You stop being racist and I’ll stop talking about it.

Tonightly, the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia with our panel Joe Morton, Naomi Ekperigin, and Rory Albanese.

OK let me break it down, there were 3 official flags of the Confederate States of America.  The first was the Stars and Bars that had a Blue Canton with one White Star for each State (varying from 7 to 13) in a circle, superimposed on a field of 3 horizontal Stripes- Red, White, and Red.  That one was used from 1861 to 1863.  The second was the Stainless Banner which had a Canton based on the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia superimposed on an all White field.  That one was used until spring of 1865 when they added a broad Vertical Red Stripe opposite the Canton on the field because several officers complained that it looked too much like a White Flag of Surrender.  The last one is called the Blood Stained Banner ironically.

So these jackasses are not only racists, they’re morons.

Continuity

Too True

This week’s guests-

• Tuesday 6/23: Seth MacFarlane
• Wednesday 6/24: Andrew Napolitano
• Thursday 6/25: Richard Lewis

Seth MacFarlane will be talking about Ted 2 which you might like if you liked Ted.  It strikes me as a total waste of time and money not just for the audience but also everyone involved including craft services.

Al Franken’s 2 part web exclusive extended interview and the real news below.

You stop being racist and I’ll stop talking about it.

Tonightly Obama drops the N-bomb.  Our panel is Gayle King, Riki Lindhome, and Jordan Carlos.

Continuity

If you haven’t seen this yet, you really should.

This week’s guests-

• Monday 6/22: Al Franken
• Tuesday 6/23: Seth MacFarlane
• Wednesday 6/24: Andrew Napolitano
• Thursday 6/25: Richard Lewis

Al Franken is kind of a disappointment to me.  I’ve met him personally exactly once at a reception to promote his candidacy and he’s funny as you might imagine and doesn’t give off the same sellout weasel vibe that radiates from Joe Lieberman like the heat from a baking, humid parking lot when you open an air conditioned door, the kind that smacks you in the face from 20 feet away.

On the other hand he’s bad on Intellectual Property, not so good on trade, fair to middling on most everything else, and pretty ok on Foreign Policy and Drone Assassination, Domestic Surveillance, and Torture.

So there are worse Senators, but there are better ones too.  Feel the Bern.

The U.S. Women’s Football team is currently ranked third in the world after Japan and Germany, the defending champions.

During the Group competition the U.S. advanced as expected, winning their Group which was considered the toughest, but while undefeated they didn’t win all their matches like the Japanese.  Also they’ve had difficulty scoring, converting only 4% of their chances (for comparison their team average is 11% and the average of all the remaining teams is 15%).

Starting with this round it is single elimination.  Ties will be decided in extra time or, if necessary, Shootouts.  If things go to plan Team USA will face Germany in the Semifinals June 30th and Japan in the Finals on July 5th.

Advancing so far in the Round of 16 are-

Tonight’s contest is against Columbia which they should win, but they take their football very seriously in South America and there aren’t many weak programs.  If they advance they will face China on June 26th.  China’s program is improving quite rapidly though they are not considered top contenders.

Television coverage is on Fox Sports One at 8 pm ET.

Ok, so I’m not warm and cuddly like TMC when she rails against winter.  In fact I’m not warm and cuddly at all and I have this personal space zone that can vary from a foot to miles and miles (she’s not all that warm and cuddly either which is why we get along).

Anyway what bugs me are zombies.  Ideas you kill and kill and kill and still they will not die, like all the issues on the conservative social agenda.  It’s even worse when your former friends and comrades turn on you and you understand how shallow your relationship is with them really is and how much they exploit you.

Brains!

I can understand why they want them because unless you understand that you need to have some sincerity with the people you represent they will come to resent your constant lies and turn against you which ought to be the end of your miserable and dispised existence.

Me, I prefer the 32 ounce bat of ash both because it’s traditional and easy to swing, but the rules specify only the length of 42 inches and the barrel which must be no more than 2 and 3/4 inches in diameter.  Of course, a 5 iron also works.

Labor amps up pressure on key senators ahead of trade vote

By Lauren French, Politico

6/19/15 7:11 PM EDT

Officials with the Coalition to Stop Fast Track, comprised of unions and other progressive groups that oppose the trade legislation, said labor leaders plan to call senators over the weekend, as well as hold events and make phone calls to intensify opposition as the debate moves to the Senate.

It’s also expected to be the main topic of conversation when union activists huddle at AFL-CIO headquarters Monday morning for a strategy session.

“This (House) vote won’t stop us,” Communications Workers of America President Chris Shelton said. “CWA members, union members and activists from nearly every progressive group are fighting back against this sell-out by some members of Congress. We expect our representatives to listen to their constituents, and we’re taking that message to the Senate.”

Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell addresses the monthly meeting of the Rotary Club, Tuesday, May 26, 2015, in Elizabethtown Ky. During his speech, Sen. McConnell said he would call the Senate into session Sunday to seek action on the extension of the USA Patriot Act set to expire at midnight May 31. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) conceived an elaborate plan to resurrect the trade legislation after House Democrats thwarted it a week ago. It appears to have a decent chance of success. But there are still real hurdles, and the trade debate has already encountered many unexpected twists, giving opponents hope.

The core GOP strategy was to delink so-called Trade Promotion Authority – which would give President Barack Obama power to complete the Pacific Rim trade deal without having it be amended by Congress – from a companion measure called Trade Adjustment Assistance to help workers who lose their jobs to free trade. The decision to separate them was a direct response to the move by House Democrats to vote down the aid program last week, in order to tank the entire trade agenda.

The House passed TPA narrowly on Thursday, and a key vote on it is expected Tuesday in the Senate. But some pro-trade Democrats are wary of the separation strategy, seeking a guarantee from the Republican leaders that they will subsequently pass TAA. Boehner and McConnell have said they will, but several Democrats aren’t satisfied yet.

Obama and pro-trade Senate Democrats, led by Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), need to convince 5 to 6 Democrats to back the deal.

That’s already a hard sell, and labor is aiming to make an even tougher one.

Over the past several months, unions have threatened to support primary opponents and withhold campaign money from lawmakers who back the trade legislation. Now labor is turning its attention to the Senate.

Time to hit this with a shovel and drop a piano on it.

Without too much in preliminaries, the British Coalition’s position at Waterloo was very strong.  The rolling farmland provided plenty of opportunities for protection from direct fire in the line of sight, which is what the French had, while Coalition indirect fire (Howitzers and Mortars) was relatively unimpeded despite the fact they had fewer Artillery pieces overall.

The Coalition was in fortified defensive positions awaiting relief from the Prussians who despite their defeat at Ligny the previous day were well enough organized to field a force about half the size of the entire French army by the late evening.

For his part Napoleon had been able to interpose his army between the divided forces as he had often in the past and planned to use his interior lines of communication to defeat his enemies piecemeal.  It almost worked.

Napoleon did beat Blucher handily but was unable to inflict the level of disorganization necessary to cause his retreat.  Still, he turned his army to face Wellington and the Coalition.  The forces were evenly matched which is a disadvantage for the attacker that can only be overcome by producing uncertainty and command paralysis in the defender and exploiting the weak points that develop.

Unfortunately for Napoleon, Wellington was a General not much given to introspection and he himself was not at the top of his game.  Suffering from dehydration and cramps he had to retire from the field during a critical point in the battle and turn over direction of his army to Marshal Ney, his cavalry commander and a person of dubious loyalty and appallingly bad judgement.

Ney promptly mistook a normal rotation to reorganize damaged units as a general retreat and sent his calvalry charging in where they were predictably (and not to the credit of the same genius mentality in World Wars 1 & 2) slaughtered.

After recovering a bit personally Napoleon was left without many reserves except his Imperial Guard who had never suffered defeat in battle though that was mostly due to the fact they’d seldom been committed before the outcome was decided.  After their assault was beaten back like Pickett’s Charge and Blucher’s units came up in relief the fight was over and the fate of Europe decided.

Kind of.  I won’t dwell today on how the playing fields of Eaton led to the Poppies of Flanders and the death camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau because I want to talk about music.

Never get involved in a land war in Asia

You fool!  You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!  Inconceivable!

This famous, and public domain, infograph illustrates what happened to Napoleon in Russia in 1812 where he took the most powerful army in the history of the world to that point and basically pissed it away.  Not that capturing Moscow would have mattered much to the Romanovs who ruled from St. Petersburg anyway.  You may ask why the U.S. Army has 9 support troops for every Infantryman.  This is why.  Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.

The Russians counted it a great victory though it was entirely inevitable, and it is a touchstone of patriotism (for Russians).  The most iconic (we get to irony later) expression of it in the West is The Year 1812.

It only took 6 weeks to write which is kind of unsurprising given that it’s an aggregation of national anthems and folk tunes that perfectly encapsulates the Romantic Nationalist vision.  Among oddities it is in fact scored for carillons and cannons which gives modern orchestrators some problems reproducing, it’s ironic given the current social climate in Russia that it was written by one of the most clearly homosexual composers, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who personally conducted it at the dedication of Carnegie Hall.

It’s hard to imagine that history is so recent and accessible, that the things you read about in dry dusty old books happened to real people.

My Grandfather knew War of Southern Rebellion veterans who served in the Michigan Brigade (Custer was an idiot).  Tchaikovsky knew people who had served in the First Great Patriotic War (not that they called it that).  I have watched conductors who studied under Tchaikovsky, lots of them.

Many things we think of as contemporary have roots in the past, but in comparison to deep time, the 4.5 Billion year history of the Earth or the 14 Billion year history of the Universe, they are bare blips.  How far have we evolved?

Obligatories, News and Blogs below.

You start convicting War Criminals and I’ll stop talking about it.

Top officials charged with violating constitution with 9/11 detainee abuse

by Tom McCarthy, The Guardian

Wednesday 17 June 2015 17.33 EDT

A US appeals court on Wednesday reinstated a claim against former attorney general John Ashcroft and other Justice Department officials, stemming from the abuse of Arab and Muslim men and others detained for months in New York and New Jersey after the September 11 attacks.

The unusual decision cleared the way for once-anonymous plaintiffs to advance charges that the top officials in the Justice Department had violated their constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law. The suit seeks class-action status for all detainees similarly abused.

A lower court had found that Ashcroft and his co-defendants, former FBI director Robert Mueller and former INS commissioner James Ziglar, had not been sufficiently linked to the abuse of detainees to support the plaintiffs’ claims.

In its reversal of that decision, the US court of appeals for the second circuit asserted that the justice department officials had put policies into place that were conducive to the abuse, that they knew the abuse was happening and that they knew the detainees weren’t terrorism suspects.

…

The current complaint is joined by eight named plaintiffs, all of whom were caught up in law enforcement sweeps that netted hundreds of men after the 9/11 attacks. The “9/11 detainees” had in common an unresolved immigration status and a perceived Arab or Muslim background, although others were also targeted.

A justice department inspector general’s report in 2003 detailed the mistreatment of the detainees. Under a “hold-until-cleared” policy implemented by Ashcroft, no such detainee was to be released until the FBI cleared the detainee of links to terrorism.

The result, in some cases, was months of detention without charges, abuse at the hands of guards, solitary confinement and other punitive measures. The complaint details gratuitous strip searches, beatings, broken bones and verbal abuse. In one case, a Buddhist from Nepal who had lived in the United States for five years was arrested for filming a Queens street, and held and abused in a Brooklyn detention center for three months.

In another, a Pakistani father of four was arrested at his New Jersey home after his wife’s brother’s name came up in a separate investigation. The father convinced agents to take him instead of his wife because his youngest child was still breastfeeding. He was beaten up, thrown into walls, shackled and threatened with death during four months in custody.

The appeals court found those measures to be “punitive and unconstitutional”.

What’s surprising is that the charges got reinstated.

Torture is a war crime the government treats like a policy debate

by Trevor Timm, The Guardian

Wednesday 17 June 2015 07.15 EDT

One would’ve thought pre-9/11 that it would be hard to write the current law prohibiting torture any more clearly. Nothing should have allowed the Bush administration to get away with secretly interpreting laws out of existence or given the CIA authority to act with impunity. The only reason a host of current and former CIA officials aren’t already in jail is because of cowardice on the Obama administration, which refused to prosecute Bush administration officials who authorized the torture program, those who destroyed evidence of it after the fact or even those who went beyond the brutal torture techniques that the administration shamefully did authorize.

Since the Senate’ report reinvigorated the torture debate six months ago, Obama officials have continued to try their hardest to make the controversy go away by stifling Freedom of Information Act requests for the full report and, in many cases, refusing to even read it. And Bush-era law-breakers were even given the courtesy of having their names redacted from the report, sparing them of public shaming or criticism, despite clear public interest to the contrary.

Instead of treating torture as the criminal matter that it is, the Obama administration effectively turned it into a policy debate, a fight over whether torture “worked”. It didn’t of course, as mountains of evidence has proved, but it’s mind-boggling we’re even having that debate considering that torture is a clear-cut war crime. It’s like debating the legality of child slavery while opening your argument with: “well, it is good for the economy.”

But that’s now where we stand. While torture victims are without recourse – for over a decade, Guantanamo prisoners have been barred from testifying about what the CIA did to them – torture architects are television pundits, appearing on the big networks’ Sunday shows to defend one national security excess or another. They’re given enormous book contracts and 60 Minutes puff pieces, while almost universally avoiding tough questions, let alone an indictment. Those still inside government have not only avoided reprimand, but have gotten promotions.

And you shouldn’t be astonished that they would try to cover up War Crimes as a debate over policy.  It is, of course, the exact excuse the Reagan Administration used to obsfuscate that they were traitorously selling arms to declared enemies of the United States in the Iran-Contra plot.

What do you want?  Blood?

Is tonightly another bag o’ grab?  Nope, Charleston.  The panel is Joaquin Castro, Christina Greer, and Mike Yard.

Continuity

More important than a blue dress.

Next week’s guests-

• Monday 6/22: Al Franken
• Tuesday 6/23: Seth MacFarlane
• Wednesday 6/24: Andrew Napolitano
• Thursday 6/25: Richard Lewis

Well, if you were disappointed or upset that the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize went to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for that little thing about keeping the U.S. out of Syria which is still a good idea despite the brain damaged warhawks in D.C. you need not have worried because at 17 Malala Yousafzai continues to be the youngest recipient ever even though she had to wait an extra year.  I kind of think we should have waited a year or so in 2009 in retrospect.

Anyway she’s back and her recent awards are a Grammy for Best Children’s Album and an asteroid that has been named after her.

Bill Clinton’s three (count ’em, 3!) part web exclusive extended interview and the real news below.

As part of my training to be capo di tutti I attended innumerable seminars where we would break into teams and play “Leadership Training Games” that were supposed to teach us this or that lesson about being an effective leader.

Now the one I actually learned the most from was one in which our team was split into two groups with one group sent into exile while the rest of us were supposed to find a way to teach them how to solve a paper puzzle, you know the type, like making a representation of a house or a duck from various squares and triangles.

Since I am assertive and leadership-like I soon enough dominated my directions team into submission where we proceeded to write totally idiot proof instructions for solving the puzzle.  It was a complete failure.

I have mercifully blotted from my mind whether we finished dead last or didn’t complete the puzzle at all, but the winning team simply removed it from the test area and showed it to their exiles, put it together once or twice, and then let them practice which was not against the rules, all without saying a word, which was.

I think that was the begining of my retreat from neo-liberalism though I still have a counter-productive tendency to imagine I control more than I do.

Why the Trans Pacific Partnership is Nearly Dead

Robert Reich

Sunday, June 14, 2015

(C)onsider a simple game I conduct with my students. I have them split up into pairs and ask them to imagine I’m giving $1,000 to one member of each pair.

I tell them the recipients can keep some of the money only on condition they reach a deal with their partner on how it’s to be divided up. They have to offer their partner a portion of the $1,000, and their partner must either accept or decline. If the partner declines, neither of them gets a penny.

You might think many recipients of the imaginary $1,000 would offer their partner one dollar, which the partner would gladly accept. After all, a dollar is better than nothing. Everyone is better off.

But that’s not what happens. Most partners decline any offer under $250 – even though that means neither of them gets anything.

This game, and variations of it, have been played by social scientists thousands of times with different groups and pairings, and with remarkably similar results.

A far bigger version of the game is being played on the national stage as a relative handful of Americans receive ever-larger slices of the total national income while most Americans, working harder than ever, receive smaller ones.

And just as in the simulations, those receiving the smaller slices are starting to say “no deal.”

Some might attribute this response to envy or spite. But when I ask my students why they refused to accept anything less than $250 and thereby risked getting nothing at all, they say it’s worth the price of avoiding unfairness.    

Remember, I gave out the $1,000 arbitrarily. The initial recipients didn’t have to work for it or be outstanding in any way.

When a game seems arbitrary, people are often willing to sacrifice gains for themselves in order to prevent others from walking away with far more – a result that strikes them as inherently wrong.

The American economy looks increasingly arbitrary, as CEOs of big firms now rake in 300 times more than the wages of average workers, while two-thirds of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

I’m a bit more generous, I think a 50/50 split is fair and even a dollar is better than nothing, but I’ve been trained.