Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

White supremacy is terrorism.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Bad news for Ron DeSantis is great news for America.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

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Archives for March 2018

Whistleblower States that Cambridge Analytica, Subsidiary of British Defence Contractor to the Ministry of Defence and US DOD, Was a Bridging Node to the Russians

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This was a joint appearance event, including Q&A, held today in London. A lot of important news was made:

Chris Wylie’s answer here, if it is borne out, clearly places Cambridge Analytica, a subsidiary of the defense and intelligence contractor SCL, doing work for Russian interests. This is noteworthy for two different, but equally important reasons. The first is that it provides some of the first direct evidence, by direct statement of one of the principles and founders of Cambridge Analytica as a subsidiary of SCL, that Cambridge Analytica had concrete, for profit ties to Russia. Making it a bridging node in the network of groups, people, and organizations involved in the US 2014 and 2016 elections and the Russians. The second is that a subsidiary of SCL, which is essentially a private, for contract intelligence company, was doing work for Russian interests at the same time that the parent company was doing work for the British Ministry of Defence and the US DOD.

I’ve been a defense contractor off and on for over a decade. This included doing what is essentially a niche form of  intelligence work for the US Army. I have also served on two different term appointments as a senior civil servant under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act. One of my biggest concerns as a national security professional has always been about the privatization of intelligence work. I’ve had the pleasure of working for an excellent, small defense contractor (who I’m currently still with) that appreciates professional ethics, providing quality work for the governmental client, and has my back. This was also the case for the not for profit sponsoring agent for my Intergovernmental Personnel Appointment. Unfortunately, I’ve also worked for a terrible business development unit (BDU) of a very large multinational defense and intelligence contractor that, through hard experience, I trust to do what is best for their bottom line to the exclusion of all else – including the right thing. So I can say I’ve experienced the best and worst of the contractor world. Having a subsidiary of a defense and intelligence contractor that is doing political intelligence work for Russian interests at the same time that the parent company is doing intelligence and/or intelligence related work for the MOD, the DOD, and NATO should be raising red flags in DC, London, and Brussels. Given what we know of how Nix and his partners conduct business, national security and counterintelligence professionals in the US, the UK, and at NATO HQ should be very, very, very concerned that whatever they were paying SCL to do has managed to make its way to Cambridge Analytica’s Russian clients.

Other important news was also made at this event about Steve Bannon, Robert Mercer, and their interest in the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and Brexit:

You’ll notice that Andrew Breitbart’s “politics is downstream of culture” concept was in play here.

Finally, some absolutely revolting news was also broken at this event pertaining to Shahmir Sanni. If there is any justice left in Her Majesty’s kingdom, it will be the end of Theresa May’s political career, as well as the two lowlifes on her staff responsible for outing Sanni and placing his family in Pakistan in jeopardy:

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Whistleblower States that Cambridge Analytica, Subsidiary of British Defence Contractor to the Ministry of Defence and US DOD, Was a Bridging Node to the RussiansPost + Comments (241)

Deplorables on Parade Open Thread: Steve ‘Pig Muck’ King Lunges for A New Low

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Speaking of HERITAGE NOT HATE…


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Iowa-based, or knowledgeable, commentors: Which of these three have the best shot at unseating Rep. Pig Muck?

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Linda Brown, Pioneer of School Desegregation

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Linda Brown, at the center of the Brown v. Board of Education case that began the long end of school desegregation, died on Sunday in Topeka, Kansas, at the age of 76.

It is Ms. Brown’s father, Oliver, whose name is attached to the famous case, although the suit that ended up in the United States Supreme Court actually represented a number of families in several states. In 1954, in a unanimous decision, the court ruled that segregated schools were inherently unequal. The decision upended decades’ worth of educational practice, in the South and elsewhere, and its ramifications are still being felt.

“I feel that after 30 years, looking back on Brown v. the Board of Education, it has made an impact in all facets of life for minorities throughout the land,” Ms. Brown said in a 1985 interview for “Eyes on the Prize,” a PBS documentary series on the civil rights movement. “I really think of it in terms of what it has done for our young people, in taking away that feeling of second-class citizenship. I think it has made the dreams, hopes and aspirations of our young people greater, today.”

The ruling overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the separate but equal doctrine that formed the legal basis for Jim Crow laws. The court directed schools to desegregate “with all deliberate speed,” but it failed to establish a firm timetable for doing so. The Supreme Court would outline the process of school desegregation in Brown II in 1955, but it would take years for schools across the nation to fully comply.

Oddly, both the New York Times and the Washington Post (first two quotes) say that a more complete obituary will run later. Usually they have obituaries pre-written for notable people.

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Russiagate Open Thread: Today’s Cambridge Analytica / Facebook Thumbnails

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All this… seems significant. You more technologically adept people want to explain why it is or isn’t?

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Annals of Post-Racial America

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ETA: As someone in the borked comments pointed out and I hadn’t caught — this story is a couple of years old. Well, that’s a long time to sit in my open tabs, ain’t it?

I stand by everything said below, and note that this bolsters my view that Trump is a symptom, not a cause, of the deep pathology in which our nation finds itself. That he’s making it worse is true, but he’s only there in the first place because one of our political parties thought that power was worth race baiting for decades before he ever emerged from his first bankruptcy.

I’m still drowning in grading and book revisions, so I’m blogging even less than usual. But we need more thread, and I’ve some hate-opened browser tabs to clear, so I thought a dyspeptic proof-of-life post might be the thing.

Today’s 2016’s offering comes from the great state of Minnesota, where a restaurant operator had an interesting concept of an appetite-whetting joke:

According to the Minneapolis NAACP, Tyrone Williams and Chauntyll Allen were preparing to dine at Joe’s Crab Shack in Roseville on Wednesday night when they noticed a photo embedded inside the table.

It appeared to show a large group of white people watching a public execution of at least one black person. On the bottom of the picture, it reads: “Hanging at Groesbeck, Texas, on April 12th, 1895.” At the top, the caption reads, “All I said was that I didn’t like the gumbo.”

For some reason — who can imagine why? — when Williams and Allen registered what they were actually seeing, they were…how to put this?…unamused:

“Although the manager was apologetic about the lynching depiction, that does not change the fact that this sickening image of black men being lynched was intentionally embedded inside of a table,” Williams said. “This type of blatant racism should not be tolerated in this country, or in our local and national eating establishments. I have felt sick tomy stomach and stressed out since seeing that image on the table where I was planning to eat my food.”

Allen said she could not believe the image was used so casually.

“Seeing a picture of two black men being lynched was the last thing that I expected to see at what was supposed to be a family-friendly restaurant,” Allen said.

One would expect better — but despite Chief Justice Roberts’ certainty that the United States have gotten past racism, that was never true, and is even less so with the Racist in Chief infesting the Oval Office.

The photo was removed from the Roseville franchise — no word on whether it can be found elsewhere — and the COO of the chain’s parent company apologized, sort of:

We sincerely apologize to our guests who were disturbed by the image and we look forward to continuing to serve the Roseville community,” Catalano said in a statement.

Perhaps I’m too much of a stickler, but I think that telling a joke about a murder of two black men for the crime of being black is a universal problem, and not merely one in the context of those who were angered by the image.  I’m more worried about those who weren’t, who accepted the normalizing of race violence and an ill remembered and hence still present past.  That’s what’s wrong here: that this seemed funny to anyone, to the point that someone made the choice to put this on public display.

Feh.  The GOP has pursued a race-baiting strategy with success since Nixon. Trump’s the most egregious symptom of that tendency, but he’s hardly the driver of such hatefulness.  The ubiquity of casual racism and the constant threat of violence is the product of fifty years of a cynical, evil political choice to play on race to win power. It is certainly true that the Democratic Party is far from perfect on all of this, but this is not a both-sides situation. It isn’t going to get better until the GOP is a smoking crater on the political landscape.

And with that….talk among yourselves.

Image: Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942.

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Monday Morning Open Thread: Laugh or Cringe

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I will admit, David Axelrod made my morning, so I had to share before I dashed off to begin my week.

If you need some good twitter thoughts today, I suggest you follow the amazing young activists from Parkland. They continue to inspire.  @davidhogg111, @Emma4Change, @JaclynCorin to name just a few. 

What’s everyone up to on the first day of the work week?

Open thread

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