talk to the police when they arrived. The officers did not have their body cameras on, which is raising questions here.
In all seriousness, how can you possibly get it that badly wrong? You get a call about a crime in progress, you go to the address, someone approaches the car -- chances are it's the person who called in the report, not the criminal. And then you shoot them out the window of the cop car? And not just out the window but from the opposite side of the car, from whence you presumably have a very restricted view of anything at all !!!
I can't think of a remotely comparable case here, ever. Whereas this seems to be the USA's second similar one in a week. Compare it to this one which involved a guy who was clinically depressed and possibly bipolar, armed with a shotgun, and who fired more than a dozen shots including one at a cop car. The cops still tried to talk him out of it for two days, and when there was eventually a confrontation tried to disarm him with non-lethal force before eventually shooting him dead.
There then followed an internal cop inquiry, a second inquiry assisted by the FBI as an outside force, a third government inquiry, and a public tribunal which result in apologies from the cops and the government to the dead guy's family. All that over a case that would barely have made the evening news in the US. Is life so much cheaper over there?
And I forgot to mention, that one was seventeen years ago and there hasn't been another one since. I know y'all have sixty times our population, but still !
In all seriousness, how can you possibly get it that badly wrong? You get a call about a crime in progress, you go to the address, someone approaches the car -- chances are it's the person who called in the report, not the criminal. And then you shoot them out the window of the cop car? And not just out the window but from the opposite side of the car, from whence you presumably have a very restricted view of anything at all !!!
We are all asking ourselves those questions. Compounding this is the fact that the police officer is Somali-American. As Lee said in the previous comments section, this will raise a stink in more ways than one.
Is life so much cheaper over there?
There is no good answer to this question, Petes. Just like there is no good answer to it when we ask if of the countries in the ME.
In the words of the FBI report, "Garda personnel repeatedly and emphatically ordered Mr. Carthy to halt and throw down his weapon. Despite these warnings, Mr. Carthy was allowed to continue undeterred beyond the wall which served as one side of the inner perimeter and walk toward the outer perimeter which was manned in part by unarmed Garda officers....to allow Mr. Carthy to cross the inner perimeter armed after he had repeatedly ignored warnings and had previously aimed and fired his shotgun at Garda officers was inconsistent with accepted law enforcement practices in the United States".[5]
In this case I agree with the FBI. The man fired his weapon at others which, despite his friend's assertion that he stated he didn't want to harm anyone, just hold them at bay, showed a distinct lack of concern for other people's welfare. He also refused to drop the weapon. The Garda was legally allowed to defend themselves.
What happened in Minneapolis was something totally different. Whether it was due to poor training or something else, the shooting was certainly not justified in any way that I can see.
Why the reaction is different this time
There's a predictable pattern to the aftermath of too many deadly police shootings: Neighbors and anti-police brutality groups take to the streets. Groups supporting the officers stand up for them. Social media lights up over whether the victim "did something" to provoke the officer.
But none of that holds true in the case of Justine Ruszczyk, a white Australian bride-to-be who was killed by Mohamed Noor, a Somali-American black police officer in Minneapolis.
And that, say experts, speaks volumes about the state of America today.
I was gonna lay back on talkin’ Trump in this thread, but then this one came across my screen.
This one is almost too incredible to believe, but here it is…
Only 45% of the dedicated Trumpkins actually believe that Trump Jr. met with Russians in the hope of getting dirt on Hillary Clinton. NYDailyNews. This in spite of the fact that Trump Jr. has admitted it publicly, as has Shorthands himself; Trump Jr. has gone on FoxNews to defend his actions in accepting that meeting, (and Shorthands has defended it publicly as well). And, quite simply, nobody in the public sphere is denying it happened. And yet, a majority, 55%, of the dedicated Trumpkins have decided it's easier to just not believe it than it is to try to play apologist for it.
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"In my part of the world, all voting is transactional."
Aside from being irrelevant to the conversation we were having, that's a self-delusional conceit. The history of 'the Troubles’ shows the Irish Catholic to be as partisan as any, given the opportunity, maybe worse than most. But they're not Trump voters anyway so the claim is wildly irrelevant.
"All ya seem to be sayin' is that Trump's supporters have a
diversity of concerns."
I'm going to presume you didn't intentionally misinterpret my meaning, that you're being stupid instead of stubborn, and I will explain that the ex-factory worker in mid-west isn't all that concerned about deep tunnel mining in West Virginia, nor is the unemployed coal miner all that concerned about shuttered factories in western Ohio. Their ‘transactional’ concerns are not diverse, but are instead narrowly focused on themselves.
Trump told a lot of different lies to a lot of different people is what I was saying. And some of them still expect him to deliver. They will not stick with him when it becomes impossible to ignore the fact that he can't deliver. (And that may take awhile as the NYDailyNews link above makes clear.)
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On the subject of ‘first people’, I noticed that the estimated date of the first human colonization of Australia has recently been moved back several thousand years. Maybe as early as 65,000 years ago. ScienceNews.Org
Post Script:
Since I've already broached Trumpkins and Trump in this thread… It's not making as many headlines as Shorthands' slap at his Attorney General, but, in that same interview, he also tried to warn Mueller off of investigating his finances for things like laundering money for the Russian oligarchs and such as that (including the extended family's and Trump Inc's finances). Word is Mueller is already into those questions, so it's a little late to warn him off, and that probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Now it's just more to be suspicious about.
[Lynnette]: "Why the reaction is different this time"
I would have thought it was obvious -- Black Lives Matter are mostly a bunch of racists. (Only singling them out because of the relevance to this case. Plenty of the traditional sort of racists in the USA too).
[Chumpy]: Only 45% of the dedicated Trumpkins actually believe that Trump Jr. met with Russians in the hope of getting dirt on Hillary Clinton... This in spite of the fact that Trump Jr. has admitted it publicly...
Pretty hilarious alright. Even more intriguing: Hilary Clinton is still less popular than Trump. One wonders what he'd have to do to lose that contest -- go bareback riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with his buddy Putin?
" Their ‘transactional’ concerns are not diverse, but are instead narrowly focused on themselves."
Speakin' of more stupid than stubborn, I was suggestin' that there is collectively a diversity of concerns. All voters express their self-interest at the polls. The skill of the politician is to convince all them that their particular concerns will be addressed. This ain't rocket science, nor has it ever been different in the history of democracy. Ya think Hilary's cutesy accents weren't designed to demonstrate her shared concern with the voters? Just 'cos hers are particularly laughable don't mean the politicians don't all do it.
All of which begs the question as to why y'all are singlin' out Trump as if he invented the pandering politician archetype.
And let's not forget that this time last year, more than two thirds of Americans did not consider Trump "to be even somewhat civil, honest, likable or qualified for office" (Associated Press-GfK poll). And they still voted for him! But then, more than nine tenths of them believed Hilary broke the law.
It seems to be y'all might more productively turn yore attention to why yore political system is churning out these chumps.
"One wonders what he'd have to do to lose that contest…"
Hang ‘round awhile and you'll find out. In spite of your erroneous assumption, Hillary polled better than Trump prior to the election. She polled better than Trump in the election. (By almost three million votes. She only dropped behind him in the poll numbers after she lost; a lot of prior Hillary supporters are pissed at her for losing to Trump.) He gets to be seen as a loser (and that's comin’) he'll lose support too.
"I was suggestin' that there is collectively a diversity of concerns."
Doesn't read that way. Reads like you're trying to waffle on what ya said. Not that you waffling is either new or, in this case, relevant. So I'll just move along to the actual point.
"All of which begs the question as to why y'all are singlin' out Trump as
if he invented the pandering politician archetype."
Ah! There you've finally found yourself forced to come ‘round to the point. A fairly high percentage of Trump's voters didn't like him. That makes it all the more important that he deliver on his promises. And, he was already a minority President. He's got no room to lose support, and as he continually proves himself conspicuously incompetent for the job he's won, he's got no almost no chance of getting back the independents he's been shedding since the election.
"And they still voted for him! But then, more than nine tenths of them
believed Hilary broke the law."
She didn't though. She breached State Dept. protocols. If she'd broken the law, Comey would have advised prosecution. He was not a Hillary fan.
Just goes to show how miserable she was as a campaigning candidate, that nine out of ten Trumkins were convinced she'd broken the law.
I do honestly believe she'd probably have made a decent President (assuming she could have kept her neo-con instincts in check). But she was a lousy campaigner. But the two talents don't always coexist in the same person.
For the record…
Back in the year 2000 I voted for John McCain in the Republican primary when he was running against Dubya (Dubya won). I disagreed with a lot of McCain's politics, but found him rather more agreeable than Dubya.
In spite of my many disagreements with John McCain's particular positions and political conclusions, both foreign and domestic, there was the one thing about him…
He is as honorable a man as it is possible to be and also be a successful American politician. He's walked that difficult path as well as any politician I've ever seen. He didn't always pull it off, but he did it better than almost anyone else I know of.
I hope he survives this newest cancer. We could use him a little longer. We could use more men like him.
On the subject of ‘first people’, I noticed that the estimated date of the first human colonization of Australia has recently been moved back several thousand years.
It just shows what we don't really know.
Word is Mueller is already into those questions, so it's a little late to warn him off, and that probably wouldn't have worked anyway. Now it's just more to be suspicious about.
Personally I suspect that it was the real reason for this investigation. The collusion is just smoke screen.
Trump is already researching whether he can pardon his relatives, and even himself.
I would have thought it was obvious -- Black Lives Matter are mostly a bunch of racists.
Not necessarily so, Petes. They have also protested other shootings where the victims where white.
It is sounding like I may have been right in thinking the officer panicked. Supposedly after the police car arrived in the alley, and only seconds before Damond appeared beside their car, there was some kind of loud noise. If the officer who fired the shot feared an ambush it might explain why he risked shooting across his partner and out the driver side door. Again this goes back to my thought about poor training. It also appears that the police officer who was driving had only been on the force for one year. So both officers were relatively new and I would say inexperienced. Some people have already raised the question about why two inexperienced officers were partnered together.
We could use more men like him.
I also voted for McCain and agree with everything you wrote about him. I was sad to see that after all he has had to endure in life he now has this to overcome. I wish him all the best in this latest test and hope that he comes out on top.
PBS Newshour is reporting that people in the White House are leaking reports about how everybody in the White House is surprised that Jeff Sessions hasn't taken the hint and offered his resignation (again--he offered to resign once before, but Trump didn't take him up on it; supposedly Trump has rethought that decision). Rumor is that there will be further hints and maybe even an out-and-out firing of Sessions if he doesn't take the hint soon.
The point of this would be to install a new Attorney General who hadn't recused himself from the Trump/Russia Collusion investigations, somebody who could fire Mueller for him.
Well now! WaPo: Contrary to Session's prior testimony before Congressional committees, it appears that Sessions did discuss Trump's campaign with the Russians in that April 2016 meeting with the Russian Ambassador which he initially neglected to remember and then swore wasn't about the campaign or about American foreign policy in regards to Russia. Turns out our spooks intercepted the Russian Ambassador's reports on the meeting back to Moscow.
I would say this information hits the fan at an opportune time for Trump who wants to get rid of Sessions. Except that there is also the possibility that Sessions will now find himself looking at jail time and decide to roll on Trump.
This just keeps gettin’ deeper.
This just keeps gettin’ deeper.
What is that phrase, all it takes if for a few good men to do nothing. So all it takes is for a few people to decide either not to vote or to cast a protest vote and we get a government that is rife with possible treasonable offenses. All in the name of greed. Amazing.
On another note, the Minneapolis police chief has resigned. I don't know if that will make a difference or not.
As has Sean Spicer.
Well, at least Mellisa McCarthy has a day job.
Okay, so here's the thing… Somebody in the national security establishment has leaked the news that the Russians were talking among themselves about how Sessions was working with the Russians to get Shorthands elected. (At the very least discussing Shorthands' campaign matters with them, but if not to coördinate, then why?) Also Sessions is lying to the Congressional inquiries about whether or not he had those conversations with the Russians.
So, now we know the NSA knew about both things, #1) Sessions had the conversations, and then #2) he lied about it. And, if the NSA knows that Sessions did it, and then lied to Congress about it, how can Shorthands not know?
Predictably, Shorthands morning TrumpTweets are diversionary. He's all over Hillary Clinton and ‛leaks’, but no real mention of Session's dissembling.
Russia's Original Sin
Americans may have been shocked that, by his own account, the son of a U.S. presidential candidate found himself being hectored by a group of shady Russians about an 8-year-old case he had likely never heard of. Donald Trump Jr. had come to the meeting last June, after all, baited by promises of something much better: compromising material about Hillary Clinton. Yet the fact that a Russian lawyer reportedly spent what face time she had with Donald Trump’s campaign lobbying for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act should not surprise anyone who has spent the past decade observing her country. What Trump Jr. found himself unexpectedly ensnared by last year was, in a way, the original sin of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Before there was Syria, before Ukraine, before election meddling, there was the case of the murdered lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
It all comes back to money. I have to say that for some reason Donald Trump, Jr. is starting to remind me of Bernie Madoff's son. It took a while to bring Bernie to justice, but eventually the law did prevail.
Well, at least Mellisa McCarthy has a day job.
lol! I suspect that Sean Spicer may have difficulty finding something similar.
It has occurred to me today that Shorthands tweeted his displeasure about the new leaks regarding Sessions, but he didn't bother to express any surprise about the content of the intercepts. He has effectively admitted that he already knew Sessions was lying to Congress. (Of course, it would have been difficult to explain how his NSA people knew and he did not, so there's that.) This isn't going to help make his Russia/Collusion problems fade away.
PJMedia: Dedicated Trumpkin, Roger Simon threatens real, actual, blood in the streets, Civil War if Mueller discovers Trump to actually be in Putin's pocket.
Civil War if Mueller discovers Trump to actually be in Putin's pocket.
If anyone actually continues to support Trump if it does turn up that he has been in Putin's, or his oligarch supporters, pockets then I would have to question those people's loyalty as well. Civil war? I certainly hope it wouldn't come to that. I will always believe in America and the beliefs it was built on. For people to forget those principals because of a possible delusion of Putin's making would be a very sad state of affairs.
"I would have to question those people's loyalty as well."
It's a question of what they're loyal to. We've got cult behavior developing here. They're showing loyalty to the cult.
Originally Shorthands was supposed to be the genius outsider who was going to break through the old barriers. Now the story is rapidly changing to how he'd already be bringin’ Nirvana to the faithful except that he's being thwarted by ‘the Deep State’. It appears that his supposed ‘genius outsider dealmaking prowess’ is all forgotten; it's now all about how he's being twarted. New rationalizations will appear as needed to preserve their membership in the cult. They can't admit they got sold a bill of goods; that's too painful to contemplate.
Mr. Simon is demonstrating how painful it will be for some. (He can't deliver on the promised Civil War--maybe some John Brown assaulting the armoury at Harpers' Ferry type of thing at the worst.)
There will be some folks who peel off from the pack as it becomes more apparent that Shorthands is in over his head. But, it'll take awhile for them to be convinced; they were warned and they followed him anyway, and that's gonna make it harder for them to accept reality, but enough will eventually accept it, I think. How long it'll take, I don't know. Ain't yet. For now he's still holding at around 40% approval and that's enough to protect him from any impeachment attempts.
They can't admit they got sold a bill of goods; that's too painful to contemplate.
Nobody likes to admit they were wrong. But there also comes a time when they come to realize that they have been suckered by an expert flim flam man. It is at that point, when anger starts to set in, that they are quite happy with an examination of what is wrong. It happened with Bernie Madoff and if it comes to pass that Trump has engaged in illegal financial dealings in the past or is in some way trying to copy Putin's corrupt policies, which have left the average Russian poorer off, then I would hope people would realize this is not a partisan issue but an American one. I for one do not want to live in a country where the government does not represent ALL of the people.
"I for one do not want to live in a country where the government
does not represent ALL of the people."
I believe that ship's already sailed.
"[I]t's not crazy conjecture that [Trump] would try to replace the
attorney general with somebody not recused from the Russia probe.
The chatter is that Texas Senator John Cornyn, a Trump champion,
may be that somebody, with the calculation being that the Senate
usually confirms one of its own. The ultimate goal would be to rein in
Mueller. Or Trump himself might try to fire the special counsel."
Bloomberg
"Though plenty of people were grittin' their teeth to vote for her too…"
I see you're still fairly insistent on running off into irrelevancies. You're trying real hard there. But, I'm not running off on tangents with you here. (I'm not even sure why you're working it so hard. It's not like it helps your argument.)
We were talking about Trump voters. It's fairly axiomatic (and fairly obvious to all the rest of us) that people who voted for Hillary Clinton are not Trump voters.
TrumpTweets I'm not sure what exactly this is supposed to mean, but Shorthands is threatening ‘repercussions’ beyond all their understanding against his own Republican legislators for not coming up with something he can sign and call TrumpCare in opposition to ObamaCare.
Genius dealmaker in action there.
Can a sitting President be indicted?
Why is it that some article's I link to I can do a copy/paste of part of the content and some I can't? For some reason this one I can't. Here is the gist of it from a link embedded in the article.
Newly Disclosed Clinton-era Memo Says Presidents Can Be Indicted
By CHARLIE SAVAGE JULY 22, 2017
Although nothing in the Constitution or federal law explicitly says presidents are immune from indictment while they remain in office, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has asserted that they are. A newly disclosed legal memo from the office of Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Clinton, challenges that analysis. The National Archives made the memo public in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The New York Times.
I can see why Trump is so intent on discrediting, or perhaps even removing Mueller. That is, if Trump is guilty of something worth being indicted for. There may be a certain poetic justice if that memo is correct and it does come into play sometime in the future.
"Why is it that some article's I link to I can do a copy/paste of part of
the content and some I can't?"
I don't know. I've never had that problem. Perhaps you might try using a different browser on the articles in question. (Although, I had no problem copying from the article you linked using what I think is your default browser.)
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I am among the minority who think that a President can be indicted and should be indictable under appropriate circumstances. And I believe they should not be able to pardon themselves. I suppose Shorthands' tenure might provide us the opportunity to take those issues to the Supreme Court for determination (now that he's managed to install at least one more favorable judge). I'm pretty sure the questions will wind up there should the issues arise.
I seem to recall that Nixon was named as an unindicted co-conspirator by the Watergate prosecutor and I suspect Mueller will follow that precedent, but we won't know until he actually decides what he's gonna do and that's some time down the road yet.
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This is the week the repeal of ObamaCare is supposed to come up for vote in the Senate. I believe it's still scheduled for Tuesday, although McConnell has shown himself to be flexible on such things.
In what appears to be a breach of the traditional ‘hands off’ approach to the Justice Department practiced by prior Presidents of both parties, Shorthands has complained that Sessions isn't investigating Hillary Clinton (we can ignore for now Shorthands' very public decision soon after he was elected to just drop his accusations against Hillary; he's apparently changed his mind on that subject now--needs diversionary headlines). TrumpTweets
I don't know if he understands what a big deal this is (or would be if it were anybody other than Shorthands). It's just been assumed by both sides practically forever, a President doesn't want to be seen trying to meddle in specific investigations by the DoJ--that's supposed to be ‘hands off’ if ever anything was. But, Shorthands doesn't follow hardly any Presidential conventions, so we should probably not be surprised. (Although I must admit I am surprised by this one--this is a big breach. Probably a prelude to him firing Sessions if Sessions continues to not take the hint. Good chance he'll forget about this part of the story and just insist on the next AG firing Mueller and closing down the Special Counsel investigation entirely, and that'll be the last we hear of it.)
The Republican Party has been letting him get away with such as this so far. As long as he's holding at 40% favorable, they'll probably continue to let him get away with whatever he does. So I probably should not have been surprised, but I admit I was.
Perhaps you might try using a different browser on the articles in question.
Worked for me in Firefox, but not in Chrome. Weird.
I am among the minority who think that a President can be indicted and should be indictable under appropriate circumstances. And I believe they should not be able to pardon themselves. I suppose Shorthands' tenure might provide us the opportunity to take those issues to the Supreme Court for determination (now that he's managed to install at least one more favorable judge). I'm pretty sure the questions will wind up there should the issues arise.
No one should be above the law, including the President. So you can count me in with those who believe that a President can be indicted.
It's just been assumed by both sides practically forever, a President doesn't want to be seen trying to meddle in specific investigations by the DoJ--that's supposed to be ‘hands off’ if ever anything was. But, Shorthands doesn't follow hardly any Presidential conventions, so we should probably not be surprised.
I think the problem with Trump is that he still behaves as if he is running a private business, where he is really answerable to no one but himself. So what has been conventional is not of concern to him. Now, the problem with that is that he is answerable to others, the American people. He may be comfortable with his 40% support, but that still means there a majority that do not support him or are indifferent to him. That makes for an unstable future, for him and for the rest of us.
The Republican Party has been letting him get away with such as this so far.
There may be some softening of that support. I noticed that the new bill which would specifically deny Trump the ability to unilaterally lift sanctions from Russia has bi-partisan support.
"…or are indifferent to him."
55% unfavorable; so he's got a majority in the non-support column.
More TrumpTweets for a Tuesday morning. He's after Sessions again this morning, this time for not investigating Hillary Clinton's campaign. He seems to have forgotten that Sessions recused himself from all campaign related inquiries.
I don't think anybody can much doubt anymore that he's trying to push Sessions into resigning so he can appoint somebody who's not recused themselves from the campaign inquiries. And then have his new appointment shut down Mueller's investigation.
"…but not in Chrome. Weird."
Possible it's hung up trying to load background stuff. (I could use a stronger term than ‘stuff’, but that'll do for now.)
Check to see if the little X mark shows in the upper left in the address bar. If it's there, click it to stop it trying to load whatever's not loading and then try to copy again.
Nope, didn't work Oh well.
Well, it seems that the Senate has voted for continuing debate on the Republican health care bill. Discussion is fine, but passage of the current bill as it stands would be awful for the country. I can only hope there will be some thought put into what will happen to millions of Americans who will be affected.
"Well, it seems that the Senate has voted for continuing debate on
the Republican health care bill."
Indeed they did. And they're counting that much as great success. Little as it is.
On the other hand, the Republicans have strung out the ‘repeal and whatever’ drama for at least another week or so, maybe longer, maybe a lot longer. And, the longer they work on repealing ObamaCare the longer they put off work on their intended tax cuts for the rich. They expected to use this year's reconciliation bill to allow them to do their tax cuts and budget re-write. (They're using last year's reconciliation bill to do the ‘repeal and whatever’ for ObamaCare. Rules are you only get one per year, and only one at a time. So, they can't move on to taxes as long as they've got the ‘repeal ObamaCare’ plan still open.) I'm not yet sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing that they're getting delayed on their tax plans. I'm sure their tax plans are a bad idea for the country, but I'm not sure how to factor in the delay--whether it's ultimately gonna prove to be a good thing or a bad thing.
Meantime, it seems to me that the Republican rank and file have effectively called McConnell's bluff. He called for the vote thinking he could hang dissenters out to dry if they refused to take up the bill. He thought he was going to score on everybody by promising votes on everything. I don't know if he thought that one through all the way.
Now he's gotta face the votes on everything; three entirely different versions of where to go from here--repeal only (‘repeal and delay’ actually, but let's face it…), repeal and replace with a patchwork mess, or ‘repeal lite’ (I'll not bother to explain that one just now; it gets tricky). He still hasn't 50 votes for any of them, and it's unlikely he's gonna be able to bridge the gaps. Which means the most likely outcome is he wastes even more time (weeks? months?) on never getting an agreement among his caucus. This could be a problem. (See, ‘factor in the delay’ above ↑↑.)
And keep in mind, this was just a motion to consider the bill at all, just to begin debate. This is supposed to be pro-forma; this was supposed to be the easy part. The hard part may take longer. See, ‘factor in the delay’ above ↑↑.)
"…didn't work…"
No X (circular arrow instead)? Or, clicking on the X didn't help?
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The Senate has already voted down ‘repeal and replace’ as of last night. Repeal only is up next, probably today.
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I notice this morning that fully half of Trump voters think he won the popular vote. Politico.Poll
Lee, Lynnette:
"If anyone actually continues to support Trump if it does turn up that he has been in Putin's, or his oligarch supporters, pockets then I would have to question those people's loyalty as well. Civil war? I certainly hope it wouldn't come to that."
Ya'll really believe this Russsia Kookspiracy or are ya'll just following along because that's the main angle of attack against a President ya'll do not like?
I mean seriously. Fur Realz. Ya'll think Putin singled out Trump as a Mancdurian Candidate and got him elected? C'mon. You don't believe that if you're honest. Or do you?
"Ya'll really believe this Russsia Kookspiracy…"
I believe we have clear and convincing evidence that Trump Jr., Trump Son-in-Law, and Trump campaign manager met with folks they believed to be emissaries of the Russian government (Russian government lawyer) with the intention of acquiring Russian intelligence to be used against Hillary Clinton. This is not proof of collusion; merely proof of intent to collude. It is possible that Putin's government thought Shorthands to be too unreliable to work with and backed away from the idea after having discovered that Shorthands' people were receptive to the idea of working with Putin. I think that's unlikely though. I also think it's unlikely that the three of them met with persons they thought to be Russian emissaries without Shorthands' knowledge.
"…met surreptitiously with folks they believed to be emissaries of the Russian government…" And then they lied on their disclosure forms about whether or not they'd had such meetings with the Russians. (Remember, Shorthands himself admits the meeting went down--"Anybody would have taken that meeting", says he, after months of denying it ever happened.)
The Republicans' ‘repeal and delay’ on ObamaCare (which actually meant repeal and promise to replace later, which will never happen) has gone down the tubes this afternoon.
Next comes a vote on ‘repeal lite’ which means sending ObamaCare into that ‘death spiral’ they've been eagerly awaiting, but which hasn't come about. They do away with both the employer and individual mandates and maybe some of the associated taxes. (And, in case this isn't enough to cause the ‘death spiral’ then Shorthands still has the opportunity to unilaterally freeze the federal support payments, but this should do it.) I don't think they'll be able to pass this one either, but it's got the best chance of the three options that McConnell was considering; that's why he's saved it for last, so anybody might have preferred one of the other options has already lost that shot, and this is the last shot at it.
Or, clicking on the X didn't help?
That's correct.
What happens is that when I try to highlight the portion of text I would like to copy and paste it simply won't highlight it. So there is nothing selected to copy.
Okay, that gives me a couple of things to think about (unlike our very own Petes, I'm entirely uneducated on these matters, what little I know I've discovered by myself.) However, if the X appears it means the Chrome browser is still trying to download something, or trying to fit something into what it's already downloaded.
Let's try the easiest check. Try to paste without copying first (on the assumption that the browser might think you've already copied something. Like open Notepad or whatever's your default minimalist text editor. And try to paste into that. You'll probably get an error message or a glitch of some sort, but that's not the point here.). Then try to copy again (this time what you wanted to copy) after it wouldn't paste the first time.
This is hunt and try stuff--I've never used Windows 8, which, if I recall correctly is your preferred OS.
"…after it wouldn't copy the first time…
Or, you could just do the traditional first fix. Uninstall the Chrome browser and then reinstall it and see if it fixes on new install. (There are ways to save your bookmarks and settings if you need to do--Google search should turn up the specifics. Backup plan to simply copy the Chrome folders--Program Files\Google\Chrome\, AppData\Google\Chrome\ to storage elsewhere, in case you have to hunt for stuff later and if you have the room.)
Ya'll really believe this Russsia Kookspiracy or are ya'll just following along because that's the main angle of attack against a President ya'll do not like?
This isn't just about not liking Trump. His behavior has been questionable for some time and it does not wear well with age.
Ya'll think Putin singled out Trump as a Mancdurian Candidate and got him elected?
Unfortunately it was the American people who got him elected. Putin has just played on that. Whatever connection there is between Trump and the Russians it is such that for some reason the Trump camp believed the Russians were their allies in their efforts to get Trump elected. Why that would be is the question.
It's off I can highlight the title, but not the body of the article.
And, what did you do to get even that far? What worked half-way?
I just did the normal pressing the left key and swiping my finger. I didn't do a Cntrl A, because I don't want all of the content.
"…and then swiping my finger…"
Ah, touchscreen. I don't use mine. (laptop's actually closed up and sits over in the corner.) Try the Ctrl-A, then cancel that, and then try to copy again.
Back in Prague. Love this city. Very clean, very functional, very white. I could see myself moving here. No real coast though. Only river coast. Thats a downer for me.
Try the Ctrl-A, then cancel that, and then try to copy again.
Didn't work. I am resigned, it doesn't like me. I give up. Maybe some day it will resolve itself.
No real coast though. Only river coast. Thats a downer for me.
Think adaptation.
"I give up."
Too soon I'd think, but it's your choice to make. I'm thinking it's probably a scripting problem (javascript). You might want to check which version of java you've got installed and whether it's optimal for your Windows version. Meantime I guess the Firefox still works when you hit the glitch.
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