Politics

Politics

There are 1,056 posts filed in Politics (this is page 1 of 106).

A grind

Gotta be up front with y’all. What’s going on is a grind. Yep, a real grind. A flood of colossally bad moves, blatant racial profiling, skirting and breaking the law. It is maddening. It is infuriating. It is depressing. Every morning I pop open my phone to learn about the latest disaster.

But you know what? This chaos is not going to last. It will end, these crooks will be reigned in and brought to court, and our country will begin the long and substantial work to rebuild our nation, alliances, and reputation. I try to focus on this future rather than the mess we are currently in.

The headlines, blogs, and social media posts are right to tell us what’s happening, and it’s important to know what’s happening but it’s often not the whole story. What gets our attention now is the stories that are flashy or angering or infuriating but the stuff that doesn’t make headlines is the fact that the current regime is striking out almost universally in court.

Judges are holding officials’ feet to the fire. Grand juries are refusing to play along with the administration’s bullshit charges. The idiots are getting called out and quietly retreating on many fronts.

As long as this administration keeps being frustrated in its quest for legitimacy there is hope. We just gotta keep grinding.

Trying to find a COVID booster shot

Kelly and I are traveling in a few weeks so we both decided it made sense to get a COVID booster shot. COVID cases are ramping up again, with some cities reporting infections are reaching levels they usually do in February, which is concerning for late summer.

Kelly got a shot on Sunday and it absolutely leveled her for Monday. She slept until 5 PM, with fatigue, chills, fever, nausea, joint pain: all the typical COVID symptoms which apparently can sometimes manifest from the vaccine.

I am not looking forward to being similarly knocked out, though my previous COVID shots affected me very little. So I reached out to the Durham VA and asked if I could get a walk-in shot.

The nurse responded a few days ago and suggested I make an appointment to be sure that the vaccine brand I wanted was in stock. She later reached back out and said that neither the Moderna nor the Pfizer version are in stock and she would have to figure out when they might come in.

This is … concerning … as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is doing his damnedest to destroy our healthcare system and get us all killed. If we’re at February levels of COVID right now, imagine where we will be in the winter when more interactions take place indoors?

I am really glad I work from home right now.

I still remember the efficient operation the VA undertook to vaccinate veterans and their caregivers in 2021. It is a stunning contrast.

Back to East CAC duty for me

Since it seems 2010 is making a comeback in my life, it’s only fair that I am in charge of the East Citizens Advisory Council again. This happened today when the current Chair, my neighbor Jean, abruptly stepped down. As Vice-Chair, I’m now in charge for the first time in a decade.

I’d been working to mentor Jean in how to make things happen and made it a point to let her lead. As a fifty-six year old who’s had his turn already in leading this group, I feel strongly that it’s time the younger generation had a chance to try running things. My role was to be a coach and help get things running smoothly as we were starting essentially from scratch after the City of Raleigh abruptly disbanded CACs in February 2020.

Now I must spend time recruiting a new leader and reviving this organization on my own if need be. I have put in too much work in CACs over the years to let them wither, so I feel it’s worth a good push right now. Further, civic engagement is what this country so desperately needs at the moment.

I guess everything old is new again, eh?

Even if you can’t trust the data, these 13 warning signs will tell you the economy is in trouble | Fortune

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics job report was released, showing an anemic job market. President PoopyPants, unhappy with numbers deemed by nearly everyone to be accurate, of course pitched a fit and fired the head of BLS.

This won’t fix the problem, obviously, and now no one can trust any numbers anywhere, which breeds uncertainty which breeds caution which grinds the economy to a halt. Now I’m really wondering just how bad a cliff we’re now hurtling torwards which no one apparently in the driver’s seat. My hunch is it may be bad with a capital B.

For decades, statistics that came directly from the U.S. government, especially from agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), have long been the gold standard for measuring the health of the American economy. But this trust has been shaken by recent events, including substantial downward revisions to jobs data, bruising political accusations, and the unceremonious dismissal of Erika McEntarfer, the BLS’s top official, at the beginning of the month. The resulting uncertainty has left many Americans asking: If official government data can’t be trusted, how can you know if the economy is struggling?

Source: Even if you can’t trust the data, these 13 warning signs will tell you the economy is in trouble | Fortune

City of Raleigh’s Open Data initiative withers?

In my newfound quest to RSS All The Things, I noticed that the City of Raleigh no longer offers an RSS/Atom feed for its news items. There were several years where the city was all-in on supplying Open Data. I suppose that changed when new City Managers were hired and priorities changed.

I hope to put the bug into someone’s ear at City Hall that this would be a good thing to support once again.

VIDEO: Chinese Warship, Cutter Collide in South China Sea – USNI News

When my battle group transited the South China Sea back in the early 1990s, the only Chinese reaction was a surveillance flight from two Chinese YAK-derivative aircraft. The Chinese military has become more foolish and aggressive since then and mistakes like this one are bound to not be the last.

A Chinese cutter and guided-missile destroyer collided with each other in the South China Sea on Monday during a botched blockade attempt of Philippine Coast Guard vessels ten nautical miles off Scarborough Shoal in one of the most severe incidents among Chinese forces to date.

Just before the incident, Philippine Coast Guard patrol vessels responded to reports of harassment and “hazardous maneuvers” against Philippine fishing vessels around the contested maritime feature, according to a statement from Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela. BRP Teresa Magbanua (MRRV-9701) and BRP Suluan (MRRV-4406) escorted fishing carrier MV Pamamalakaya and 35 local fishing vessels in support of Manila’s Kadiwa Operation, a Philippine government-led initiative designed to support and empower fishing communities in the country’s western exclusive economic zone.

Chinese forces failed to water cannon Suluan after Philippine sailors maneuvered away, according to the press release. China Coast Guard cutter 3104, one of several former People’s Liberation Army Navy 056-class corvettes transferred to China’s maritime law enforcement agency, proceeded to chase the Philippine vessel alongside the PLAN 052D-class guided-missile destroyer Guilin (164) in what Tarriela described as a “risky” maneuver.

Source: VIDEO: Chinese Warship, Cutter Collide in South China Sea – USNI News

What happens if Trump starts ignoring court rulings? We break it down | KUNC

In less than a month in office, President Trump has signed dozens of executive orders that are now facing pushback in the courts.Many are wondering: What happens if he simply ignores them?Law professors who spoke to NPR saw warning signs of a constitutional crisis based on a recent court order and comments from the vice president over the weekend.

Source: What happens if Trump starts ignoring court rulings? We break it down | KUNC

The Wiretap: Kamala Harris’ Campaign Staff Suspected iPhones Had Been Hacked. Apple Declined To Give Them The Help They Wanted.

In late October, a week before the presidential election, Kamala Harris’ cybersecurity team called Apple looking for help. A spyware detection tool had flagged anomalies on two iPhones belonging to senior members of the vice president’s team, and staff were worried the devices had been hacked.

The Harris team’s ask was a simple one, sources familiar with the incident told Forbes. It wanted Apple to extract a “raw image” copy of the operating system from one of the devices to better assess what had happened to it.

Though the phone’s owner had consented to its examination, Apple declined to provide the image, sources said. The company did offer to provide iCloud backup information and some telemetry data linked to the device, but neither were of interest to the Harris campaign, which did not press the issue over fears of the issue becoming politicized. The phone continues to be investigated by iVerify, the company whose spyware detection tool first flagged the issues. Both Apple and the Harris campaign declined to comment on the matter. The FBI, which had been investigating the matter, declined to comment.

Source: The Wiretap: Kamala Harris’ Campaign Staff Suspected iPhones Had Been Hacked. Apple Declined To Give Them The Help They Wanted.

Billionaire cowardice led to The Washington Post, L.A. Times non-endorsements

Once upon a time, after the publisher decided our newspaper would endorse a candidate that those of us on the editorial board didn’t prefer, a colleague circled the date on the calendar and joked that it was “Reminder That We Work for The Man Day.” We knew, even if readers didn’t, that newspaper endorsements don’t always reflect a consensus or the majority opinion of its editorial writers.

At The Los Angeles Times, the man in charge is Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire doctor and founder of the health care software company NantHealth who spent $500 million for the newspaper in 2018. Soon-Shiong’s decision to block the paper from endorsing California’s own Kamala Harris for president, as its board was reportedly planning to do, led to Donald Trump crowing and the paper’s editorials editor quitting. “I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not OK with us being silent,” Mariel Garza told the Columbia Journalism Review. “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up.” Two more members of the newspaper’s editorial board resigned after Garza did.

At The Washington Post, the world’s third-richest man, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, is The Man. And his venerable newspaper, which he bought in 2013 for $250 million, will not endorse a presidential candidate this year. And won’t going forward, according to its relatively new publisher and chief executive, Will Lewis. “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election,” Lewis wrote on the newspaper’s website Friday. “We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” The newspaper, Lewis writes, didn’t endorse in presidential races from 1960 to 1972 but did from 1976 to 2020.

Source: Billionaire cowardice led to The Washington Post, L.A. Times non-endorsements

Judge dismisses Trump’s classified documents case – The Washington Post

I am someone who tries to see the bright side of things. I was once entrusted with some of our nation’s most closely-guarded secrets, a role I took (and STILL take) very, very seriously. Seeing boxes upon boxes of these secrets stored in the tacky bathroom of the former president’s cheesy resort shook me to my core. Today’s casual dismissal of this damning case against the former president’s theft of these taxpayer-owned secrets shakes me even further to my core.

I can’t help but wonder if some sort of coup is taking place though America’s court system, and I do not say this lightly.

The federal judge overseeing the classified documents charges against former president Donald Trump has dismissed the indictment on the grounds that special counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed, according to a court filing Monday.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s ruling is a remarkable win for Trump, whose lawyers have attempted long-shot argument after long-shot argument to dismiss the case. Other courts have rejected arguments similar to the one that he made in Florida about the legality of Smith’s appointment.

The Justice Department is highly likely to appeal the decision, a legal fight that could end up at the Supreme Court.

Source: Judge dismisses Trump’s classified documents case – The Washington Post