Other Voices Weigh In On The Democratic Debates

Scenes from the first (left) and second nights of the Democratic debates.

Once again, the Dem debates - with so many contending voices - and so little time (on that account) to properly address questions-  ended up more helter skelter than focused.  Tuesday night, it turned out, became a battle of the 'moderates' vs. liberals, with a few solid points scored by both sides, but we didn't stay around long enough to be able to expatiate on any particular aspects. We ended out CNN viewing barely an hour into the fracas.

Same on night two, with many of the same complaints, too many debaters,  not enough time for each candidate to deal with the questions.  Because of the number of debaters you also had the desperation factor inducing a number of 'cage matches' - such as Biden vs, Kamala Harris, and Tulsi Gabbard vs, Harris, as well as Booker vs. Biden.   Let's be clear none of these mutual sniper shots redounds to the Dems' benefit,  so the sooner the field is narrowed the better. Fortunately that will occur with the September debate with the much higher threshold for entry: 130,000 different donors, and at least a 2 percent poll rating and in four different polls. That will automatically nullify 13 of the current contenders so we can expect more  time for thoughtful answers, fewer spontaneous cage matehes and also less biased questions.

That there was too much framing, also, by the moderators of both MSNBC and CNN was evident. And one hopes they get their act together by the September debate.   They were, however, right to press the candidates on whether taxes will be raised on the middle class. This is given we already know Bernie  Sanders has conceded $32 trillion will be needed to implement his 'Medicare for All' plan and he has admitted middle class taxes would have to be increased, The bill can't be paid only by the billionaires.   The fact that none of the candidates - save Michael Bennett- was honest about financing (raising middle class taxes)  doesn't bode well for any  Dem in debates vs. Trump.  As MSNBC commentator Ezra Klein put it in the post-debate analysis, they all need to be "more honest about financing."

 Anyway, here are the takes of other voices:

2020 Elections | Democrats

Here Are 9 of the Best Moments and 7 of the Worst from Tuesday’s 2020 Democratic Primary Debate

2020 Elections | Democrats

Here Are 7 of the Best Moments and 4 of the Worst from the Second CNN Democratic Primary Debate

Biden Did Fine. That Might Have Been Enough

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/us/politics/debate-joe-biden.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage


Winners and Losers of the Democratic Debate, Night 2

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/01/opinion/debate-winners-losers.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

2020 Elections | Democrats

Debating Democrats, Please, No Fighting in the War Room

Excerpt:

 "My teeth grind when I see a flurry of post-debate articles headlined, “Winners and Losers.” They reduce this most important presidential campaign of our lives to a game where a single swing or a miss matters more than the heinous presidency we’re enduring or any of the issues vital to all of us terrified about the future for our families and ourselves.

I’m also annoyed by the debate format perpetrated by cable news networks more interested in creating conflict and melodrama than a legitimate discussion. The feigned gladiatorial confrontations CNN hyped in its promotion and then attempted to foment during the actual event serve no one."

The Moral Hazard Of Appeasing Trump - And Why Pelosi Is Correct To "Disinvite" Him To The House For SOTU

The  Swine and thug holding the nation hostage must not be rewarded for his terrorism.  Nancy Pelosi is correct to disinvite him to the House for the State of the Union - and no 'security' pretext is needed. If he wants to deliver it, let him either drop his terrorist extortion - or do so from a Senate backroom toilet.

"There have been many policy disasters over the course of U.S. history. It’s hard, however, to think of a calamity as gratuitous, an error as unforced, as the current federal shutdown.

Nor can I think of another disaster as thoroughly personal, as completely owned by one man. When Donald Trump told Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, “I will be the one to shut it down,” he was being completely accurate — although he went on to promise that “I’m not going to blame you for it,” which was a lie."  Paul Krugman,  'Donald Trump and His Team Of Morons', NY Times

"Trump is not entirely to blame.  The United States Senate could take up legislation that it passed just a few weeks ago, that they thought was a good idea, to open government and continue this debate over how we exercise border security. Why not do that? I blame the Senate. I blame those who are essentially handing over their responsibility to the president. Mitch McConnell has made Donald Trump the majority leader of the United States Senate. -  Rep. Dan Kildee (MI), last night on 'All In'.

"Donald Trump has apparently outsourced his presidency to the notoriously anti-immigrant Ann Coulter, as she bragged about it in an interview last night."  - Chris Hayes on 'All In' last night

According to the Wikipedia online encyclopedia, "moral hazard" is defined as arising:

" When an individual or institution does not take the full consequences and responsibilities for its actions, and therefore has a tendency to act less carefully than it otherwise would, leaving another party to hold some responsibility for the consequences of those actions"

For example, if after days of pleading for "a few extra bucks",  I were to lend a friend $40, and he used it for gambling at a Sports Book, then: a) he isn't accepting the full consequences of his own poor money management and decisions, and b) he will treat my $40 less carefully say - than if he was really down to his last nickel and had to go and earn that money, in say five hours of 'sweat equity' flipping burgers at Mickey D's.

In addition, he leaves me holding some of the responsibility for his ill-chosen actions, since I am enabling them by giving him money! Thus, I am countenancing moral hazard and he is ensnared via my own ill-considered decision to "help" him to dodge full responsibility for his own individual choices.

The situation becomes more desperate and pregnant with moral hazard if - after being denied a loan- he vows to jump in front of a passing car.  He's now ratcheted up the stakes and worse, tried to  take me hostage, by putting the onus on me for his living, or not.

In a real way, he's no longer a friend but has become a psychological extortionist - even terrorist-  instead. 

This is no different to what Trump is doing now with this federal shutdown - except he is promising to take the whole nation with him as he dives off the precipice   And already we see the risk markers in abundance, as 40,000 Coast Guard members are now without paychecks along with TSA screeners,  air traffic controllers,  IRS employees and many others. Many of these are now having to visit food pantries, and a mere weeks from being evicted from homes or apartments.

Should this piece of pseudo-presidential shit be rewarded with a State of the Union address in the House of Representatives, where he can sashay in as if nothing is wrong and be accorded a respect he doesn't merit? Worse, be granted the media stage to belch the lie that "The State of the Union is sound, blah blah..."  Absolutely not! He must not be given the time to grandstand for his derelict base, his sycophants, and his overseers in the Reich media machine - namely Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

This is the same reason the Dems must never yield to this degenerate and give billions for his fucking, stupid border wall. Because as one Dem Senator confided to MSNBC's Chris Hayes: "We won't move. We cannot. If this works for Trump the country will border on ungovernable."  Meaning,   having won in this hostage taking showdown he will use the same game of shutdown 'chicken' again and again, i.e. when the debt ceiling deliberations come up or for any other appropriations bill.   In Times' columnist Michelle Goldberg's take, "Trump would be completely unbound in using this tool".  

It would be as if my 'friend' used the "suicide or gimme a loan" gambit every time on me. To unplug the moral hazard my only option is to tell the friend, 'do what you want, I am not lending you a red cent'.  In the same way, Dems cannot give Trump and his Reich cohort a dime for his mythical wall to embolden them to shut the government down in the next budget kerfuffle.

Thus, no matter how much devastating crap is going on Trump must not be appeased !  It is true there is increasing collateral damage from Trump's political terror and  hostage taking. We know 800,000 federal employees are either at home or working without pay on "furlough", but that's merely the tip of the iceberg.  Another 3-4 million contract workers are also not being paid.  Whole towns - like Ogden, Utah - are also being adversely affected and may have to pull back services because tax receipts are vanishing since their resident federal workers can't spend without incomes. 

While I can certainly sympathize with all of these Trump victims, they are basically in the same position as hostages taken by a demented terrorist.  Sadly, this terrorist cannot be rewarded any more than if it was a high level ISIS vermin who'd taken prisoners.  That means, above all, the Democrats cannot give into his insane demands, not now, not ever.  However long this thing drags on, it is up to Trump and the Republicans to end it.   

How bad can things get?  Yesterday's Denver Post featured a litany of the ills that are yet to come if this shutdown lasts beyond February, including:

- 38 million losing their food stamps when the SNAP program runs aground from lack of funding.  This loss of food stamp funding alone would strip at least 0.53% from the GDP.

-The Department of Housing and Urban Development  has said it will not be able to renew 1, 150 rental assistance contracts with private land lords that expired in December.  This means tens of thousands could be shoved into the streets.

-  Another 550 rental assistance contract expire in February affecting an additional 16,000 households.

- By March, subsidies for the great majority of contracts will end jeopardizing the vouchers (e.g. Sec. 8) used by 2.2 million low income households. This according to Sharon Parrott, a senior fellow at the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities.

- By end of March TSA screeners may walk off their jobs en masse leaving thousands of flight cancellations in their wake, especially if joined by the air traffic controllers (who have already filed a lawsuit against Trump's government.)    

 This little gem has already been dropped into the meme pool, as Robert Costa reported in the WaPo.  Costa noted a couple of Republican lawmakers confided that "the only way this breaks open is if TSA workers stay home and Americans get furious about their flights".  Well, maybe a certain class of Americans, the business passengers, as the WSJ reported last week.

As Sam Berger, a senior adviser at the Center for American Progress,  observed:  "Shutdowns don't get bad linearly, they get bad exponentially, the longer they go on."    

The problem is that too many of the conservo  persuasion are unable to process exponential increase, another reason they fail to grasp the peril of climate change-  which manifestations can increase exponentially, e.g. with forcing factors.

And smiling and gloating behind all the pain is the venomous, extremist bitch,  Ann Coulter, proud of the havoc she's wrought.  Coulter bragged in a VICE-TV interview she's been in regular communication with Trump  on Twitter. She actually confided to the reporter that she has him by the balls and regularly orders him to "play this out and focus on immigration."   Her own words from the interview:

"I've  been advising the president in my columns and in  my Twitter conversations -  that you're not allowed to know about  -   to play this out. To keep it focused on immigration.  As long as people are talking about immigration you are winning, Mr. President. But whatever happens, just build the wall."

Asked why Dotard's digging his heels in, Coulter replies:

"It's self preservation. Because he is dead in the water if he doesn't build that wall. Dead, dead, dead."

In other words, Donnie Dotard has become Ann Coulter's perpetual bitch.  As for all the federal workers impacted by the shutdown, many now having to turn to food pantries, the harpy had this to say to the VICE-TV reporter:

"It's very silly for the Democrats to hold up funding the government while they're weeping about federal employees with benefits: retirement plans, and vacation and sick leaves better than anyone watching this program has." 

In other words, dismissing and denigrating all those federal workers, many of whom literally have her life in their hands. So much for gratitude.

Let me reiterate again that it is standard procedure among most law enforcement agencies not to reward terrorists or hostage takers with payouts.  That now includes Ann Coulter who seems to be dictating Trump's every move - if we are to believe her.  The reason is simple: Though the refusal to give in may likely cost lives, it is much worse to reward such vile behavior and encourage further hostage taking, terror in the future.  The exact same holds true with the current domestic terrorist named Donald Drumpf occupying the Oval Office. The selfsame mutt threatening all manner of mayhem - and even trying to blame the Dems for the deaths of two migrant kids.

Look, if this asshole truly wanted a wall for "security" - as political commentator Ezra Klein noted three weeks ago-   he'd have signed off on the $25 billion offered in 2017 as part of a DACA deal. He didn't do that, crapping all over the deal instead after the Right's screech monkeys blew a gasket.  Just like barely 3 weeks ago he saw himself  harshly criticized in the Reich media  by Limbuagh, Coulter, Ingraham & company and then turned around and crapped on a CR that was already voted on by 100-0 in the Senate and which he'd agreed to! He rejected the continuing resolution because a gaggle of right wing lowbrow apes and blowhards went apoplectic and called  him "gutless".    

The most amusing aspect is how the Trump terrorists are claiming Pelosi's disinvite move is a sign of "weakness" because she's afraid of giving Trump a mammoth media stage to "gain advantage". Well, true, but the issue is  gaining advantage by spewing lies, now approaching the 7,000 level according to the WaPo lie counter.   That said, the REAL weakness is on the Trump and McConnell hostage taking side, given they are now trying to split the House Dems - to no avail. (See e.g. 'White House Fails To Split Democrats'. WSJ,  yesterday, p. A5).  In addition, we know the Trump hostage takers are aware this "wall" is something most Americans - the sensible faction - don't want (cf.  'Trump's Pinned To A Wall Few Americans Want', WSJ,  p. A15, by William Galston). 

As Galston wrote at the end of his column: "The art of the deal isn't bludgeoning everyone else into submission. It's providing them incentives to give you what you value most."    

What Trump should be valuing most is not his  nutso  fantasy "wall" but his whole economy as well as the stock market he constantly brags about. As this shutdown insanity goes on and the collateral damage multiplies, chipping away at retail sales and shaking consumer confidence, he is looking at a major recession by year's end if not sooner.  Jamie Dimon has already predicted a zero growth in GDP this quarter and other financial experts assert we are looking into the maw of a financial disaster rivaling the one in 2008 if Dotard doesn't come to his senses.  

In the meantime, my only advice to Nancy Pelosi would be to drop the "security" ruse about stalling the State of the Union. Just come right out and say Dotard is NOT invited to the People's House until and unless he drops the terrorist hostage taking. Look at it this way, Nancy, we do not reward terrorists in the country - whether of the Isis brand or domestic ones like Trump, Ann Coulter and Mitch McConnell.

See also:

• Ninja Nancy Pelosi is on a roll. Her letter to Trump is more proof 

And:

Republicans

A Short and Future History of Republican Poopery

More Reasons Why Donnie Dotard Will Soon Have To Cave In This Shutdown Standoff

Trump acting as a Russian Agent has never been a surprise to most of us. With this and other bad news piling up, the degenerate will have to yield by the State of the Union - or be booed off the dais.

"Now, the economy is hurting (S&P Global Ratings put the damage at $3.6 billion so far, nearly the amount Trump sought for his border wall), and most Americans correctly blame him (he is, after all, the one who boasted: “I’ll be the one to shut it down”)."  - Dana Milbank, in The Washington Post ('Please Help Donald Trump Find Work During The Shutdown')

The bodies -  displaced federal workers - from FDA food inspectors, to FBI agents, to TSA screeners,  Park rangers, the Coast Guard and contract workers,  are piling up and the degenerate traitor and Russian puppet Trump is at the center of it all.  (Well,along with his consigliere, Mitch McConnell, see below).   This is now the longest government shutdown (at 24 days) in U.S. history and like a drowning rat trying to grab at a floating plank crowded with his fellow rats (Mulvaney, Pompeo, Pence et al) he has nowhere to go but down.  None of his stunts or attempted bullying moves have worked and Nancy Pelosi is no more likely to give in to his extortion than Martians will land tomorrow atop the Empire State Bldg.   But with only 1 in 4 deplorables backing this scum he has to realize his hostage taking will not last.   I predict that by the SOTU on January 29th, with two million more cable and network TV optics gone south - gov't workers struggling, their disabled kids in need of care, oldsters tossed out of gov't supported housing in FLA (Sec. 202 support) and piling up lawsuits - this swine will be advised to throw in the towel.

His support will further dwindle as even more news reports about his acting as a Russian agent get out showing he has no more interest in the national security of the U.S.  than he has in breaking up with Putin.  But this grifting con man is hoist on his own petard, especially -as Joe Scarborough put it this a.m. - he continues to skunk his own team's negotiating efforts with more and more demands. As David Ignatius also noted, Trump "wants a 100 percent win" but he can't get it. There is no "art of the deal" that will bail him out because elections DO have consequences - and that refers to the one in November last year in which the Dems took the House in a Blue wave.  The consequence is that Trump can no longer get a one -sided  deal and he will have to now give something in return.  Or go down as the most deplorable, disgusting vermin president - worse than James Buchanan and Richard Nixon - in U.S. history.

Of course, some in the media only partially get it, still opting to play their "both sides are to blame" games. Such was the case with Peggy Noonan ('End This Stupid Shutdown', WSJ, Jan. 12-13, p.  A13) who only after slobbering past two columns with 'both sides' malarkey, finally admitted (making one wonder why she didn't lead with this):

"The president at the center of this drama is an unserious man. He is only episodically sincere and has no observable tropism toward the truth. He didn't get a wall in two years with a Republican Congress and is now in a fix. He is handling himself as he does, with bluster and aggression, without subtlety or winning ways. He likes disorder."

With her admission, finally near the middle of her piece, Noonan reveals how and why this is all a big nothing burger  about Trump's ego:  a narcissist McGuffin about getting a cheap win for Right wing rabble rousers, nothing more. It also accounts for why the so-called border wall has nothing to do with any serious border security. (As Ezra Klein also noted.)  Trump, if he truly wanted this wall, could have had it with $25 billion in 2017 - when all he had to do was remove the rescission on DACA,  the Dreamers' Act.  He didn't do that, despite promising he would at an Oval Office meeting. Once again, he tuned into Rightwing Screech TV-radio and the bombast caused him to back down. Just as it did 4 weeks ago when he was ready to sign a CR, then tuned into Limbaugh, Coulter and Co.  and saw them castigating his sorry ass. He turned chicken shit and dumped the CR pledge, leading the nation into the current shutdown shit storm.  So all of Noonan's doggerel about the Dems playing a role and "pretending to be the non-racist party"  is just that, doggerel.

The biggest pressure point now is with all the displaced, income -less federal workers - including associated contract workers who number in the millions. As they collect more and more pay stubs labeled $0.00 and more and more screen shots show them lined up at food pantries, and TSA lines snake around the airport terminals, and more lawsuits are filed, you can be sure Dotard will have to crack.

But the real cracking point will be when the 22 Reep Senators up for re-election next year (including many in blue or purple states) tell Mitch McConnell this farce cannot go on and he needs to bring any or all of the House Dem bills to a floor vote.  For reference,  67 "yay" votes on any one of them renders it veto-proof, and the bill passes.   Once this happens the shutdown ends and all Dotard's protests and blusters won't change that.  But this also tells us that a hidden collaborator in the shutdown hitherto has been Mitch McConnell.  He constantly uses the balderdash that he "can't bring anything to the floor that Trump won't sign"  - but refuses to 'fess up that it doesn't freaking matter once the two thirds majority is reached. Most observers - like Scarborough and Ignatius - believe this won't be a problem at all, and provide an 'out' for many Reep Senators under the gun for inflicting so much pain.   The takeaway here? Bitch McConnell (Trump's bitch, that is) is running covert interference for Dotard while he holds the real key to stopping the shutdown on a dime. As wifey has put it; "Of course McConnell is to blame, maybe even more than Trump,  because he can stop it with one floor vote! He's a guppy -faced, miserable coward and enabler!"     Ouch!

Nor will this wall bunkum effort at diversion work, via Trump's attempts to deflect attention from the tightening Mueller probe.  But also from the continued press disclosures of how Trump not only tried to keep the Putin translator notes (from assorted meetings)  a secret, but also the fact the FBI had to open a counter-intelligence investigation into his unseemly behavior.

Let's also get it straight the Trump shutdown has been selective, allowing public lands to remain open for hunters as well as oil and gas development. (Denver Post, Sunday, p. 1A).   As reported, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this past week, announced using "left over funds" from 2018 to "return staffers to work, ensuring planned activities on those lands, including organized hunts".  So the Trump shutdown is selective where it wants to be and will pay affected workers where and when it chooses. Just not the hard -working TSA agents, or park rangers at national parks - or the FBI agents - who as the NY Times reported investigated Trump being a Russian agent after he fired James Comey.

We also know the Trumpies, degenerates that they are, have explored end -arounds to get their stupid ass wall done. That includes appropriating any and all funds allocated for the hurricane disasters that clobbered Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida in the past year  or so. Yes, it is true! This is what the government that's also caged infants has mutated into: a kakistocracy, or government of vermin.

As for the national emergency bullshit, Trump's minions (like the execrable coward Lindsey Graham) are still calling for it, but sensible conservative pundits (what few there are, like George Will) know it's a non-starter. Even if Trump could declare it (according to a specious 1976 act) he would set such a precedent for a low bar, mock "emergency"  that any future president could invoke it for the flimsiest of pretexts. For example, a President Elizabeth Warren could use it to stanch inequality or fight climate change.  A President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2032 could use it to eliminate all student loans - thereby freeing millions of debt-loaded grads. So no, the Trumpies, dumb and desperate as they are, don't want to open that door.

I predict that with the pressure mounting, and soon from the Senate, this shutdown  will be over by the State of the Union on January 29th. If it isn't, the assembled congress needs to stand with the still out of work federal employees not with this mock "president". They need to  forget all "decorum" and boo Trump as he walks in with his shit -eating grin, and keep booing him as he tries to pump out more lies and excuses.  That is the American free speech way, and the only way to deal with this two- legged maggot now.

The TV networks already erred by giving him prime time to deliver what was basically a campaign speech to arouse his asinine base. What we don't need now is the State of the Union used as another prop for his lies, degeneracy and bad faith.

See also:

Immigration

How Not to Build a “Great, Great Wall”: A Timeline of Border Fortification

The Moral From Yesterday's Oval Office Squabble? Don't Get Into A Debate With A Swine

                                                          
The  72-  year old bully brat buffoon who vowed to shut down the government yesterday.

In case you haven't seen it yet, check out the squabble that transpired yesterday in the Oval Office, between Dotard and the two Dem leaders, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi:

Trump Argues With Schumer And Pelosi On Border Security - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-CuAbbZUoI

The spectacle immediately drew multiple takes from the Neoliberal-dominated media, including this morning on CBS Early Show when anchors John Dickerson and Gayle King declared: "This was no way to behave in the Oval Office and it doesn't look good for either side".   Well, duh.  But what would you have had the two Dems do, sit stone silent like VP Mike Pence?  As former Florida GOP congressman Dave Jolly put it last night: "Both Schumer and Pelosi deserve applause for standing up to Trump and refuting each of his lies." 

Bingo!  But as usual, the Neolib media always plays the "two sides" baloney to try to appear non-partisan. It doesn't work and it never has because anyone with an average IQ can see right through it.  For once we actually have a cross check on this boisterous buffoon, and he doesn't like it,  so prefers to throw a fit for the cameras as he postures like a crazed baboon.  He knows in his puerile heart that starting next year the D-House will go into every nook and cranny of his sorry reign. But in the meantime a word of advice for the Dems:   It may be best not to engage in any discussions on anything regarding policy - because in the end it's not about policy - whether a border wall, immigration in general, the national debt....or whatever.

All of which elicits the question of what yesterday's fracas was all about. I tend to agree with political commentator Ezra Klein who insisted last night ('Last Word') it was never about any border wall, but rather about Trump being in a fight and enjoying a fight. Recall, as the late conservo columnist Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, Dave Jolly, the WSJ's  Dan Henninger and many others have observed, this is a guy that "likes to punch back".  If one reduces the altercation to this meme, the whole event becomes fairly transparent: it was all about the "Trump Show" and a "terrible day for America" - to use Klein's description.

Why a terrible day?  Because if Trump goes through with his vow to shut down the government on December 21st, 400,000 federal employees will be sent home, another 350,000 will be furloughed. Many agencies will be short-staffed and unable to do the people's business. AS for HUD, nearly 87 % of its 7,800 staff will be sent home meaning the poor in need of Sec. 8 housing will not get it.

As Klein elaborated on the reasons for this farce:

"Give Pelosi and Schumer credit for putting him in a corner, What struck me so deeply about that meeting is that Donald Trump doesn't himself want the wall.  That is not the meeting you want if you want the wall. The difference in what he wants in funding and what he's currently got in funding is about $3.7 billion.  That is nothing in the federal budget. 

If he wanted that wall he would not have put that meeting in front of the cameras, and he'd be willing to give them something for it.....But the thing about Trump is he doesn't want the wall, he wants the fight over the wall. So I don't think they exactly know what to do about a president who doesn't want his policies because he doesn't care about policy. What he wants to do is have fights with Democrats about policy or about policy ideas or words that sound like policy ideas. And have those fights on camera.

The fact those fights don't redound well for him, the fact he's not in a popular position doesn't seen to really bother him. Trump runs his presidency as if the ratings on the television show he's starring on are good and the punches are seen. And today was a good day in the Trump Show."

And as even the CBS personnel noted correctly, it distracted from Trump's problems in finding someone to replace John Kelly as chief of staff, and his multiple legal troubles.

The best takeaway from all this for the Democrats in the House,  when they take the reins next year?  George Bernard Shaw's famous quote:


In other words, don't engage in any more bizarre reality "shows" with this septuagenarian toddler - especially in the Oval Office with cameras running. Instead deftly use subpoenas and complement Mueller's probe with your own investigations. In other words, stolidly and solidly - without fanfare- do the work the Repukes wouldn't.   The American people, at least the non-Foxite sentient set, will thank you for it!

See also:

Donald Trump

An Unstable Dolt

by P.M. Carpenter | December 13, 2018 - 7:49am | permalink

And:

Elizabeth Preza

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Chuck Schumer | Donald Trump | Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi And Schumer Corner Trump As He Spews Lies About The Border Wall — And Insists He’s ‘Proud’ To Shut Down The Government

Why Stephen Hawking's "Insane" Predictions From Last Year Are Still Valid (Part 2)

"Hmmm....I don't trust this guy with nuclear weapons any more than I'd trust Hitler!"

In Stephen Hawking's words, from the new BBC documentary: "Although the chance of a disaster on planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, becoming a near certainty in the next thousand or ten thousand years,”

Note here that Hawking isn't referring to the "law of large numbers", i.e. where one finds an evening out of probability - say for ten thousands coin tosses reaching a ratio of 1 to 1 for heads to tails. He is rather referencing the probability that as time goes on the chance of a natural or man-made cluster fuck will occur.  The asteroids are going to keep coming , for example, for the next hundred, thousand or more years. It's only a matter of time before one with our name on it impacts, as it intersects our orbit.  By the same token as nuclear proliferation continues, it's only a matter of time before some nation with nukes feels threatened enough to use them, or pushes the "button" on entering a fray with a neighbor.

With that in mind, we now consider the other major extinction threats Hawking has proposed:


3) Nuclear Holocaust:

This extinction event is considered 3rd  in order but it is actually much more probable than a killer (Torino  9) asteroid strike, and certainly quicker than climate change as a major species snuffer.  Some latter day wonks have tried to put the spin on such a cataclysm that "only 300 to 500 million" will perish, but that's assuming no all out nuclear war. If the latter occurs, more than 10,000 nuclear warheads in the 500 kt to double megaton range will be released and even if 500 million survive the first strikes and blasts, the rest of us will be done in by the radiation.  And no, you won't survive living in an underground bunker unless you plan to stay there hundreds of years.   For all intents the planet will be a radioactive wasteland.

How will it start, or why? I already referenced in my previous post (Trump's grade for 2017) the words of 'Art of the Deal' ghost writer Michael T. Schwarz in the anthology 'The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump':

"His amygdala is repeatedly triggered...and his prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain that makes us capable of rationality and reflection - shuts down. He reacts rather than reflects - and damn the consequences.  This is what makes his access to the nuclear codes so dangerous and frightening."

It is truly frightening!  It means his brain is more wired to react on the reptile than the reflective level and it puts us all in peril. This is a character, literally, who believes HE is more important than all of humanity.

Political media specialist Ezra Klein, in an appearance on MSNBC last Friday night warned, in the context of why an urgent impeachment may be needed:

"We are in this strange position where we are running a nuclear hyper power. The President of the United States is the most dangerous job in the world. The president who is the wrong person....the extent of what can go wrong there....goes all the way over to nuclear holocaust - which could be launched more or less before breakfast. And this is the only job we can think of where incredibly poor performance cannot get you fired. There is something wrong in that.?"

Of course, Klein is absolutely correct because the lives of billions now hang in the balance, waiting to be snuffed out over one reckless decision by an unqualified loon with 7500 nuclear warheads at his disposal.

In the book, 'The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump' clinical psychologist  Michael J. Tansey informs us (p. 121):

"Although there are several areas in which DT's particular version of personality disorder is vital to understand, none is more compelling or terrifying than his control of the nuclear codes.  Surpassing the devastation of climate, health care, education, diplomacy, social services, freedom of speech, and liberty and justice for all, nothing is more incomprehensible than the now plausible prospect of an all -out nuclear war.

For all but the few remaining survivors who witnessed the atomic bombing of Japan and its aftermath we simply have nothing in our own experiences to imagine the instantaneous annihilation. Quite literally we are here one second and vaporized the next along with everyone and everything."

Let me pause here to interject that although none of us except the Japanese survivors have experienced an atomic attack, you can get a very good inkling of what happens to humans by watching it in this clip from the movie 'Threads', e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrHoMSRZOS4

Tansey again (ibid.):

"Because of this very real existential threat, it is absolutely urgent that we comprehend the titanic differences between a president who is merely 'crazy like a fox' versus one I have termed crazy like crazy (possessing core grandiose and paranoid delusions disconnected from factual reality."

In Tansey's take Trump is "crazy like crazy".   A nuclear holocaust under Trump? This is likely to happen if the Dotard's minders are unable to control his worst, most degenerate impulses after he loses it - maybe in a twitter war with Kim Jong Un ("My nuclear button is bigger than yours, Kim!") Who knows?  Stephen Hawking, no fan of Trump's,  is also worried about this scenario and clearly the reason the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has advanced the nuclear holocaust clock by 30 seconds closer to midnight, i.e. because Trump is in control of the nuclear football.  Most ominously,  as recently as three months ago, Sen. Bob Corker warned that Trump’s rhetoric and threats, especially toward North Korea, could set the nation “on the path to World War III”.  

According to sources in the WH cited by journalist Gabe Sherman at the time, Trump grew so on edge he was  "just itching to launch World War III"  to burn all his critics one time as well as the putative enemy Kim Jong Un who he belittled as "little rocket man".

But this is the nature of an unhinged asshole who has no business running a dog pound or landfill much less run a country.   As conservative columnist George Will  ("Last Word", Dec, 29th) put it, "Donald Trump is incapable of sequential thought which in itself is very disturbing".

By "sequential thought" Will meant a person is capable of following a logical thread, of cause and effect, e.g. A -> B -> C etc.   By contrast to rigorous sequential thought, Dotard's mind wanders all over the place, "like a little drunken tweety bird scavenging in all directions for  crumbs" in the words of MSNBC anchor Joy Reid. 

As if to put an exclamation point on the whole issue, former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,  Admiral Michael Mullen, said over the weekend:

 "We are actually closer to a nuclear war with North Korea, in my view,  than we've ever been and I just don't see the opportunity to solve this diplomatically."

No nonsense words from a guy who ought to know.

4) Pandemic that kills most humans:

This may be a lot closer to realization than many believe thanks to the Trumpies recently allowing Bird flu research toward higher contagion. This thrust began in 2011 with a Dutch virologist -  Ron Fouchier  -accused of engineering a dangerous superflu . In 2011, Fouchier and his team at Erasmus Medical Center took the H5N1 flu virus and made it more contagious.

Back in April  the team published another study with more details on the exact genetic changes needed to do the trick. The H5N1 bird flu is known to have sickened 650 people worldwide, and of those, 386 died. 

Fouchier's work, plus some similar research from another lab, showed for the first time that the virus had the potential to change in a way that would make it a real pandemic threat. Only a few mutations were necessary to make the H5N1 bird flu spread through the air between ferrets, the lab stand-in for people.

Critics argued that the scientists had created a dangerous new superflu and they pushed for the recipe not to be openly published. They feared that others would repeat the work and either not adequately safeguard the virus or would deliberately release it. After a long debate about security versus scientific openness, the research findings did finally appear in a journal.

In April, in the journal Cell, Fouchier and his colleagues expand on that initial work. They identified five mutations that are sufficient to make H5N1 spread through the air between ferrets. Fouchier  wrote in one email:

"Two mutations enable improved binding of the H5N1 bird flu virus to cells in the upper respiratory tract of mammals. Another mutation increases the stability of the virus. The two remaining mutations enable the virus to replicate more efficiently."

Before Fouchier and his colleagues published the current work, it underwent multiple layers of review to assess the level of danger it might pose to the public. The team had to get an export license from the Dutch government that normally applies to technology that can be weaponized. The paper was also reviewed by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which funded the research.

Fouchier's justification is straight out of the sci-fi horror flicks where a deadly virus escapes a gov't lab and reduces humanity by the billions - as in one Outer Limits series of episodes from the 90s. According to him, the research is needed to see how a pandemic which spreads airborne mammal to mammal might be stopped. So, if we know how to spread it airborne we will know how to stop it. Amplifying further Fouchier wrote back in April:

"That does not mean that we have reached general consensus about the need to do this type of work, and how to do it safely.  But general consensus will be impossible to reach on any topic. We will keep the dialogues going with everyone, but at the same time need to continue this important line of work."

Not everyone agrees with that. "I still don't understand why such a risky approach must be taken," says microbiologist David Relman of Stanford University. "I'm discouraged."

Relman served on a government advisory committee that considered whether this research should be openly published. He questions whether these studies really will help give public health officials advance warning of the next emerging flu pandemic.

What's more recently distressing is the Trump administration has recently lifted a ban on making the flu more deadly. See e.g.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/kali-holloway/76827/u-s-government-lifts-ban-on-making-viruses-more-deadly-and-transmissible


Excerpt:

"The new National Institutes of Health policy reverses a 2014 Obama administration funding ban on gain-of-function research projects specifically involving all forms of the influenza virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The new rules would extend beyond those viruses, “apply[ing] to any pathogen that could potentially cause a pandemic,” according to the New York Times. “For example, they would apply to a request to create an Ebola virus transmissible through the air.”

The preceding information - which has been in the relevant journals (and some news sources) for at least the past 6 years- leave little doubt that we are at risk of a major superflu pandemic if things go south. And that can indeed happen because, well, mistakes can happen.  As occurred several years ago when CDC workers were exposed to anthrax and other viruses by accident.( In 2014, a laboratory mistake at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta potentially exposed a technician to the deadly Ebola virus. The technician was subsequently  monitored for signs of infection for 21 days, the incubation period of the disease. Fortunately, he was cleared, but things might not have worked out and may indeed, not work out if a jazzed up Avian flu virus is accidentally released.  Word of the  accident at CDC later provoked concern and disbelief from some safety experts. Dangerous samples of anthrax and flu were similarly mishandled at the C.D.C.)

If partial or total human extinction by way of viral pandemic does occur, you may be sure it will be because of lab mishandling or creation of a weaponized variation.

5) Artificial intelligence replacing humans altogether. 

This one is based on a comment Hawking made to WIRED magazine, e.g.:

"I fear that AI may replace humans altogether. If people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that improves and replicates itself."

But, on discussing this with Alan Emtage (the creator of the original search engine, "Archie") in Barbados last April, he pooh-poohed it.  He said the vastly greater threat of AI is to human employment, and cited AI systems now displacing financial workers, and taking over most repetitive jobs. He asserted it's just a matter of time, "maybe ten years", before most retail human jobs are gone, as well as taxi drivers, bus drivers and other driving jobs - replaced by driverless, AI-directed vehicles.   The danger then isn't AI per se, but all those millions of idle humans with nothing to do and no paychecks coming in.  Look at the current violent riots in Iran over food prices and multiply that by about 1000 times in frequency and intensity on a global scale to see what we may be in for. 

"It's the perfect recipe for terror, civil unrest and even wars." according to Emtage.  His solution is to set up the UBI (universal basic income)  financial structure from now, and not wait until after the crisis erupts.

See also:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/american-scientists-controversially-recreate-deadly-spanish-flu-virus-9529707.html