In Memoriam

Bunny Briggs, tap dancer.

Totally amazing.

In Memoriam

• P.D. James, mystery novelist.
• Stu Shiffman, fan artist.

Old Strands Still Waving

1. The Talking Dog interviews Jon Eisenberg, member of the legal team representing some of the Guantánamo detainees.
   

   Jon Eisenberg: It does indeed seem that the big victories in Guantánamo Bay litigation, such as in Boumediene (establishing habeas jurisdiction to order release from Guantánamo Bay) and Aamer (establishing habeas jurisdiction over conditions of confinement at Guantánamo Bay), turn out to be little more than theoretical. No detainee has yet managed to secure release or relief from abusive conditions solely because of judicial compulsion. But I do believe the continuing pressure of litigation, along with the ongoing hunger strike, is at least partly responsible for causing the Executive Branch to resume the releases of cleared detainees (which had been suspended for several years), and I know for a fact that Dhiab’s case caused the Department of Defense to suspend several of its more egregious force-feeding practices.

2. Roundup of the peaceful protests against the failure to indict the murderer of Michael Brown.

Breaking News

The murderer is going to get away with it.

(We'll see.  Unrest doesn't usually get this far from downtown, but this situation is ugly.  And this is not Missouri.)

(Whoooooops!  Sirens!  ETA:  Helicopters!)

Update: The morning after.  Thank you, Terrance, Republic of T.

Well, I was wrong.  That's not too far; I could hear faint wisps of chants and of course helicopters because those things are loud.  I had a peek out my window and saw one hovering.  And downtown got trashed again.

Let's see if I can get to church...

Remember --

Walking in the Sand?

The Maine?

When you ran away and I got on my knees and begged--  OK, probably not that one.

Back in August, the House Intelligence Committee (led by Republicans) declassified the report of the investigation into the attack on the consulate at Benghazi, Libya, but didn't make it public.

It has now been made public.

A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees.

Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.

[...]

... Many of its findings echo those of six previous investigations by various congressional committees and a State Department panel. The eighth Benghazi investigation is being carried out by a House Select Committee appointed in May.

Yup. The Party of Fiscal Responsibility (laughing yet?), wasting your money. Because they can. Lampreys.

[ETA: Charles Pierce (Esquire) has a response with appropriate .gif.]

[EFTA:  The actual report, via Kevin Drum via Mark Evanier.]

Oh?

Two paragraphs later, however, the Times dropped any pretense of fair and balanced reporting by presenting the institutional voice of people who have very little interest in journalism, or, for that matter, democracy: “In many ways,” quoth the Times, “Tuesday’s election results clear a path for Mrs. Clinton. The lopsided outcome and conservative tilt makes it less likely she would face an insurgent challenger from the left.”

[...]

Chozick evidently couldn’t be bothered to call anyone identified with “the left.” She did mention an additional “silver lining” for the Clinton campaign: the “diminished … likelihood that former Gov. Martin O’Malley, another Democrat, would emerge as a serious primary challenge to Mrs. Clinton.” But, again, it doesn’t appear that Chozick tried to call O’Malley or his “advisers.” Nor, apparently, did she attempt to contact former Sen. Jim Webb (D., Va.), or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), both of whom are contemplating challenges to Clinton from this mysterious region that sits to the west when one is facing north. Mysterious because nowhere did the Times define “the left” or what might excite its opposition to Clinton. Our imaginations are allowed to run wild: Is “the left” a terrorist organization? A part of the outfield? Or is it just not worth mentioning?

John R. MacArthur, Harper's.  On the "'Left'?  What 'Left'?" sidelining of, well, what might be called the progressive tendency or anti-conservatism by major media outlets like the New York Times.  With bonus dig at Paul Krugman.

In Memoriam

• Jimmy Ruffin, singer.
• Mike Nichols, stage and screen director (and way, way back, comedian).

While U Wait

• Media distraction.  (AlterNet)

  The most critical problem American society faces right now is, arguably, inequality, and the plutocracy that benefits from it, and the corruption that puts remedies for it beyond our constitutional reach. Every breathless story about impeachment occupies bandwidth not given to exploring the structural problems that Naomi Klein addresses in This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, or the disinformation that Paul Krugman decimates in his columns, or the oligarchy that the Occupy movement was crushed for trying to put on the national agenda.

  It's almost impossible to avoid junk news now.  Even the New York Times does "lifestyle journalism."  (OK, it isn't your lifestyle; when I lived in New York, it wasn't my lifestyle either, and I occasionally bought stuff at Zabar's.  But the reader is supposed to go "Oooooooh," and the advertisers are supposed to pony up.  That's not a newspaper's purpose.)  The fact that I have some vague idea who the Kardashians are is more down to osmosis.  (Because why else would I even know?)
• American violence and its roots.  (Obsidian Wings)

  So as we wait for the Grand Jury report from Ferguson and see police and National Guard forces being rallied "just in case", read some of the accounts in Killed By Police. Notice how many people are killed for "non-compliance", or for holding a knife, or for burglary, or for other crimes that do not normally get the death penalty. Notice how much damn sloppiness we tolerate from police -- who really killed 5-year-old Cadence Harris, after all?
  
  We tolerate these things because we're used to them, because we have a centuries-old tradition of authorities compelling submission by violence. The past isn't dead.

• Moving forward.  (Republic of T)

  The aftermath of Michael Brown’s death, revealed Pentagon program that has distributed paramilitary weapons and equipment worth $4.3 billion since 1992. What if we had infested even a fraction of the $4.3 billion in education, training, and jobs for young people in places like Ferguson?

  22 years. 4.3 billion. Tell me again about how Americans love their children? Because I'm not seeing it.
  

All three of these are Read The Whole Thing.

In Memoriam

Ray Sadecki, pitcher.

[ETA:  Faith and Fear in Flushing's appreciation of Mr. Sadecki.]

Housekeeping Note

Housekeeping has happened.  A few blogs have gone to Archived Blogses, mostly for not having updated in a year; Velma (Roadnotes) passed away shortly after her last entry, so that rather than expecting an update I've moved her link.  This does not apply to Mary Kay; she just hasn't updated since last year (I wonder if she's down here for the Bead Show).  Group News Blog has been showing sporadic signs of Evan Robinson, so I moved it to Time Insensitive.  (Beautiful photos, by the way!)

I'm thinking of switching Daisy and Shakesville, but I haven't decided yet.

Veterans/Armistice Day

War is an intelligence test, and we keep flunking.

Other people saying more eloquent things:

• Group News Blog (Evan Robinson):

  At least be conscious that there are nearly 20 million Americans who signed up to go into harms way for the rest of us. Try to be worthy of that.

• filkerdave:

  On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the guns fell silent.
  
  Thank you to all who served.

  Note the first comment.
  
• Vagabond Scholar (Batocchio) has a Walt Kelly quote and a list of links.
  
• Rolling Around In My Head (Dave Hingsburger):

  I'm glad my poppy is on my hat.
  
  I'm glad that some people will think it's 'gay'.
  
  Because gay people fought and died, gay people still fight and still die, in defence of their country, in defence of the freedom. Gay people fought in the First and Second World Wars. Gay people fought for countries that would jail them for who they were. Gay people fought for the ideal of freedom when freedom was denied to them in their home countries.

• Dr. Grumpy on the Navajo code talkers (warning for torture).
• ETA: Driftglass, making a point about the current war(s) via an excerpt from General Daniel P. Bolger in the New York Times.

Picky, Picky, Picky

There's Veterans' Day linkage I'm going to want to use.  Meanwhile...

Rand Paul thinks (NO!  Really?) that Hillary Clinton will be too old for the Presidency by 2016.  (She would be the age of the sainted Reagan.)  Now, I remember Presidents being old, old men (mostly relative to me, but largely in their 50s and 60s); the fact that President Obama only started getting AARP mailings in his first term (as did Bill Clinton;  John F. Kennedy was not eligible, assuming the existence of AARP back then) just means that he is an old, old man before his time.

Meanwhile, nothing from Rand Paul indicates the existence of a brain inside.  Even a bag of bran would suffice.

(Link from Shakesville.)

Outside Agitation

The Rude One has a suggestion or two:

You tell the story of how government works, not how it fails, not how it harms. How it works. How it helps. How it's supposed to be there for the citizens of the nation.

This is the beginning of the new narrative. It's not saying, "Republicans say these bad things. Here are good things." It's not a call for revolution. It's not saying that some people are evil (although some very much are). It's implying, "Do you want to squash the dreams of these American Americans or do you want them to flourish?" It's asking, "Who are you?" and "Who are we?" That's what voting answers.

It certainly couldn't hurt.

*Ahem*

• Via Mark Evanier, via Avedon Carol, Bruce Bartlett confirms my suspicions.  I would note that the President's more an Eisenhower Republican than, say, a Ted Cruz Republican, but there you are.  (Mr. Bartlett is what David Brooks wants to be when he grows up and develops an actual intellect.)
• Live Journal (remember Live Journal?) positions itself as the unFacebook, although not in so many words; also, the revamped layout for profiles is now the only layout for profiles.  Ick.
• Interesting homily on the Wise and Foolish Virgins parable.

Your Fellow Humans

• In the Creepy and Probably Lying department,"a man who wants to obtain information about 70 licensed strippers in his town so he can 'pray for them'" has been blocked by temporary injunction and he is, of course, squealing:
  

  "He essentially silenced 7 million people in the state of Washington to protect 70 people's so-called right to privacy who dance on a stage naked," he said.

  Now, I'm pretty sure that if he really wanted to pray for them, he could just do that.  God knows precisely whom one is praying for, even if one doesn't know the name.  God actually doesn't need "their full names, addresses, photos and dates of birth." God has a fuller and more detailed database than either the NSA or Google (although they're trying).  I'm also pretty sure that 7 million people in the state of Washington don't feel themselves silenced and could not care less (stalker-and-psychopath population excepted).  I'm not seeing any possible benign purpose here.
• I couldn't find that story at seattlepi.com, but there was a charming photo gallery of musicians who are still performing though they are *gasp* 70 or older, both current and historical pictures, although one of their examples has a throat infection and has had to cancel the Melbourne, Australia performance.
• (Why yes, I was disappointed Tuesday.  Little by little, I'm approaching the mindset that the universe is malign and that withdrawal from society would be the smartest thing I could do.  And I have to wonder what version of the Gospels the people of Fort Lauderdale have read.  But the library has a book on hold for me, so total hermitting will not happen just yet.)
  
  (Yes, this will be crossposted.  Deal.)
• Back 98 years ago, people wanted to know what was happening in the war.  It's not that people don't still want to know.  It's that news sources have airbrushed the war(s) almost to invisibility and the politicians don't make a point of it.
• Oh, and Mikhail Gorbachev says we're on the brink of a new Cold War.  We missed the old one so much...

Exercising the Franchise

I have voted.  You?

Republican Satanic Panic Voter Fraud Hunt Raises Its Ugly Head

Via Zandar Versus The Stupid, an article from Greg Palast at Al-Jazeera America about attempted mass disenfranchisement.

The Crosscheck list of suspected double voters has been compiled by matching names from roughly 110 million voter records from participating states. Interstate Crosscheck is the pet project of Kansas’ controversial Republican secretary of state, Kris Kobach, known for his crusade against voter fraud.

The three [Georgia, Virginia, and Washington] states’ lists are heavily weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel and Kim — ones common among minorities, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, fully 1 in 7 African-Americans in those 27 states, plus the state of Washington (which enrolled in Crosscheck but has decided not to utilize the results), are listed as under suspicion of having voted twice. This also applies to 1 in 8 Asian-Americans and 1 in 8 Hispanic voters. White voters too — 1 in 11 — are at risk of having their names scrubbed from the voter rolls, though not as vulnerable as minorities.

If even a fraction of those names are blocked from voting or purged from voter rolls, it could alter the outcome of next week’s electoral battle for control of the U.S. Senate — and perhaps prove decisive in the 2016 presidential vote count.

A lot of people have the same first, last, and middle name.  In my ninth grade science class there were two Steven Goodmans (same spelling of Steven) who lived in the same (large) neighborhood.  They did not resemble each other, but the teachers had a bit of trouble distinguishing one from the other.  I met a third Steven Goodman in college.  He groaned in his sleep.  Presumably all three have different SSNs, but mistakes have been made when writing numbers.  And they all (at the time) lived in the same state.  110,000,000 voter records in 27 states?  Good luck.

Even 2,000,000 (that's two million; you wouldn't want to scan that data by hand) names are going to have duplicates and triplicates, not from fraud, but from the fact that people have names, not numbers.  And get named after their parents and may live with said parent, y'know, at the same address.  Or have common first names paired with common last names.  Not everyone names the baby after characters in movies and operas, and some people legally change what they're called.  And I seem to remember that an awful lot of people whose only crime, you should excuse the expression, was having the same names as convicted felons were stricken from voter rolls in Florida in 2012.

These are not people "concerned" about "voter fraud" (in fact, what minute fraud has been discovered seems to have been perpetrated by conservatives).  These are people trying to strip the franchise from non-conservatives.

VOTE this Tuesday.  Anyone telling you not to vote is trying to sell something, probably you.

(See my post from 2011 for back story.)