Here’s my Christmas nativity. The figures come from many places and times in my life.
No jackals, though, so peace on earth and good will to all the jackals here.
Cheryl Rofer wrote at Balloon Juice from 2017-21.
Cheryl is a retired chemist who has has been particularly active with nuclear policy. Cheryl has her own blog, Nuclear Diner, and she also posts at Lawyers, Guns & Money.
Twitter: @CherylRofer
This post is in: Open Threads
Here’s my Christmas nativity. The figures come from many places and times in my life.
No jackals, though, so peace on earth and good will to all the jackals here.
This post is in: Republican Venality, Russiagate, Our Failed Political Establishment
This is worth a thread, so that we can celebrate Christmas cheer on Betty’s thread below.
Donald Trump is attacking James Baker, the top lawyer at the FBI and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe has announced he is retiring.
Some responses:
The president can obstruct justice by firing senior law enforcement officials and impeachment is a fully constitutional remedy, says Bob Bauer. https://t.co/nLPOyQh5ii
— Lawfare (@lawfareblog) December 22, 2017
Most Americans have never witnessed such a tactic because most of our presidents have acted in good faith in this regard, allowing the Department of Justice and the FBI relative independence to uphold the law.
— Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) December 23, 2017
In many cases, this is accomplished by firing senior law enforcement officials en masse. Our norms make that difficult. So instead, Trump and his allies are working overtime to set the pretext for targeted firings, demotions, and forced retirements to accomplish the same thing.
— Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) December 23, 2017
This taunting is important. It’s Trump’s way of signaling that he has purged the FBI. He doesn’t want anyone to think this is a normal retirement. He wants everyone to see it as a manifestation of his power—and for serving FBI agents & prosecutors to fear crossing him. https://t.co/FfupKzvGKq
— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) December 23, 2017
Now if FBI’s Andrew McCabe and James Baker testify against Trump, he will claim it’s sour grapes because he forced them out of their jobs. This is an inversion of reality but it will satisfy Trump’s base.
— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) December 23, 2017
History suggests that it's not a super-great idea for an American president to wage war against the FBI and CIA.
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) December 23, 2017
And I expect there will be Republican congresscritters on the Sunday talk shows telling us it’s just fine for the President to attack particular individuals. Or maybe they’ll join in.
This post is in: Open Threads, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Not Normal
Sally Yates is, of course, the person who warned that Michael Flynn was compromised and then was removed as Acting Attorney General of the United States.
At some point, we are going to have to decide to live together in this country. Looking back to the Constitution is not a bad way to do that.
Yes, there are people who have bizarre ideas of what is in the Constitution. But that makes it all the more important to talk about it now. And we need to be able to call out the violations now in progress.
But while we have too often fallen short, we have remained dedicated to our defining principles in our resolve to form a more perfect union. These principles have remained if not fully who we are, at least who we seek to be.
Despite our differences, we as Americans have long held a shared vision of what our country means and what values we expect our leaders to embrace. Today, our continued commitment to these unifying principles is needed more than ever.
She does a nice gloss on the preamble and then adds some other thoughts.
And there is something else that separates us from an autocracy, and that’s truth. There is such a thing as objective truth. We can debate policies and issues, and we should. But those debates must be based on common facts rather than raw appeals to emotion and fear through polarizing rhetoric and fabrications.
Not only is there such a thing as objective truth, failing to tell the truth matters. We can’t control whether our public servants lie to us. But we can control whether we hold them accountable for those lies or whether, in either a state of exhaustion or to protect our own political objectives, we look the other way and normalize an indifference to truth.
I’m as angry as anyone, but when push comes to shove, we’re not going to be able to demand apologies or loyalty oaths from those who have supported unconstitutional actions. Some of those at the top, yes. But the historical reality is that some will apologize, some will quietly change sides, and others will actively try to hide their collaboration. I still think that a truth and reconciliation commission will be the best. We need to preserve our values in our own minds for now, so that we’re ready to deal with that later.
And yay Sally Yates! The model of a civil servant!
Open thread.
Sally Q. Yates On Who We Are As A CountryPost + Comments (196)
This post is in: Science & Technology, Daydream Believers
It turns out that the government had a secret program on Unidentified Flying Objects, and the New York Times just found out about it. It seems to have ended in 2012, but you never know about that black money!
There are a couple of videos in the article. This one is embeddable, the other one apparently not.
I’m not impressed by either; it seems odd they couldn’t bring the objects into focus, and the motion of the first suggests to me some sort of reflection, although I’d need to see more of the environment to call it that more positively.
But they’re probably not Venus, and it’s worth trying to figure out what they are if only to identify the circumstances that can convince pilots there’s something out there when there isn’t.
And much of the funding ($22 million over five years is not a lot) went to a friend of Harry Reid’s.
The truth is out there.
This post is in: Fables Of The Reconstruction, Science & Technology, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell, Good News For Conservatives, I Reject Your Reality and Substitute My Own
Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were told today not to use seven words in official documents they prepare for next year’s budget. The words are
vulnerable
entitlement
diversity
transgender
fetus
science-based
evidence-based
Instead of “science-based” or “evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” but in other cases, no substitute was suggested.
No names were given of people responsible for this dictum.
Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget
but, from the wording, it looks like it was a Party operative another official who gave the order. Or somebody told the senior CDC officials that that would be required.
“Transgender” and “fetus” are particularly problematic. The preference to replace “fetus” is probably “unborn baby.” I don’t want to imagine what they would prefer for “transgender.” Or, I guess, programs involving those nonexistent categories can just be struck. I’m sure the CDC budget will be decreased in any case.
Update: cthulu informs us that Kevin Drum has supplied substitutes. Here they are
This post is in: Open Threads
I see Anne is having technical problems and Betty is otherwise occupied, so here goes. I cannot reach their level of snark, so you need to be happy this is a morning open thread.
.@realDonaldTrump stands next to a stack of papers after announcing “We will get rid of the redundancy and duplication that wastes your time and your money.” #regulations pic.twitter.com/Vx8aecpFqe
— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) December 14, 2017
All were blank.
A White House official says the paper will be reused, per @jeneps. https://t.co/amDD2uSe9G— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) December 14, 2017
A slow, painful #Rexit: Trump allies say Tillerson has ‘not learned his lesson’ and cannot continue in job for long https://t.co/Jh7LIBCQMd
— Phillip Carter (@Carter_PE) December 15, 2017
It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for poor Rex. He’s actually made a few good decisions lately.
Why Kubrick cut the multiple presidential pie-throwing ending of ‘Dr Strangelove’, following the assassination of John Kennedy: https://t.co/AMMm1pw2la
— Graham Farmelo (@grahamfarmelo) December 15, 2017
Trump spoke with Murdoch ahead of Disney deal to make sure Murdoch wasn’t selling Fox News, person briefed on the call said
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) December 14, 2017
And here’s a Trump judicial nominee. What’s interesting is that the hard questioning is coming from Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a Republican. He has expressed concern about the people being nominated by Don McGahn, one of Trump’s lawyers and advisors.
MUST WATCH: Republican @SenJohnKennedy asks one of @realDonaldTrump’s US District Judge nominees basic questions of law & he can’t answer a single one. Hoo-boy. pic.twitter.com/fphQx2o1rc
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) December 15, 2017
What kinds of holiday preparation or celebration do you have planned for today?
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Rofer on Nuclear Issues, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell
For another war, because why not? The ones the last Republican President started are going so well.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that he was ready to start talks with North Korea without precondition. “We’ll talk about the weather if you like,” he said. He omitted the part about their having to give up their nuclear weapons and missiles first. But then his own spokesperson undercut him.
Our policy on #DPRK has not changed. Diplomacy is our top priority through our maximum pressure campaign. We remain open to dialogue when North Korea is willing to conduct a serious & credible dialogue on the peaceful denuclearization, but that time is not now.
— Heather Nauert (@statedeptspox) December 14, 2017
North Korea is making some signs that they would be open to discussions of – something – but definitely not giving up their nukes. So Tillerson’s offer was well-timed. But others in the administration, likely including National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster, have something else in mind. The problem is that nobody knows what it is.
A number of Washington-based nuclear experts on my Twitter timeline say that the administration seems determined to strike North Korea preventively. That’s likely a war crime, but let that go for now. Dan Drezner is worried, and Joshua Pollack lays it out in a tweet thread. Selected tweets from that thread:
For another, it's openly part of the White House's strategy to impress upon the Chinese in particular that if they don't fix this problem for us, we will have to "take care of it" ourselves.
— Joshua H. Pollack (@Joshua_Pollack) December 14, 2017
And indeed, if North Korea is too irrational to be deterred from using nuclear weapons, how are they rational enough to know when to concede to the pressure campaign?
— Joshua H. Pollack (@Joshua_Pollack) December 14, 2017
Lindsay Graham is beating the war drums. “Time is running out.” On whose timetable? In the 1950s, his arguments were made on hitting the Soviet Union to prevent them from getting a nuclear arsenal. In the 1960s, it was China. While it would be pleasant for us if they didn’t have nuclear weapons, we’ve all managed to live together for the past 60 years or so. We’ll manage with North Korea too.
It’s possible that the war talk is designed to convince China to magically fix things with North Korea. But they can’t. The US administration doesn’t seem to understand that.
If North Korea is attacked, it will devastate Seoul with conventional artillery. That’s been true for many decades, so Graham and McMaster should know that. Japan would probably take some hits too. My guess is that North Korea still doesn’t have a lot of nuclear-armed missiles deployed, but how about just a couple on Seoul, three on major cities in Japan, and one or two on the US West Coast? That could be pretty ugly, and dropping a bunch of nukes on North Korea wouldn’t bring back those millions of people. The scenario is worked out in more detail here and here.
Meanwhile, Nikki Haley is doing a Colin Powell to convince us that war with Iran is a good idea.
As badly as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone, war with North Korea or Iran would be worse. While you’re calling Congress to stop the tax plan, you might want to say that you wish Congress would hold hearings on administration plans for war against North Korea.