Memo To #MeToo: Proportionality Is Not Compatible With "ZeroTolerance"

Sen. Al Franken - victim of a zero tolerance #MeToo Movement and Zephyr Teachout.

Even as allegations of rape were made yesterday against entertainment phenom Russell Simmons, and Harvey Weinstein's pig nature of sex aggression has been exposed in an op-ed by Salma Hayek, e.g.

Salma Hayek:
Harvey Weinstein
Is My Monster Too

We've seen a few others are reconsidering harsh sanctions (such as resignation)  meted out against lesser transgressors - such as Sen. Al Franken. They appear to have recognized that conflation of serious sexual aggression with boorish and loutish behavior is not in the long term interest of the #MeToo movement.. Indeed, it is likely to be counterproductive as the political costs become more apparent, especially after the Ds possibly lose Franken's seat next November.

According to Zephyr Teachout, in a NY Times op-ed (I'm Not Convinced Franken Should Quit), she's now having second thoughts over Sen. Al Franken's ouster by the "MeToo's". It is well she (and others) should, especially liberals that fell for this farce. We now know Franken was absolutely correct when he said he shouldn't have had to resign with the  POS Trump still in office. The worst aspect of Franken's loss is that MN governor Mark Dayton plans to install his Lt. Governor as a caretaker until the primary next year.  A real Dem Senate candidate would then, presumably,  make him or herself known and compete. But unlike appointing an official sitting Senator there is no guarantee the seat will be retained by the Ds. (The last time that was done, in 1992, a Repuke won - the Dem all but hobbled from the primary.)

MSNBC political analyst Steve Kornacki was himself dumbfounded by Drayton's move as he tried to explain it to Rachel Maddow last week. He finally came up with the excuse that: "Well, he's made it clear he's retiring so he doesn't want to leave on a partisan note and would rather let candidates fight it out in primaries".  Fair enough, but that dumb move isn't likely to help the Dem numbers in the Senate - even if Doug Jones AL win holds up. And it is nearly as dumb a move as the Dems ousting Franken in the first place.

Teachout argues that in Franken's case there was not enough nuance, and she is correct. At the same time she claims to also share the "zero tolerance" approach of others in the #MeToo movement, which I have already criticized as moral absolutism. In other words,  like accusing a jaywalker and murderer of the same magnitude crime and punishing each to the same extent.  By its very definition zero tolerance accepts NO form of misbehavior - whether boorish groping or actually assaulting a woman- as deserving differential sanction.  All must be punished to the same extent. So Franken had to suffer the exact same punishment - resignation - as if he'd actually been accused of a sexual assault, similar to Matt Lauer's numerous aggressions before his firing from the Today show.


Teachout's statement is as follows:.

"I also believe in zero tolerance. And yet, a lot of women I know — myself included — were left with a sense that something went wrong last week with the effective ouster of Al Franken from the United States Senate. He resigned after a groundswell of his own Democratic colleagues called for him to step down."

Yes, he did resign and as I previously posted the "groundswell" against him was actually a Dem- sponsored and abetted Kangaroo court that ousted him. Thus Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's exclaiming "I think when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping you are having the wrong conversation."   Adding:
"You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is O.K. None of it is acceptable."

"None of it is acceptable"  so therefore even if you act like a boor and overgrown teenage horn dog you have got to go. Same as if you were Harvey Weinstein assaulting dozens of women.  Or Roy Moore preying on young girls. Pardon me, but this is insane.   But this is precisely where the contradiction enters in Teachout's piece, i.e. she is basically contradicting herself - on the one hand expressing the need for more "nuance" but on the other believing in zero tolerance. Sorry, you cannot have both. Logically this is analogous to trying to square the circle. It doesn't work. If you opt for zero tolerance you cannot be for any form of nuance - which as I've written before- demands "a weighing or interpolation of actions based on critical thinking combined with the exercise of ethical provisionalism. "

Where the latter "provides a middle ground for sanctions imposed on a scale of actions or infractions." On the other hand, with zero tolerance there is "total loss of moral perspective which then insists on the same penalties for all transgressions  - the serious and simply boorish."

Yet Teachout appears to truly believe these can actually be integrated, as when she writes:

"Zero tolerance should go hand in hand with two other things: due process and proportionality. As citizens, we need a way to make sense of accusations that does not depend only on what we read or see in the news or on social media. Due process means a fair, full investigation, with a chance for the accused to respond. And proportionality means that while all forms of inappropriate sexual behavior should be addressed, the response should be based on the nature of the transgressions."

Thereby proving she is logically attempting to square the circle.  "Due process" itself implies a measured legal response - weighing the infraction against legal sanctions historically meted out for such. Hence, one does not (as a rule) impose the same ten -year prison sentence for destroying property with a pipe bomb as for spitting on the sidewalk.  Due process then is the very opposite of the rush to judgment which characterizes the mob action of Franken's fellow Dems - especially the female contingent led by Gillibrand.

"Proportionality" means just what I wrote earlier: that there is an interpolation of the gravity of actions which then necessitates an interpolation or weighing of proportional penalties. For sure what Franken was accused of - while boorish and immature- doesn't measure up to what Matt Lauer and Russell Simmons (as well as Roy Moore) were accused of.

She goes on:

"Both were missing in the hasty call for Senator Franken’s resignation."

Yes, because it is the nature of a zero tolerance or moral absolutist milieu to enable a rush to judgment. That is exactly why nuanced ethical provisionalism is counter to zero tolerance, and why the latter must not be employed in these cases.

She goes on:

"Some might point out, rightly, that Congress doesn’t have good procedures for dealing with harassment accusations. In fact, the congressional process to date has gone something like this: Lift up the rug and sweep the accusations underneath. It’s delay, deny, pay hush money and avoid the consequences."

Adding:

"Here’s what a fair system might look like: Congress should empower an independent arbiter to investigate complaints — like a Government Accountability Office, with trained experts in the field. Clearly understood mechanisms for reporting should be established. A timetable should be set that ensures complaints receive a prompt response. Both the accuser and the accused could submit questions and would have access to trained advocates and free legal consultation."

But this is a pipedream that'll never happen. At least not until the whole political culture is changed which means many more women in top Senate positons and in the Congress overall.  It also will never happen until those voices like Zephyr Teachout's come out squarely on the side of proportionality and reject the meme of zero tolerance. As I forecast to wifey, and she agrees, on the absolutist path the movement is currently going it will implode. This will happen as a sizeable faction of liberal women break off, especially after they behold the political costs of having gotten rid of Al Franken - and a goddamned Repuke mutt taking his place next year.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/jill-richardson/76740/we-agree-assault-is-bad-let-s-agree-on-how-to-punish-it

Dems Are Accessories In Political Hit Job On Al Franken

Sen. Al Franken: His robust questioning of criminal Repukes was clearly too much, so Dem toadies had to be enlisted to take him down.



"Would Senator Gillibrand resign if several people came forward to allege she sexually harassed/abused them?

Why does Franken have to be forced out of office? What happened to due process? Shouldn't the residents of the state he represents have a say in this matter; not just a contingent of Democratic Senators."   - Comment on  NY Times website

It now appears Sen. Al Franken will resign tomorrow,  marking one of the most successful "dirty trick" jobs the Repukes have ever pulled using trained pawns. This time,  getting Dem Senators to act as accessories after the fact, piling on Franken after a 7th accuser has come forward about "forced kissing",  for god's sake. Thereby putting kisses, a mock grope and some butt pinches (MAYBE- we have no evidence only claims)  on the same level as the child molestations of  Roy Moore.   This followed a coordinated Senate gang up,  compliments of female Dem Senators led by Kirsten Gillibrand - who I used to respect. Not any more, not when she can so easily be manipulated and used as a tool to destroy a fellow Senator's career - merely out of unproven, unsubstantiated claims. And NO -I do not believe them just because a woman or women said them. As Bari Weiss wrote in a recent NY Times piece:

"We don’t owe anyone our unthinking belief. “Trust but verify” may not have the same ring as “believe all women.” But it’s a far better policy."-

Damned straight!

As I wrote in a previous blog post:

Some outspoken feminists and defenders of women's rights  have actually come out in public and insisted "Zero tolerance!"   Meaning that even the slightest perceived infraction must receive the full, maximal weight of penalty. In other words, analogous to putting a jaywalker in a gas chamber.

But this is bonkers and counterproductive. If all infractions major and minor receive the same condemnation and sanction - say expulsion from office and equal destruction of reputation -  then there is total loss of balance, of moral perspective. In that case, what we end up with is a misfiring moralism and an atmosphere of feeding frenzy, not morality.  We end up with absolutism as opposed to conscious interpolation of actions differing in intent and transgressive impact.

What is needed  instead of "zero tolerance" absolutism is to arrive at a weighing or interpolation of actions based on critical thinking combined with the exercise of ethical provisionalism. Just as provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground between absolute and  relative systems, it also provides a middle ground for sanctions imposed on a scale of actions or infractions.  Thus, while one may rightly demand a capital punishment (say lethal injection) for a mass murderer of infants in their cribs, one may not do so for a jaywalker.

The scale of infraction is vastly different, hence it is madness to apply the same sanction to both violations.  By the same token, provisional ethics bids us withhold the hand of punitive extremism, say for infractions like Al Franken's,  compared to those of  Roy Moore (sexually assaulting children).  Hence it is also madness to demand the expulsion of Al Franken for his alleged violations, which are nowhere in the same league as Moore's.  It is also nonsense to demand Franken's resignation if you don't also demand Donnie Dotard's for his much more malicious "grabbing pussies".


Former GOP Rep. (FL) Dave Jolly put it well in his appearance on Lawrence O''Donnell's show on Wednesday, that "we have to take care to distinguish fallibility from criminality".  This is especially as Mr. Jolly expects many more allegations to erupt in the coming weeks. As these further accusations pile up one must bear in mind that Roy Moore's advances on underage girls amount to the criminality (pedophilia), but Al Franken's mock grope of  Leeann Tweeden  does not.  Neither do his "inappropriate touches" - construed as such by assorted women who posed with him in takes at the MN state fair.

 -----

  And let us pause here to note again that not all allegations made by women are true, especially if there is no clear evidence of such. While we desire to give women's claims of sexual harassment validation, we cannot ignore the possibility that there may also be ulterior motives in play- and bad actors.  These motives (and strategies) didn't just originate recently but have been around for decades under the guise of "dirty tricks" -  e.g. since the Nixon campaign's tactics against Dems in 1968 and 1972..

Let us note the first to come out and level accusations at Franken was Leeann Tweeden  .  She was clever-  perhaps too clever by half - in also producing a photo. This she likely saved since the transgression occurred to use as a conservative payback, as she looked forward to a career as a conservative talk host. Franken wasn't a Senator yet but Tweeden perhaps had an instinct, or maybe intuition, he might have a future political career. If and when the time came she could then pull out her evidence and lower the boom, in the right circumstances.

Indeed, it also appears Nixon- era dirty trickster Roger Stone might have put Tweeden up to it, and yeah, you can call me conspiracy -minded if you want, see:

  Roy Stone knew well ahead of time that Al Franken was going to be accused of something. 


 We know also Tweeden's background has indeed been exposed as "a Conservative talk show host, conservative commentator on many shows,  Trump supporter, model.:"   Left blogger Amanda Marcotte, in a recent salon.com piece,  suspected a Reepo dirty trick or political stunt after Tweeden came out with her claims. However, Amanda perversely invoked that to insist Franken resign -which was total bollocks  - on the fear the Reeptards might employ it later.. According to Marcotte "if this is a political stunt then the people behind it surely want Franken to stay".

Of course! And Tweeden and her conservo allies can now point to a victory enabled by Dem weaklings acting as accomplices because they insist on a stupid, conflationary,  "zero tolerance" policy.   Thus Sen. Gillibrand's exclaiming "I think when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping you are having the wrong conversation."   Adding:

"You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is O.K. None of it is acceptable."

So the moral scolds like Gillibrand appear to have won.  In this new climate of moral absolutism and "zero tolerance"  I guess  we can expect child rapists and wanton kissers (like Franken)  to suffer the exact same sanctions. Wifey conjectures that the Dem Senate women were emboldened and triggered into action by TIME's earlier selection of the #MeToo movement as "Person of the Year". Who knows? . I hope they are all satisfied in their exultation after tomorrow,  but are also aware of the can of worms they've opened with their imperious hyper rectitude.

 That is, now anyone's past from years ago- including minor sexual indiscretions -  can be dredged up and re-litigated by the pseudo-moral scolds to destroy their current careers. How many of us really, seriously, would be able to withstand such scrutiny?  Let's please let all those pure as the driven snow, without any moral blemishes, cast the first 'stones'.

Lawrence O'Donnell ruminated on his 'Last Word' show that "perhaps the Democrats have now risen to a higher moral standard."  Maybe. But cynic that I am, I suspect it is more about political expediency - and believing that if they can just ditch their "Roy Moores" (never mind the violations weren't the same) they can expect a huge, unencumbered wave win in the mid terms next year. Let us hope they're right - though I won't be donating any more $$$ to their campaigns.

What was really choice yesterday is seeing and hearing guppy mouth  Sen. Mitch McConnell also calling  for Mr. Franken to leave the Senate. This barely days after he did a 180 and has now opted to temper his opposition to pederast Roy Moore. He will "let the people of Alabama decide" Moore's fate in that state's Dec. 12th election. What a gracious POS.

Way to go, Sens. Schumer, Gillebrand and company!   You stupid, effing dupes!

See also: 

https://www.liberalforum.org/topic/221984-a-coordinated-hit-job-against-democrats-is-underway-and-al-franken-wont-be-the-last/

Update: Dec. 7th - Sen. Franken to resign:

His statement:

“I of all people am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party,”

Thanks for your stalwart service, Senator! And you did hit the nail on its proverbial head. It is a pity the Democrats took the easy road of adopting zero tolerance (for political expediency) , rather than exercising their presumed intellectual capacity to make the case that the acts of Moore and yourself amount to comparing chalk and cheese.  As Bill Maher put it in his last show - it should not have been that difficult to do.  See also:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/us/politics/al-franken-senate-sexual-harassment.html

Amidst The Tide Of Abuse Allegations - The Risk Of Trivialization & Overkill

"What we owe all people, including women, is to listen to them and to respect them and to take them seriously. But we don’t owe anyone our unthinking belief. “Trust but verify” may not have the same ring as “believe all women.” But it’s a far better policy."- Bari Weiss, NY Times

As more allegations of "inappropriate touching" come from female accusers of Sen. Al Franken, the whole abuse meme threatens to get out of control and bring down the entire #MeToo  movement by trivialization.  This isn't just whistling Dixie either. After more accusations of "verbal bullying put downs" came from a former female staffer (Melanie Sloan) of Rep. John Conyers, even wifey had appeared to have had enough saying: "This is ridiculous! All these women coming out with these trivial complaints (compared to those against Roy Moore) now risk degrading and trivializing the whole movement!"

She has a point, and whether people want to hear it or not there is such thing as indignation overkill.  Right now as the allegations of sexual harassment and minor abuse ("butt pinching", "verbal abuse' etc.) continue,  the whole impetus is threatened by implosion if  serious violations get conflated with minor or trivial ones.  Some outspoken feminists and defenders of women's rights  have actually come out in public and insisted "Zero tolerance!"   Meaning that even the slightest perceived infraction must receive the full, maximal weight of penalty. In other words, analogous to putting a jaywalker in a gas chamber.

But this is bonkers and counterproductive. If all infractions major and minor receive the same condemnation and sanction - say expulsion from office and equal destruction of reputation -  then there is total loss of balance, of moral perspective. In that case, what we end up with is a misfiring moralism and an atmosphere of feeding frenzy, not morality.  We end up with absolutism as opposed to conscious interpolation of actions differing in intent and transgressive impact. 

While I've been tempted to describe what's happening now as bordering on hysteria, my great niece Shayl (completing her psych Ph.D.) disagrees and compares the incipient atmosphere to the witch burning frenzy of the Middle Ages. While "hysteria" suggests individuals affected, the frenzy denotes an atmosphere of imbalance and unreason. For example, one beheld mainly elderly women led to dreadful torments based on mere allegations, including (Malleus Maleficarum , p. 68):

i) Her spouse (if any) being unable to “perform the carnal act”

ii) A female friend is prevented from conceiving or miscarries after she conceives.

iii) Possession of specific herbs such as “savin”.

Later, the ownership of a cat or cats was deemed evidence of  consulting a "familiar" or minor demonic entity.  In the age of witch burning, the "MeToo" meme (mind virus)  manifested as "She cursed me too!" Or "Her cat looked at me in an evil way!"

In each case, for each type of witch,  Kramer and Sprenger's  book gave the formula for extracting the confession. Worse was how easily a poor innocent woman could be suspected of being a witch since the threshold criteria were so low and subjective.  Shayl observed the same low criteria apply now, say in the case of the "inappropriate touching" allegations made by Franken's recent accusers. "It's too subjective!" she asserted, "What does that mean anyway? It could mean different touches for different women. The most innocent contact could be construed as 'inappropriate'!"

Let me add in conjunction with this that new polls disclose males are less likely to give cardio-pulmonary resuscitation to a female because of the possibility she will later cry 'Foul'. In other words, this frenzy about touching is no laughing matter, it could cost a young, single woman her life!

What is needed  instead of "zero tolerance" absolutism is to arrive at a weighing or interpolation of actions based on critical thinking combined with the exercise of ethical provisionalism. Just as provisional ethics provides a reasonable middle ground between absolute and  relative systems, it also provides a middle ground for sanctions imposed on a scale of actions or infractions.  Thus, while one may rightly demand a capital punishment (say lethal injection) for a mass murderer of infants in their cribs, one may not do so for a jaywalker.

The scale of infraction is vastly different, hence it is madness to apply the same sanction to both violations.  By the same token, provisional ethics bids us withhold the hand of punitive extremism, say for infractions like Al Franken's,  compared to those of  Roy Moore (sexually assaulting children).  Hence it is also madness to demand the expulsion of Al Franken for his alleged violations, which are nowhere in the same league as Moore's.  It is also nonsense to demand Franken's resignation if you don't also demand Donnie Dotard's for his much more malicious "grabbing pussies".


Former GOP Rep. (FL) Dave Jolly put it well in his appearance on Lawrence O''Donnell's show on Wednesday, that "we have to take care to distinguish fallibility from criminality".  This is especially as Mr. Jolly expects many more allegations to erupt in the coming weeks. As these further accusations pile up one must bear in mind that Roy Moore's advances on underage girls amount to the criminality (pedophilia), but Al Franken's mock grope of  Leeann Tweeden  does not.  Neither do his "inappropriate touches" - construed as such by assorted women who posed with him in takes at the MN state fair.

If Franken did cross a line in his accusers' minds it more likely was an  instance of over familiarity and perhaps fallibility.   It is also an overstep a male teacher can easily make - say in the jubilant moment a female student exceeds beyond all expectations in a science fair project - and hugs her without thinking. Is he guilty of "inappropriate touching" for being spontaneous?  As Shayl would put it "Give me a break!"

 And let us pause here to note again that not all allegations made by women are true, especially if there is no clear evidence of such. While we desire to give women's claims of sexual harassment validation, we cannot ignore the possibility that there may also be ulterior motives in play- and bad actors.  These motives (and strategies) didn't just originate recently but have been around for decades under the guise of "dirty tricks" -  e.g. since the Nixon campaign's tactics against Dems in 1968 and 1972..

As I pointed out to wifey (and she agreed) what better way  - in the wake of the  Roy Moore tarnishing of the GOP - to bring down Dem efforts to take back the House next year?  All the Roger Stone- trained hit team would need to do is hire dozens of female moles to come out of the woodwork at different times and make all kinds of allegations against sitting Dems.   At the very least - even if the accused parties weren't forced to resign - those less substantive allegations ("He pinched my ass!") would cast such a pall as to make their lives and service almost unmanageable.  Worse, most of this could be done - in the current climate- without demanding one scintilla of hard evidence. Just validate whatever accusations as part of #MeToo.

As John Conyer's lawyer Arnold Reed put it yesterday:

"If people were required to resign over mere allegations a lot of people would be out of work in this country, including the president."

This is exactly why we have a standard of jurisprudence in this country that says a person is innocent until proven guilty. But with the tidal wave of new allegations we are expected to dismiss or forget that standard and just toss Franken and Conyers  (to start) out based on sketchy, subjective allegations.

Unlike Franken's photo showing him mock groping  Leeann Tweeden  there isn't anything - other than his latest accusers' words - to prove Franken's "butt pinches" or "inappropriate touching"  occurred.  We have no distaff side images of his hands doing any gropes or pinches, only what they claim. That simply isn't good enough given : 1) it risks conflation of serious abuse with minor forms, and 2) it risks degrading the whole effort of women who've been seriously violated - to come forward, and 3) it risks casting suspicion of a political hit job or dirty tricks, with the 2018 mid terms approaching.

Even Left blogger Amanda Marcotte - after Tweeden's more justified accusation (with an actual photo to back it up) - has suspected her claim of being a Reepo dirty trick.  However, she's perversely invoked that to insist Franken resign -which is total bollocks. According to Marcotte "if this is a political stunt then the people behind it surely want Franken to stay". Thus, she tried to make the case that Franken "take one for the team"- which, of course,  would demonstrate to the GOP the dirty trick worked.

Bottom  line: it's critical now to distinguish between minor and serious violations, as Dave Jolly noted . If you got your butt pinched in a one off  ten years ago, deal with it, don't make a federal case out of it  now .  Unless the violation is of the most egregious type, don't turn it into a capital crime just to jump on the #MeToo bandwagon. Be conscious then that we are in a conflationary environment or a "frenzied atmosphere" to use Shayl's parlance.

Even political contributor Michelle Goldberg, on All In Wednesday  evening, seemed to be dithering with respect to Roy Moore's serious abuse of young girls, and Franken's (alleged) butt pinches of adult women. She actually whined at one point: "I  just don't know if I can go on splitting hairs about these things".

Sorry, Michelle, but you do have to keep making distinctions and it's NOT "splitting hairs"!  Franken's mock groping of Leeann Tweeden and assorted, alleged butt pinches (if true) of adult women - while immature and disrespectful  emphatically are NOT on the level of what the Alabamy slime ball Roy Moore has been doing, including to a young girl of 14. Anyone who tries to equate those two things on a moral spectrum is guilty of false equivalence. It is also up to those of us capable of critical thinking to make that distinction clear.

So let's not talk of 'splitting hairs' - let's talk of separating a cholera bacteria from one that maybe causes salmonella.

The worst thing we can do now is get intellectually sloppy with our categories of offense, and become too lazy to make the necessary distinctions. 

Sessions Needs To Resign - And Reepos Finally Need To Get Serious About Investigating Trump

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman!" - Bill Clinton before he was impeached.

"I did not have communications with the Russians," - Jeff Sessions when asked during his confirmation hearings if he had any contacts with the Russians.

With the news last night out of the Washington Post that AG Jeff Sessions lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee about having contacts with any Russians, it is time the Party of Pachyderms finally pulled its head out of its ass and commenced a full, independent investigation. And no, you dumbass Reeptards, this is not about "whining over the 2016 election" or "trying to delegitimize Trump's speech". (He did that all on his own - see my post from yesterday)  It is about getting to the bottom of a very serious issue: the infiltration of our general election by an outside power.

And may I remind any Repuke denizens reading this, compared with Clinton's relations with Monica Lewinsky this Sessions episode reaches 8 on the political Richter scale, compared with a '1' for Clinton's  sexual transgression.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, if something like this election interference had occurred 40 years ago - when U.S. citizens were still largely well informed and sane (e.g. no radical Right members were in the seats of power) it would have resulted in an inquiry that would have made Watergate look like a child's party.  No stone would have been left unturned in the cooperative effort to ferret out the culprits, or any who might have colluded with the foreign power.   Today, however, too many citizens are prepared to insanely lay blame on "bitter" political opponents as opposed to getting at the truth. Which is now fairly screaming at us in constant sirens and red flag alarms, especially with David Remnick's recent New Yorker article ("Trump, Putin and the New Cold War"),  on the Trump-Russian ties.

But of course to two fifths of the populace this is dismissed as "fake news".  The other hoot is that this is all about trying to "delegitimize" Trump. An interesting claim given that for eight years that's all the Reeptards tried to do over Obama - including using the phony birth certificate claim, as well as other idiotic beefs. (He was a "socialist" etc. or engaged in an "apology tour"). What drives this level of hypocrisy and detachment from reality?

Sam Greene of King’s College London puts it this way:

Our politics are vulnerable to nefarious influences — whether of the Kremlin variety or the Breitbart variety — not because our information landscape is open and fluid, but because voters’ perceptions have become untethered from reality. For reasons that are both complex and debatable, very many voters have stopped seeing government as a tool for the production of the common good, and have instead turned to politicians (and others) who at least make them feel good. Thus, the news we consume has become as much about emotion and identity as about facts.

In other words, the emotions of Trump backers, voters tend to overpower and overcome their good sense, reality perception and reason. This is why - like broken records- even when sobering material is presented that demands investigation they fob it off by yelping "Election bitterness!"  Their own emotions won't permit them to see anything else.

What do we know? According to two Justice Dept. sources, Trump’s attorney general Jeff Sessions twice spoke with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential campaign.

The Washington Post, citing those  justice department officials (not specified but may be FBI  - which agents are under DOJ) , first reported that Sessions met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak once in September 2016, when US intelligence officials were investigating Russian interference in the presidential election, and once in the summer of that year. A spokes person for the little liar from Alabama confirmed the meetings took place, while Sessions himself - slimy Johnny Reb that he is - doubled down with denial.  He burped: "I never met with any Russian officials in the campaign. I have no idea what this allegation is about. It is false".

And yet when one member of the judiciary committee (Sen. Al Franken)asked him point blank during his confirmation hearings if anyone  in the Trump campaign had ANY contacts whatsoever with any Russians, Sessions said  flatly:

  "I have been called a surrogate a time or two in the campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians."

Here the idiot volunteered information (albeit lies) that he was never asked for. Nonetheless, asked or not, he is hoist on his own dumb petard. He did have communications - TWICE - during the RNC in July, according to the two Justice Dept. sources.

As one might also have expected, the lying, reality- challenged Trumpies spun this differently. Resident Dodo Sarah Isgur Flores, obviously a lackey wrote:

"He was asked during the hearing about communications between Russia and the Trump campaign not about meetings he took as a Senator and member of the Armed Services Committee"

Fair enough, but why then volunteer denial information he was not asked for?  Also as Sen. Claire McCaskill wrote:

"I've been on the Armed Services Com. for 10 years. No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador. EVER. Ambassadors call members of Foreign Rel. Com."

So even in spinning the Trump toadies and lackeys lie.

 Meanwhile, the White House insanely claimed that this was merely an attempt to undermine Trump's speech which was  "reviewed favorably" by some parts of the U.S. media. Uh yeah, maybe, the "parts"  that had signed their gonads over to the Trumpies and lost any claim to being exponents of reality. See e.g.

http://www.salon.com/2017/03/01/donald-trump-pseudo-president-media-embraces-his-latest-pivot-like-the-proverbial-drunks-under-a-streetlight/

Excerpt:

"Old habits and impaired thinking lead to a suboptimal outcome.

In the age of President Donald Trump, too many members of the American news media have acted like the drunk searching for his or her keys under the streetlight. They are looking for answers in all the wrong places.  Here are several examples drawn from the tour de force of lying and deception that Trump performed on Tuesday."

But this won't wash. As 35 year Intelligence veteran Malcolm Nance noted last night, all the evidence is coming together including the conversations collected by foreign sources to bring the Trumpists down. It is only a matter of time before the whole demise arrives. If the Republicans are smart - namely in the Senate and House- they will get real about an investigation and not sit on their asses waiting for the scandal and corruption epic to manifest. They ought to recall history when too many were caught up in the Watergate mess with Nixon and the GOP lost 49 seats in the mid-term election following that debacle.

DO they want the same now? If so, let them keep doing the same  stonewalling and cast their ignominious  fate with the Trump liars and frauds. They will all come down one time, and I will enjoy and relish every minute of the spectacle.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/michael-winship/71474/if-sessions-had-nothing-to-hide-why-did-he-try-to-hide-it

Be A TV Cord Cutter - And Lose Your Net Connection Speed!

Increasingly in the U.S., people are becoming television cord cutters. Aware of how much time can be wasted while plopped on couches watching the tube, and how many stations of a typical cable setup are effectively useless - because they aren't watched at all  - citizens are increasingly 'cutting the cord' and doing more constructive things with their time such as reading books (or books on nooks), going for walks, or otherwise sensibly using time.

Our long time friend 'Nanette' finally got tired of all the stations she never watched on her Comcast lineup, and so decided to 'cut the cord' to one entire subset of them about 4 weeks ago. Well, who told her to do that? Within a day her Comcast-packaged net connection speed had slowed to a literal crawl and she had to wait better parts of an hour for a download, or to upload family photos, etc.  She had, unwittingly become a victim of  collateral damage from Comcast's peculiar types of service contract.

The set up is called 'bundling' and the deliberate excising of unwatched channels, or just plain cutting the tube out altogether, is called 'unbundling'.  The dirty little secret that more and more folks like Nanette are finding out is that there's a price to be paid for any unbundling.  One observer of all this, Craig Aaron, president of the consumer advocacy group Free Press, has put it this way:

"In order for you to get content you like, you're going to be pushed to pay the cable bill too."

This is already evident if one takes the time to peruse Comcast's current rate structure (and bear in mind after the Comcast-Time-Warner merger is likely approved, this practice will become even more widespread).  Thus, as of today, the cheapest internet service - and the one a cord-cutting household might select- goes for $40 a month the first year. It offers download speeds of up to 25 Mbps, which means it's fast enough to stream 2 or 3 videos simultaneously.

The perverse twist is that Comcast's cheapest TV plus internet plan goes for $50 a month the first year - or just $10 more than the cord cutter's plan. Thus, subscribers to the bundled plan get the same streaming speed as the internet only plan, as well as basic TV service that offers a handful of local channels.  In addition, Comcast throws in its service for watching TV shows on your mobile devices.  Even more enticingly, the plan includes access to HBO and its streaming service  HBO Go - which unlike Netflix and Hulu, isn't available to cord cutters. (Take heed all you 'True Detective' fans!)

Also to be noted, is that Comcast warns prices can vary according to location, so you may actually pay more than the quoted price.  The bottom line is that in the Comcast universe, cutting the cord doesn't save you money and you actually end up in an inferior position in terms of overall media access- than if you'd just kept the TV. Comcast has carefully set up the pricing to get you whether you watch shows the old-fashioned way (on the boob tube, fed with cable) or via Netflix or on your iPad.

In either case, you're likely paying hundreds of dollars a year to maintain connections via the web to the outside world, a cost that'll likely soon go up if the Comcast $45b merger is approved. (Sen. Al Franken appeared yesterday on CBS Early show vowing to try to stop it, but let's get real - the odds of that are slim and none.) 

Just more evidence on how the Neoliberal business model operates: the customer (or citizen) can never come out ahead because there will always be in place offsets to neutralize gains, so you regress to where you were or even further behind. Ask all the bosses that keep wages artificially low as the CEOs get fat off your surplus labor! Then they want you to go into debt to support a low aggregate demand economy!