JustOneMinute

Back In Chicago

The NY Times puzzles over the ghastly homicide rate in Chicago. These passages read like a parody written by Fox Butterfield:

Chicago’s Murder Problem

By FORD FESSENDEN and HAEYOUN PARK MAY 27, 2016

There was a time when it looked as if Chicago would follow New York and Los Angeles into a kind of sustained peace. Then progress stalled in 2004, and the city has been through some harrowing years leading up to another alarming spike in homicides this year.

Already embroiled in a crisis over race and police conduct, Chicago now faces a 62 percent increase in homicides. Through mid-May, 216 people have been killed. Shootings also are up 60 percent.

So what’s going on in Chicago?

Whatever is going on triggers a descent into a parody seemingly written by Fox Butterfield:

Chicago has a reputation for strict gun laws, and gun rights advocates often point to it as proof that gun regulation doesn’t reduce violence. But its laws aren’t what they used to be: Federal courts struck down its ban on handgun ownership in 2010, and its ban on gun sales in 2014. And a New York Times analysis showed guns were easily available from nearby jurisdictions, especially Indiana.

Well, striking down a ban in 2010 would explain the spike beginning in 2004. If we are dealing with time-traveling gun-runners, who one might think could make even more money betting on sports or trading stocks and commodities.

And Chicago is more lenient about illegal handguns than New York, prescribing a one-year minimum for possession versus three and a half years in New York. An attempt to match the New York law in 2013 was rejected by the Illinois legislature out of concern for skyrocketing incarceration rates for young black men.

Well, we certainly don't want to be locking up the criminals. I should add, many critics have noted this flaw in the gun-control advocacy of Hillary Clinton - libs seem to believe stricter gun control will let them lock up the Duck Dynasty family and other culturally offensive whites redneck whites, but a disproportionate number of gun homicides are urban black on black and we are trying to move away from Incarceration Nation, not towards it.

New York also hired a lot more police officers in response to the crime of the 1990s, and, during its stop-and-frisk era of the 2000s, steeply increased gun enforcement. Recent studies, including one that looked at increased police presence in London after a terrorist attack, have suggested more police might mean less crime, said Jens Ludwig, the director of Crime Lab at the University of Chicago, which studies crime in both Chicago and New York.

More police, less crime? Thank heaven for studies! Of course, libs hated stop-and-frisk and barely endured twenty years of the Giuliani/Bloomberg Gulag, so well done, Chi-town!

The writers manage to reconnect with reality:

Chicago’s Police Department, overwhelmed, can respond only to the most serious problems, leaving citizens to feel responsible for their own security, he said.

“Everyone has to establish deterrence on a retail basis,” [Jens Ludwig] said. “People carry guns in public because other people are carrying guns. It’s literally an arms race, a vicious cycle. There are lots of indications that New York City, by taking guns more seriously and hiring more officers, has gotten a lot of guns off the streets, creating a virtuous cycle.”

So now hassling and arresting young black men is virtuous? What, is the Times having an editors strike?

Going Viral

Comedian Jake Flores is very funny with his "Going Viral" experience.

AND AS OUR MEMORIAL DAY REMEMBRANCE: These words of wisdom from Obama are seared in my memory:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

 

English (Including British) Spoken Here

Kids hear the darndest things! Brian Williams is taking real metaphorical flak for his assertion that the US dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima "in anger". Let me tie the Washington Free Beacon to the whipping post (another metaphor, possibly slave-related, so who's the hater now?!? I need to de-activate my auto-discredit feature before I trigger someone.)

Brian Williams: We Used Nuclear Weapons Against Japan ‘in Anger’

MSNBC’s Brian Williams said the U.S. used nuclear weapons against Japan “in anger” Friday, an expression sure to upset those who recognize the decision potentially saved hundreds of thousands of lives by bringing about a swift end to World War II.

...

In the clip flagged by NewsBusters, fellow MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell prefaced Williams’ commentary by praising former Sens. Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) and Sam Nunn (D., Ga.) for the bipartisan nuclear threat initiative they spearheaded, saying “I don’t think they get enough credit for it.”

“That they controlled, through a bipartisan act of Congress, controlled the spread of nuclear materials, non-state actors, materials even in this age of terror, all these decades after the end of the Cold War is just remarkable, and I don’t think they get enough credit for it,” Mitchell said.

“It is, and that is still the threat that people worry about, that this material will fall into the wrong hands,” Williams said. “If people have found the U.S. to be preachy in the years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki about the use of nuclear weapons, it’s because we’re the only nation to have used them in anger. Sometimes, I am amazed that the world has been without these weapons all the years since, but it is a point of great pride by the people who have seen to it.”

For heaven's sake - "used in anger" is an old yet not unfamiliar expression, likely of British origin, meaning employing a device for its intended purpose rather than as a training exercise. Bing can bring us home - their first first hit on "used in anger" is a message board chat about that very phrase, with links to other uses, including non-military contexts such as the software industry (OK, who knew?). I am endorsing this origin theory:

From The life, adventures, and opinions of Col. George Hanger: Written by himself, (1801 - the cited passage was written in 1798):

As there are many of our generals, and by far the greatest number of field officers, who never saw a shot fired in anger in their lives; both for the satisfaction of the common soldier, and for the honour and interest of my country, I propose that every general and field officer, who has not seen active service before they be permitted to take upon them the command of a brigade or regiment, shall be commanded to walk backwards and forwards for one quarter of an hour behind a canvas screen, about eight feet high, placed in front of a battalion of infantry, the men firing all the time as quick as possible at the cloth.

Colonel Hanger was a British officer during the American Revolution (or "the recent unpleasantness", as I suppose they call it back in dear old Blighty), but this is definitely not just a British expression; I've been hearing and using it for most of my life, usually ironically.

The second Bing hit is this:

F-22 Used In Anger For The First Time

By Rick Durden  September 24 2014

The oft-maligned but remarkably capable Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor entered combat for the first time this week when an undisclosed number were used in airstrikes against Islamic State strongholds and facilities in Syria.

The reporting does not discuss the emotional state of the pilots.

Donald Sensing appears in the comments at InstaPundit with a table-pounding (metaphor!) response. A snippet:

Methinks you protest too much.

Most anyone with military experience (I am a retired artillery officer) know that "we’re the only nation to have used them in anger" means nothing but that we are the only nation to have used them in wartime. He was not referring to an emotional state.

Back in the 80s I met a senior infantry NCO who had been awarded the Combat Infantry Badge in Vietnam. But he pretty much never wore it because, he told me, the entire year he was in Vietnam, "I never fired my rifle in anger." I knew what he meant: he never fired his weapon in combat.

Send better Gotchas.

A Salt On Conventional Wisdom, or The Science Was Settled, Part Umpty-Bump

The AP reports that New York City will go full speed ahead on mandated sodium disclosure in restaurants. Let me note that I am a big fan of disclosure in the case of sodium for reasons I may remember to come back to. Here we go:

NYC gets OK to issue salt fines during appeal

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City plans to start enforcing a first-of-its-kind requirement for chain restaurants to use icons to warn patrons of salty foods after getting an appeals court's go-ahead Thursday to start issuing fines. But it's not the final word on whether the regulation will stand.

The novel rule took effect in December, and some eateries already have added the requisite salt-shaker-like icons to menu items that contain more salt than doctors recommend ingesting in an entire day.

But penalties have been in limbo as the National Restaurant Association fights the measure in court. That clash is ongoing, but an appeals court Thursday lifted a temporary hold on issuing the fines while the case plays out. Fines can be up to $600.

The city will start enforcing the rule June 6.

And we all know the motivation  - its for our own good! - but the AP reminds us:

Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio applauded the appeals court's decision on what he called "a common-sense regulation that will help New Yorkers make better decisions and lead healthier lives." The city won the first round of the lawsuit in a trial court in February; the restaurant association appealed.

...

The average American consumes about 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day, while the recommended limit is 2,300 mg, or about a teaspoon. Experts say eating too much salt, over time, can increase the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease.

Yes, except that experts aren't quite saying that anymore. The Times covers a recent Lancet article. From the Times:

A Low-Salt Diet May Be Bad for the Heart

People with high blood pressure are often told to eat a low-sodium diet. But a diet that’s too low in sodium may actually increase the risk for cardiovascular disease, a review of studies has found.

...

Researchers reviewed four observational studies that included 133,118 people who were followed for an average of four years. The scientists took blood pressure readings, and estimated sodium consumption by urinalysis. The review is in Lancet.

Among 69,559 people without hypertension, consuming more than seven grams of sodium daily did not increase the risk for disease or death, but those who ate less than three grams had a 26 percent increased risk for death or for cardiovascular events like heart disease and stroke, compared with those who consumed four to five grams a day.

In people with high blood pressure, consuming more than seven grams a day increased the risk by 23 percent, but consuming less than three grams increased the risk by 34 percent, compared with those who ate four to five grams a day.

The lead author, Andrew Mente, an epidemiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, said that eating less salt does indeed lower blood pressure.

“But low sodium intake may be harmful,” he added. “It’s important not to rely on blood pressure alone, but rather to look at actual clinical events — heart attack, stroke, mortality.”

Well, then. Now, one might wonder about the hypertensive low-sodium group. Presumably some significant fraction of that subset is in that category based on a personal decision or doctor's advice to adopt a low-sodium diet. Or, a lot of people are living under rocks. But if that sub-group is there by deliberate action rather than natural taste and preference, it is hard to argue they represent some kind of random sample for which normal statistical controls will apply. So maybe that sub-group was already on a bad path and entirely likely to have a higher percentage of dire outcomes.

Presumably the authors addressed this to the satisfaction of the Lancet editors, and on a rainy day in November I might take the time to figure out how. But this is not that day. This day, we play!

OH, YEAH: A close acquaintance has to restrict her sodium or she loses her hearing. Not good! But this is a small proportion of the population.  Although I am all in favor of disclosure, it would be even better if the reasons for the mandated disclosure overlapped with reality.

 

Traditional Have A Great Weekend Open Thread

And do have a great weekend!

Eight Is Enough

A contrary but interesting take on the current Supreme Court by Barry McDonald, NY Times op-ed guest and Pepperdine law professor:

Eight Justices Are Enough

But it is not causing any real harm. Indeed, there is reason to think the opposite is true.

For one thing, 5-to-4 rulings, though not as rare as they used to be, are still not all that common. Some 80 percent of the court’s decisions in a given term typically consist of non-ideologically charged rulings on questions of statutory interpretation or other issues. In such cases, an eight-justice court operates just fine because majorities readily form.

It is only in the relatively small fraction of politically charged cases where the court may divide along ideological lines, frequently with the “swing justice,” Anthony M. Kennedy, choosing to join his conservative or liberal colleagues. Americans have learned to view these cases as central to the court’s role — which is why 4-to-4 deadlocks can seem dysfunctional. But we ought to ask ourselves whether deciding important cases in this manner is what the court should be doing.

Well might we ask. And if a case is so close that a 5-4 outcome would be the result, maybe forcing the Supremes to punt is just fine. Getting them back to following public opinion and Congressional action rather than leading it, as with Virginia v. Loving, might provide a nice break from the culture wars.

That said, a divided and indecisive Supreme Court empowers the lower courts, and we may have a plethora of split results coming from different regions. The California Ninth Circuit might finally create their own country with their own laws not endorsed elsewhere but not overturned by a 5-3 Supreme coalition which included a wandering liberal.

Oh, well - more Federalism faster!

 

 

Trouble In My Blue Heaven, West Bank Edition

Yet another Democratic Divide makes the front page:

A Split Over Israel Threatens the Democrats’ Hopes for Unity

By JASON HOROWITZ and MAGGIE HABERMAN   MAY 25, 2016

A bitter divide over the Middle East could threaten Democratic Party unity as representatives of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont vowed to upend what they see as the party’s lopsided support of Israel.

Two of the senator’s appointees to the party’s platform drafting committee, Cornel West and James Zogby, on Wednesday denounced Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and said they believed that rank-and-file Democrats no longer hewed to the party’s staunch support of the Israeli government. They said they would try to get their views incorporated into the platform, the party’s statement of core beliefs, at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July.

“Justice for Palestinians cannot be attained without the lifting of the occupation,” Dr. West, one of Mr. Sanders’s five representatives on the platform committee, said in an interview. Dr. West said that while he recognized the necessity to provide for the security of Jews, who for thousands of years have been a “hated people,” he thought that the platform needed to bring more balance to “the plight of an occupied people.

The baby-boomers grew up on Exodus. The current crop of collegians has been told for years that Palestinians are the real victims here (and where is that long-buried Obama tape of a salute to some Israel-basher or other?).

I am sure the Dems will resolve this tension with their customary panache, but I do love this:

The presence of Dr. Zogby and Dr. West on the 15-member panel, which also has six appointees of Hillary Clinton and four from the party chairwoman, does not guarantee their views will prevail. But it raises the prospect that one of the party’s most sensitive issues will be open to public debate while Mrs. Clinton is in a fight to unify her party and appeal to voters turned off by Donald J. Trump.

"We can't have sensitive discussions in public - this is the Democratic Party!". I put that up there with "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here - this is the War Room." But of course, its Hillary's party now, so this level of secrecy will be the new normal.

 

 

I Love This Game

Trump participates in Operation Chaos 2016 by agreeing to debate... Bernie Sanders! Sanders was happy to sign up, since being the Democratic dragonslayer or at least having the brass to try ought to boost his image.

No I've never seen a cross-party debate like this, so I would say we are now moving out of the foothills as we continue the 2016 ascent towards Peak Crazy.

Maybe they can debate why Hillary is still sitting on her Goldman Sachs speeches, since her original ludicrous objection was that other candidates on the Republican side where being held to a different standard. Is that still operative - Bernie has no payday speeches to release and my impression was that Kasich, not Trump was the Republican holdout.

The NY Times editors pounded the table for the speech transcripts a while back but will be fully in the tank for Hillary now. After tut-tutting her email debacle they will forget about that, too. But there is a lot for Bernie and The Donald to debate!

The State Dept. Inspector General Email Report

The WaPo gets a leaked version of the upcoming IG report into Hillary's private email server:

State Dept. inspector general report sharply criticizes Clinton’s email practices

By Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger May 25 at 10:18 AM

The State Department’s independent watchdog has issued a highly critical analysis of Hillary Clinton’s email practices while running the department, concluding that she failed to seek legal approval for her use of a private email server and that department staff would not have given its blessing because of the “security risks in doing so.”

The inspector general, in a long awaited review obtained Wednesday by The Washington Post in advance of its publication, found that Clinton’s use of private email for public business was “not an appropriate method” of preserving documents and that her practices failed to comply with department policies meant to ensure federal record laws are followed.

The report says she should have printed and saved her emails during her four years in office or surrendered her work-related correspondence immediately upon stepping down in February 2013. Instead, Clinton provided those records in December 2014, nearly two years after leaving office.

The report found that a top Clinton aide was warned in 2010 that the system may not properly preserve records but dismissed those worries, indicating that the system had passed legal muster. But the inspector general said it could not show evidence of a review by legal counsel.

IANAL and someone can doublecheck but when I looked recently my conclusion was that these [the record-keeping stuff, not the handling classified info stuff] are administrative, not criminal violations. Utter disdain for the FOIA, for example, earns a dressing-down from one's supervisor or a federal judge, not fines or imprisonment. Back to the WaPo:

The new report focuses on record keeping and how Clinton and previous secretaries of state have maintained documents regarding public business. She has said she complied with laws requiring the preservation of documents, including emails, because she emailed other government officials at their official accounts, knowing their emails would be retained on public servers.

However, she has not explained how she intended emails sent to private citizens, who did not use government email, to be preserved. Some emails have emerged, particularly from Clinton’s first months in office in 2009 when her aides have said she was transitioning technology, that she did not provide to the State Department.

 ERRATA: This is from the FOIA, section 4:

(F) Whenever the court orders the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complainant and assesses against the United States reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs, and the court additionally issues a written finding that the circumstances surrounding the withholding raise questions whether agency personnel acted arbitrarily or capriciously with respect to the withholding, the Special Counsel shall promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action is warranted against the officer or employee who was primarily responsible for the withholding. The Special Counsel, after investigation and consideration of the evidence submitted, shall submit his findings and recommendations to the administrative authority of the agency concerned and shall send copies of the findings and recommendations to the officer or employee or his representative. The administrative authority shall take the corrective action that the Special Counsel recommends.

(G) In the event of noncompliance with the order of the court, the district court may punish for contempt the responsible employee, and in the case of a uniformed service, the responsible member.

I guess a contempt of court finding could result in jail time but it is still not a felony, as best I know. Still, what a weird Hillary defense - she broke the law but the penalties are minor, so what's the big deal? Uhh, she broke the law? And now wants to be Chief Executive?

TO BE CLEAR: I am focusing on the record-keeping violations, not the potential mishandling of classified information.

McJobs Gone? No Loss

Drudge has some great news about the impending reduction in, well, drudgery:

Building robot McDonald's staff 'cheaper' than hiring workers on minimum wage

A former McDonald's CEO is warning that robots will take over jobs at the huge enterprise - because it's cheaper than employing humans.

He said that buying highly skilled robotics is cheaper than employing people at the fast food restaurant.

The worrying forecast comes as he warns huge job losses are imminent, and that it's 'common sense' to replace humans in the workplace.

First, contra the notion that there are no small parts, only small players, Democrats have derided "McJobs" going back at least to Walter Mondale. Presumably the loss of opportunities for low-skilled workers who might pick up some useful, employable skills such as showing up on time rested, ready to go, willing to take directions and show initiative as needed will trouble our minimum-wage raising friends on the left not at all.

Secondly, this tide has been coming in for centuries. Just for example, horses, mules and oxen displaced human pulling-power in agriculture and transport, and were themselves eventually displaced (in the developed world) by engines.

Ditch diggers have lost jobs to modestly trained, well paid earth mover operators. Container shipping and a few guys with cool cranes have (again, in ports of the developed world) displaced swarms of dock workers. The displacement of labor by capital is not new and it does not have to be bad - the key is finding new, hopefully more engaging work for those displaced workers. A former coal worker who has to give up his opportunity to slog in a mine and get black lung disease and instead operate a high-tech control panel at a modern power plant may not consider himself worse off. On the other hand, if he loses the mining job and is stuck on welfare, that will be a loss to society as well as the worker in question.

Well. I sometimes indulge the theory that if I type long enough I will say something original. Hasn't been true this morning but the day is young!

Is This Socialist Math or J-School Math?

Bernie Sanders is in California preparing to break precedent as he tries to become President:

Sanders is pouring a mountain of time and resources into the Golden State in an effort to claim as many of the state’s 475 pledged delegates as possible. He has been crisscrossing the state on and off for a week, attracting tens of thousands of supporters to rallies in Los Angeles, San Diego, Carson and other places....

“We believe we are going to do something in this campaign that has never, ever been done in the modern history of Democratic politics,” Sanders told reporters after a rally in Los Angeles on Monday. “We will be holding rallies up and down the state, the central part of the state, that we think will bring out at least 200,000 people. We expect that roughly speaking, some 5 million people will be participating in the Democratic primary on June 7. To win that, you’re gonna need about 250 million people. And we think we stand a good chance, above and beyond everything else we’re doing, to communicate with about 10 percent of the votes that we need to win here in California.”

5 million people will vote so he will need 250 million votes to win? No wonder he thinks he can raise taxes on a few people and collect lots more money.

Or, are the editors here even reading the text? The odds are excellent that Bernie said 'Two point five million', which would be half of the 5 million total votes (later I will link to a You-Tube instructional video on boiling water for tea.) From which it follows - strap in for the high priced math! - that if he can reach 200,000 prospective voters at rallies in the central state, he will be close to reaching ten percent of the 2.5 million voters needed to win.

For a state that routinely relies on television and radio because it is too big to cover otherwise, having that many people at rallies might well be new. Just as he claimed.

Trump v. Clinton, Bill Edition

From the WaPo:

Trump escalates attack on Bill Clinton

By Jose A. DelReal and Robert Costa May 23 at 7:41 PM

 

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is reviving some of the ugliest political chapters of the 1990s with escalating personal attacks on Bill Clinton’s character, part of a concerted effort to smother Hillary Clinton’s campaign message with the weight of decades of controversy.

 

Breathes there a Republican who does not thrill to a revival of the Bill Clinton debacles? Not counting David Brooks, who seems oddly unaware of this sort of thing.

 

Secondly, if Hillary defends Bill it moves her out of the spotlight and elevates the loose cannon on her deck. But if she doesn't defend him, well, the Clintons have long attacked on the notion that an attack ignored is an attack affirmed.

 

And finally, just what is the WaPo pretending here?

 

Broaddrick accused Bill Clinton of assaulting her in 1978, when she worked on his Arkansas gubernatorial campaign. Willey said the former president tried to kiss and grope her in a private hallway in the White House when he was president. Clinton has denied the allegations, and inconsistencies in the women’s stories sowed doubts about their accounts.

 

"Doubts about their accounts"? Here in 2016 where all proper feminists insist we believe the victim and that assault survivors have notoriously shaky memories, is that really the play Hillary is gong to run?

 

Slate reviewed the Broadrick case back in 1999, as did Bill Press in the LA Times. Although there are inconsistencies, there is no question that if a similar scenario with comparable evidence (she said/his lawyer denied, multiple contemporaneous witnesses) occurred on a college campus today, Wild Bill would be booted. Instead, we should make him First Spouse?

 

HOW LITTLE HE KNOWS: Josh Marshall tries to analyze Republicans even though he doesn't know any (my emphasis):

 

There's no question that this [Bill-bashing] is absolute red meat for a lot of Republican voters and almost a kind of messaging nirvana for a certain brand of Republican hater. But those people are already rabid Trump supporters. They're not remotely within reach for Clinton under any circumstance.

 

I know that is false because I can find at least one Republican who was beyond the reach of Hillary yet, contra "rabid", can't stand Trump either. And a quick glance in the mirror reminds me I need a haircut prior to the big holiday weekend.

 

If Trump can consolidate the 'lesser evil' vote that is a big win.

 

THEN AGAIN: Christina Cauterucci of Slate shares a page with me:

 

It’s not clear whether this strategy will work for Trump, anyway. Voters under 35, who make up nearly a third of the electorate, are either too young to care about Bill’s famous infidelities or too liberal to swing for Trump. Then again, harping on Bill's sexual misdoings could be an effective means of galvanizing conservative voters behind an unlikely, unlovable candidate. The average Republican voter is far past old enough to remember the hubbub over Bill’s irresponsible, pervy behavior in the White House and subsequent lies about it; it’s one of the reasons they hate the Clintons in the first place. Since a lack of excitement among Republicans is one of Trump’s biggest weaknesses right now, Bill's history could be exactly the motivator Trump needs.

 

 

 

Minority Report

The Chicago Police Dept. is in the future-crime business:

Chicago Police Try to Predict Who May Shoot or Be Shot

CHICAGO — In this city’s urgent push to rein in gun and gang violence, the Police Department is keeping a list. Derived from a computer algorithm that assigns scores based on arrests, shootings, affiliations with gang members and other variables, the list aims to predict who is most likely to be shot soon or to shoot someone...

...

“We know we have a lot of violence in Chicago, but we also know there’s a small segment that’s driving this stuff,” Eddie Johnson, the police superintendent, said in a recent interview.

The authorities hope that knowing who is most likely to be involved in violence can bring them a step closer to curtailing it. They are warning those highest on the list that they are under intense scrutiny, while offering social services to those who want a path away from the bloodshed.

About three years into the program and on a fourth revision of the computer algorithm that generates the list, critics are raising pointed questions about potential breaches to civil liberties in the creation of such a ranking. And the list’s efficacy remains in doubt, as killings and shootings have continued to rise this year.

Ahh, well, algorithms! But instead of tracking 'Likes' and 'Dislikes' they are tracking 'Dislikes' and 'Wants to Shoot At'.

To these tired eyes this reads as if the CPD are tracking gang affiliations and the current shooting/non-shooting intensity of various gang rivalries, which is sensible enough and has no doubt been standard police procedure for decades. However - no one ever got a bigger budget for claiming to be doing the same old same old, but people have gotten in trouble for keeping lists of troublemakers that are almost exclusively ethnics, so dressing this up as science is undoubtedly good politics. That is, if "good politics" and "Chicago Police Department" are not utterly oxymoronic.

 

OK, This Isn't Funny... But It's Pretty Funny

Ooops:

Padres Apologize to Gay Men’s Chorus for Error in National Anthem Recording

The 100 men, in black dress shirts and pants, formed two rows in center field at Petco Park in San Diego before the Padres played the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night.

The men, members of the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus, had been invited by the Padres to sing the national anthem. In keeping with the team’s request, the chorus would not sing live but would perform to an amplified rendition it had recorded.

The group waited for its cue, and after a prolonged pause, a recording began — of a young woman singing, said Bob Lehman, the executive director of the chorus.

Before a near-capacity crowd announced at more than 40,000, the men awkwardly waited for the song to finish. There was no announcement or attempt to stop the recording, Mr. Lehman said. The men were then ushered off the field as fans taunted them with phrases like “You sing like a girl” and “You never sounded better,” Mr. Lehman said.

“They just kind of let us stand there,” he said, describing the moment as surreal and devastating.

The Padres tried to figure out what went wrong and clearly, if this had been someone's idea of a deliberate prank it would have been a job-ender. However:

In a statement on Sunday night, the team said that it had found no evidence of malicious intent and that what happened was an “unintentional mistake.”

As a result, the team said it had ended its relationship with a contractor and disciplined an employee who was responsible for the game production on Saturday. The Padres accepted full responsibility and expressed deep regret, the statement said.

Mr. Lehman said he had spoken with Mike Dee, the team’s chief executive, whom he described as sincerely apologetic. Mr. Lehman said he had been told that the regular technician was in a car crash the night before and that a substitute was in the control room.

“Somebody didn’t know how to press the stop button?” he asked. “I couldn’t believe a professional organization like that didn’t know what to do.”

It's not a professional organization, it's the Padres.

MORE: Ambivalent coverage here - some laughed it off, some not:

Instead of their voices over the PA system, fans of the Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers heard a recorded voice of a woman singing the anthem. When the group stepped off the field at the end of the song it was to taunts such as, "You sing like a girl," according to a statement on the San Diego Gay Men's Chorus Facebook page, but also to clapping and apparently good-natured comments from fans, according to a video from one attendee.

On that video, one fan jokes, "It was all in unison, it was perfect, one voice, it was amazing."

One of the singers replies on video, "We're so insulted," but it was hard to tell by his tone if he was joking or seriously upset. The man whose brother took the video wrote on Twitter, "There was maybe 1 guy who was upset. Most understood it was an honest mistake."

OTOH:

The Padres apologized on Twitter during Saturday's game, but the San Diego Gay Men's Chorus called Sunday for Major League Baseball to investigate the incident to see if someone in the Padres control booth "intentionally engaged in anti-gay discrimination or a hate crime" and for the City Attorney's Office to determine if anyone "engaged in activity in violation of the San Diego Human Rights Ordinance or engaged in any deliberate hate crimes based on sexual orientation."

As to what may have gone wrong:

Union-Tribune sportswriter Kirk Kenney reported that a taped version of the anthem "was to be played with the performers on the field" Saturday and that the woman's voice was believed to be that of Friday's anthem singer.

Tell The Wind

Fred Hiatt of the WaPo restates the obvious, understanding he will change no minds - Obama's withdrawal from Iraq was a mistake, as critics said at the time.

Writing in Sept. 2012, roughly a year after Obama's pull-out was announced, Michael Gordon of the Times detailed the missed opportunities and non-leadership from the White House.

Learning Something New Every Day

I try to learn something new everyday. The NY Times did a deep dive into a variant of mass shootings - in this case, shootings with four or more dead or wounded, including the shooter.

I learned that most of these shooting involve poor people who are disproportionately black and that many of these shootings are gang-related.

The Times does not comment on whether progressive gun-controllers like Hillary really want to amp up the police presence in downtrodden urban areas in order to arrest more young black men, but we can guess at the answer.

Instead of tackling the political problems with more policing, the Times pretends this is all new and ignored:

Untold Damage: America’s Overlooked Gun Violence

Most shootings with four deaths or injuries are invisible outside their communities.
And most of the lives they scar are black.

OK. The day is young and there is still plenty of time for me to learn something.

An excerpt:

Most of the shootings occurred in economically downtrodden neighborhoods. These shootings, by and large, are not a middle-class phenomenon.

The divide is racial as well. Among the cases examined by The Times were 39 domestic violence shootings, and they largely involved white attackers and victims [Uh huh - the US is still majority white and whites are not over-represented in domestic violence. TM]. So did many of the high-profile massacres, including a wild shootout between Texas biker gangs that left nine people dead and 18 wounded.

Over all, though, nearly three-fourths of victims and suspected assailants whose race could be identified were black. Some experts suggest that helps explain why the drumbeat of dead and wounded does not inspire more outrage.

“Clearly, if it’s black-on-black, we don’t get the same attention because most people don’t identify with that. Most Americans are white,” said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University in Boston. “People think, ‘That’s not my world. That’s not going to happen to me.’ ”

Michael Nutter, a former Philadelphia mayor, who is black, said that society would not be so complacent if whites were dying from gun violence at the same rate as blacks.

“The general view is it’s one bad black guy who has shot another bad black guy,” he said. “And so, one less person to worry about.”

Yeah, that's it - nobody cares. Of course, Hillary has been forced by Black Lives Matter to repudiate her hubby's crime bill and apologize for all those extra cops and any conservative politician who mentions black-on-black crime is labelled a racist hater, but please - do go on.

There are 358 reasons for those 358 shootings, though some remain a mystery; in about a fourth of the cases, investigators have discerned no motive.

As for the rest, some patterns stand out. The fewest occurred while another felony, such as a burglary, was underway. Domestic violence shootings were nearly as infrequent, but were among the deadliest.

About a third were provoked by arguments, typically drug- or alcohol-fueled, often over petty grievances.

...

Another third of the 358 cases — and the most common in cities with more than 250,000 residents — were either gang-related or were drive-by shootings typical of gangs.

But the police and prosecutors say many of those were not directly linked to criminal activity, such as a dispute over a drug deal. More often, a minor dust-up — a boast, an insult, a decision to play basketball on another gang’s favorite court — was taken as a sign of disrespect and answered with a bullet, said Andrew V. Papachristos, a Yale University professor who studies gang behavior.

I might have guessed gang-related shootings to be higher.

Another third of the 358 cases — and the most common in cities with more than 250,000 residents — were either gang-related or were drive-by shootings typical of gangs.

But the police and prosecutors say many of those were not directly linked to criminal activity, such as a dispute over a drug deal. More often, a minor dust-up — a boast, an insult, a decision to play basketball on another gang’s favorite court — was taken as a sign of disrespect and answered with a bullet, said Andrew V. Papachristos, a Yale University professor who studies gang behavior.

Trump Juggernaut Continues

New polling shows that Trump's inevitable defeat is maybe not so inevitable:

A Post-Primary Rally Boosts Trump, Albeit With Challenges Aplenty (POLL)

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows a close contest in presidential election preferences, with Republicans lining up behind Donald Trump as their party’s presumptive nominee while the continued Democratic race is keeping Hillary Clinton’s side more unsettled.

Greater voter registration among Republicans is one factor: Clinton’s 6-point lead among all adults, 48-42 percent in a general election matchup, switches to essentially a dead heat among registered voters, 46 percent for Trump, 44 percent for Clinton. Regardless, the contest has tightened considerably since March, when Clinton led among registered voters by 9 points.

I will say it again - it has been widely believed that Pres. Obama and AG Lynch won't allow the FBI investigation into Hillary's email debacle to derail Her Inevitability. But her half of this deal to tarnish Obama's legacy was that she was to pin down the Democratic nomination.

She has not delivered. Instead, if the FBI report is ghastly as many on the right expect, she will be asking Obama to carry a lot of her baggage partway up mountain she is apparently unable to climb.

This is far from over.

ABC News lists some Trump negatives challenges:

Trump’s enhanced competitiveness reflects consolidation in his support since his primary opponents dropped out, and it comes despite significant challenges to his candidacy. Fifty-eight percent of Americans call him unqualified to be president, 60 percent see him unfavorably overall, 76 percent think he doesn’t show enough respect for those he disagrees with and 64 percent say he should release his tax returns (with most feeling strongly about it). These include majorities of registered voters on each item, representing opportunities for Clinton.

As to his tax returns and his behavior towards those with whom he disagrees, that is behavior within Trump's control (we fervently hope!). A friendly convention with gracious acknowledgment by Trump of Low Energy Jeb, Lyin' Ted and Little Marco might be helpful.

And Mickey Kaus makes an interesting point - Trump just might wear us all out:

I’ve always thought Trump could win. I’d still take whatever odds are out there. But here’s a wrinkle I hadn’t considered until prepping for today’s Ricochet Podcast: The campaign is going to last forever! The Feiler Faster Thesis already says we can pack an unprecedented amount of drama in a short period of time. But Trump is really putting this theory to the test. He seems to feel he has to launch a new front page story every day. Hillary’s forces (including the NYT) are firing back as if it’s October.

In a campaign of normal length, Trump would probably win the fight. (He seems to be winning now.)  The trouble is, at this rate we’ll have run through a normal campaign’s worth of thrusts and parries by the middle of next month– and there’ll still be five months still to go. That will force voters to learn what is like to live with each of the candidates, and weigh their flaws and virtues with special thoroughness. Hell, by September it will seem as if Trump’s already been president for a year. That means attacking him over last fall’s insults may not work — after all, they will have been a looong time ago, and now we’ll know the guy. If voters turn out to like living with their Daily Trump, he could easily be ten points ahead by Labor Day. But we might also tire of his personality the way … married couples do the way voters typically tire of a President about halfway through his first term.

If come November an emotionally exhausted electorate decides they want to go with the old brown shoes, there is no one older or browner (metaphorically!) than Hillary.

On the other hand, come November we will have endured more than year of Trump mania. The sky will almost surely not have fallen (yet), the Wall will not have been built (yet), Muslims will not have been banned, and, as Mickey notes, maybe Trump's novel appeal will have morphed (as with Biden) into casual, 'there he goes again' acceptance.

This race tells the story. I just wish I knew which runner represents which candidate.

 

Solar Power - A Future So Bright We Need Shades!

The future for solar power is so bright we need shades. Also, fire extinguishers:

World's Largest Solar Plant Sets Itself on Fire

Improperly aligned mirrors redirected the sun's rays at the wrong spot.

Let me just cut to their Big Finish for what may be the big finish at Ivanpah:

The fire comes just months after reports that the facility may have to shut down entirely due to its inability to provide the amount of power that was originally promised, not to mention its tendency to fry thousands of birds in the process. And that's when it's not catching itself on fire. 

Ooops.

Is Google Kidding, Or Did Their Search Engines Fail?

Janell Ross of the WaPo, among others, picks up on Google tribute to "a very controversial civil-rights figure, Yuri Kochiyama". I would estimate that a lot of people are choking on this, as described in the WaPo:

Kochiyama was a woman unafraid of affiliation with far-leftist and even terrorist organizations and who sometimes expressed unpopular, even shocking political support for their causes. Later on, she even expressed a favorable opinion of Osama bin Laden. But, Kochiyama was a believer in the idea that a country, particularly this country, should fulfill its foundational promises to every human being and stand prepared to answer for its failures.

Yeah, yeah. Big Skip and:

In the final years of her life, Kochiyama also expressed admiration for Osama bin Laden. Kochiyama told a reporter with the Los Angeles Indymedia that she considered bin Laden a freedom fighter, akin to Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba and Fidel Castro.

"Besides being strong leaders who brought consciousness to their people, they all had severe dislike for the U.S. government and those who held power in the U.S.," she said. "I think all of them felt the U.S. government and its spokesmen were all arrogant, racist, hypocritical, self-righteous, and power hungry."

Does that enrage you? You ain't seen nothing yet. Osama was not just one name mentioned amongst a list of her "heroes"; when challenged by the interviewer, Ms. Kochiyama delivered a multi-paragraph defense:

I’m glad that you are curious why I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire. To me, he is in the category of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro, all leaders that I admire. They had much in common. Besides being strong leaders who brought consciousness to their people, they all had severe dislike for the US government and those who held power in the US. I think all of them felt the US government and its spokesmen were all arrogant, racist, hypocritical, self-righteous, and power hungry.

bin Laden may have come from a very wealthy family, but by the time he was twenty, he came to loathe the eliteness and class conduct of his family. But it was not a sudden break. Growth for anybody is not a sudden thing. We all develop gradually. After all, he was thrust by birth into a wealthy family. He tried to become a part of his family. However, he found too many differences between most of his family and himself. He did go through the usual experiences of being from a wealthy family; attending well-groomed colleges, meeting people in the circle of the “haves;” but what put him in another path was that he took the learning of Islam very seriously…

You asked, "Should freedom fighters support him?” Freedom fighters all over the world, and not just in the Muslim world, don’t just support him; they revere him; they join him in battle. He is no ordinary leader or an ordinary Muslim. He may have once been surrounded with luxuries, but he adapted to the realities of a hunted “terrorist leader,” living in caves and doing without modern commodities…He went through heaven and hell with his men…

You stated that some freedom fighters responded that bin Laden’s agenda is more reactionary and does not speak to the needs of the masses of people who exist under US dominance. bin Laden has been primarily fighting US dominance even when he received money from the US when he was fighting in Afghanistan. He was fighting for Islam and all people who believe in Islam, against westerners, especially the US--even when he was fighting against the Russians…I do not care what the US government or Americans feel--I think it’s shameful what this government has done from the beginning of its racist, loathsome history.

And today, when I think what the US military is doing, brazenly bombing country after country, to take oil resources, bringing about coups, assassinating leaders of other countries, and pitting neighbor nations against each other, and demonizing anyone who disagrees with US policy, and detaining and deporting countless immigrants from all over the world, I thank Islam for bin Laden. America’s greed, aggressiveness, and self-righteous arrogance must be stopped. War and weaponry must be abolished.

"War and weaponry must be abolished". And when I think 'anti-war', I think of Osama. And John Lennon, natch.

 

Well. As to Ms. Kochiyama, I am sort of whatever. She got locked up by FDR and has hated America ever since; had she been, for example, a Pole crushed under Germans and Russians from 1939 to 1989, she might feel differently about America's place in the world relative to other military powers.

 

But Google? Really? Do they even use their own search engines before lauding these people? Just what did their PR team take away from "I do not care what the US government or Americans feel--I think it’s shameful what this government has done from the beginning of its racist, loathsome history"?

 

AND WHEN YOU'VE LOST VOX... Vox-splainer Dylan Matthews isn't even trying to gloss this over, and adds her endorsement of Shining Path in Peru:

Some of Kochiyama's work was deeply, clearly admirable. As an associate of Malcolm X, she was an important nonblack ally to the more militant end of the civil rights movement. She endured forced internment during World War II, and was an outspoken advocate for reparations to internees, which would eventually be passed in 1988. She was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and advocate for inmates she viewed as political prisoners.

But other commitments of hers were more ambiguous. She was an outspoken admirer of Mao Zedong even after the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. She praised Malcolm X for his "admiration for Mao and Ho Chi Minh," and worked closely with the Revolutionary Action Movement, an "urban guerrilla warfare" organization based on "a synthesis of the thought of Malcolm X, Marx and Lenin, and Mao Zedong." The activist Robert Williams gifted her with a copy of the Little Red Book, and she later thanked him for "the gift of Mao's philosophy."

Then, beyond ambiguous:

Two positions of Kochiyama's stand out as particularly alarming. First, she was an enthusiastic supporter of the Peruvian terrorist group Shining Path, a Maoist organization that has conducted a brutal insurgency killing tens of thousands of people since 1980. Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Shining Path personally killed or disappeared at least 30,000.

"Its tactics include the burning of ballot boxes and the public 'executions' of moderate local leaders and others, including nuns and priests, who are seen as rivals for the allegiance of the poor," according to a 1992 New York Times report. "In wildly exaggerated demonstrations of Maoist precepts, children have been killed for political 'crimes.' Amnesty International says the guerrillas routinely torture, mutilate and murder captives."

And they run the same bin Laden interview excerpted above, and wrap up:

To be clear, this is Kochiyama defending bin Laden — who, besides being a mass murderer, was a vicious misogynist and hardly the brave anti-imperial class traitor Kochiyama fancies him as — against other leftists who correctly noted that you can oppose American imperialism without allying or supporting violent jihadism.

Kochiyama's praise for Che Guevara and Fidel Castro is also controversial, and, I think wrong, but is at least somewhat common on the left. Sympathy for Shining Path and bin Laden, by contrast, is not a common left position basically anywhere.

Would anyone anywhere have complained if Google had never mentioned this woman? How did they not see this coming?

When Trump Spouts Nonsense And Hillary Cites It...

The Times takes on Trump, Hillary and the possibly-changing politics of gun control. However, this bit is weird:

Whereas President Obama soft-pedaled gun control in both his national runs, Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, is signaling a greater appetite to clash with Mr. Trump on the issue

In a Twitter message last week, Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, would force schools “to allow guns in classrooms on his first day in office.”

FACT: Donald Trump would force schools to allow guns in classrooms on his first day in office. https://t.co/Y1YSjDDUXC

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 14, 2016

And you can follow the link to a non-discussion of the issue.

Evan a casual student of the Constitution might wonder just how a President (other Than Obama Unbound) might force schools to do anything on his first day. The Times wondered too:

A statement on gun rights was one of the first detailed policy papers Mr. Trump issued last year after announcing his candidacy.

He accused Mrs. Clinton this month of seeking to “abolish the Second Amendment.” And just as Mr. Trump argues that casualties from the terrorist attacks in Paris last year would have been lower if civilians had been armed, he has proposed abolishing gun-free zones at military bases and at schools.

“I will get rid of gun-free zones on schools, and — you have to — and on military bases,” he said on the campaign trail in January. “My first day, it gets signed, O.K.? My first day. There’s no more gun-free zones.”

A federal law from the 1990s established gun-free school zones. It could not be reversed by executive order, as Mr. Trump seems to imply. (His campaign did not respond to a request for comment about his gun policies.)

“Trump would not be able to eliminate gun-free zones by executive order,” said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an expert on the Second Amendment. “That law can only be repealed by Congress.”

Well. When Hillary tweets "FACT: Donald Trump would.." does she mean it is a fact that he holds that aspiration, or a fact that he would actually do it? More accurate phrasing would be "Trump wants to..." but accuracy is not a close companion of either of the leading candidates.

That said, I would bet that as Commander-in-Chief Trump could change the rules at military bases by the power of his office. (Is it called an Executive Order when he commands the Pentagon, or something else? IDK.)

The Times also flags a topic where Trump's disregard for Constitutional niceties leads him to Obama-style logic:

One area in which Mr. Trump does part ways with gun rights activists is on preventing people on the government’s terrorist watch list from buying weapons.

“If somebody is on a watch list and an enemy of state and we know it’s an enemy of state, I would keep them away, absolutely,” he said in an interview with ABC News last year.

Hmmph. We need judicial oversight to over-ride protections against search and seizure or wiretapping, but not a restriction to our Second Amendment rights? Nonsense, but exactly the sort of nonsense Hillary would endorse, so Trump is no worse.

IF I WERE ADVISING TRUMP... Now, what would Hillary say if Trump came out in favor of people identifying as gun nuts using whatever school bathroom they wanted, and taking a gun into it? Yeah, that's my question...

Summer Of Love For Hillary

Just today the NY Times mentions four torpedos in the water aimed at the Good Ship Hillary.

First, that pesky FOIA which her defenders think Hillary hoped to circumvent with a private email server:

WASHINGTON — A former aide to Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state testified behind closed doors for two hours Wednesday in the first in a series of depositions that are likely to raise more questions about Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server just as she prepares for an election campaign against Donald J. Trump.

The former aide, Lewis A. Lukens, testified under oath about his knowledge of Mrs. Clinton’s private email system as part of a lawsuit brought against the State Department by a conservative legal advocacy group, Judicial Watch.

And what did he say? Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon...

Thomas Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, who took part in Mr. Lukens’s deposition, said afterward that he could not discuss the substance of the testimony because of the ground rules set by Judge Sullivan.

But Mr. Fitton predicted that once the testimony is publicly released — perhaps as early as next week — it would show “why the State Department and Mrs. Clinton have slow-rolled this and withheld a complete explanation of what went on with her email system. What we learned is going to be embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton and the administration — maybe more than embarrassing.”

He refused to elaborate, citing the court’s restrictions.

And this is just the first of a few:

At least five other officials — including two of Mrs. Clinton’s top aides at the State Department, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin — are also scheduled to testify in the lawsuit over the next six weeks in what promises to be an unwelcome distraction for the Clinton campaign.

The last deposition is set for June 29 — less than a month before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where Mrs. Clinton is widely expected to win her party’s nomination for president over challenger Bernie Sanders.

Assuming the depositions continue to be released roughly a week later, we should have a complete set around Independence Day.

The Judicial Watch story also notes the ongoing FBI investigation, which needs to be wrapped up so AG Loretta Lynch can formally quash it:

Meanwhile, the F.B.I. is continuing to investigate the issue of Mrs. Clinton’s private email server to determine whether any federal laws regarding the handling of classified material or other issues may have been broken.

There is more - Bernie has no intention of going quietly into that good night:

Bernie Sanders, Eyeing Convention, Willing to Harm Hillary Clinton in the Homestretch

Defiant and determined to transform the Democratic Party, Senator Bernie Sanders is opening a two-month phase of his presidential campaign aimed at inflicting a heavy blow on Hillary Clinton in California and amassing enough leverage to advance his agenda at the convention in July — or even wrest the nomination from her.

Advisers to Mr. Sanders said on Wednesday that he was newly resolved to remain in the race, seeing an aggressive campaign as his only chance to pressure Democrats into making fundamental changes to how presidential primaries and debates are held in the future.

Between Judicial Watch and the FBI he may have a lot to work with. But one last thing! Color me skeptical but the House Republicans may manage to make news with their maybe-some-day-soon Benghazi report:

Benghazi Panel, Plodding Along, May Conclude Near Conventions or Election

I think Bernie and Judicial Watch take us into Game of Thrones territory here. The CW, which I currently share, is that Loretta Lynch won't allow Her Inevitability to be indicted. However! Suppose the Judicial Watch revelations are sufficiently damaging and Bernie sufficiently successful that Hillary's baggage becomes too heavy for the Dem Establishment to carry (I currently picture them slogging along to the strains of "She Ain't Heavy, She's My Crony". Obama, with one eye on his legacy and another on the polls, might decide that Bernie or Biden are necessary and credible alternatives. A Biden cram-down at this point would complete the 1968 flashback (Hubert Humphrey became the Dem nominee without entering the primaries, prompting massive rule changes), so maybe Bernie is the guy. Keep hope alive!

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: Slogans that ought to be old by now: Hillary - Putting The 'Crone' In Crony Capitalism!

OK, I am claiming independent invention but clearly I am not first with this.

I Love This Game

Jonathan Adler engages in some Krugman bashing from his high ground at the Washington Post. Of course, Krugman can fire back from an even loftier perch, but he is more likely to ignore this and move on.

Knife Attack, Police Shooting In Manhattan

The NYPD shot a knife-wielding man in midtown Manhattan this morning. For whatever reason, I am more interested in picking holes in the NY Times coverage.

First, since this was a fatal police shooting, should we worry that it was in any way unjustified and likely to result in Black Lives matter protests? We should not - the, hmm, victim was described by the NYPD as white, although the NY Times conforms to its editorial policy by pretending that tidbit is not newsworthy.

Secondly, here is one for the "Is That True, or Just Something I Read In The Times" file:

Police officers engaged the man, 46, outside the store and ordered him to drop a knife with an eight-inch blade that he was holding, Chief O’Neill said.

An eight inch blade? Per this picture from the NYPD twitter feed, I don't think so, unless the knife also had a ten inch handle and was held by a giant with tiny fingers [insert Trump reference here].

Other news outlets report an eight inch knife, presumably including the handle.  Lest you doubt your common sense, the standard for measuring the blade (with the apparent exception of TimesWorld) does not include the handle.

Here is ABC News:

A police sergeant and officer fired nine shots at the suspect, whose name has not been released. His knife, with a 4-inch blade, was recovered at the scene, police said.

Here is NBC New York:

Two other officers were called to the scene, and the man allegedly pulled out an 8-inch knife with a serrated blade.

Details, details for the All The News That's Fit To Imagine people. And hey, the shooting took place a full eight blocks from their headquarters, so why would they get this right?

WHAT'S THE BETTING LINE? Will the Times correct this, and will they note the correction? I say yes and no.

LATER: The story has been totally revised with more color, witness statements, and an eight inch knife, not blade. Same URL, however; the ongoing drama of online publishing.

Here is a screenshot of the first draft:

And the current lead, with a revised byline:

Police Fatally Shoot Man on a Midtown Manhattan Street

By MARC SANTORA, MIKE McPHATE, and ASHLEY SOUTHALL   MAY 18 2016

It is the kind of nervous moment that almost any New Yorker would recognize, the reason that even in a city where crime is at historic lows, direct eye contact is sometimes not considered the wisest maneuver.

A man, angry and ranting in a public place. It could be on the subway, on a street corner or in a shop. In most cases, it is just a fleeting incident in a very big city, a brief reminder that it is a good idea to keep your wits about you.

On Wednesday morning, however, it ended with blood on the streets after a man lunged at a police officer with a knife and was shot dead by other officers. One woman, a bystander, suffered a minor wound after being grazed by a bullet.

...

On the corner of 49th Street and Eighth Avenue, the officer engaged the man, grabbing him by his backpack. They both went crashing to the pavement, the police said.

“As the suspect got back on his feet he displayed an 8-inch knife and approached the officer and two other officers who were coming to his assistance,” Chief O’Neill said. The man was ordered to drop the weapon but refused, he said.

Lies, Damn Lies, And Hillary

Here is an instant classic, cleverly titled "Hillary Clinton lying for 13 minutes straight." I expect a re-mix will include a musical soundtrack. Maybe the Music Man?

Kathleen Parker of the WaPo describes it. The thirteen minutes passes quickly. Folks with fond memories of Hillary's "Pretty in Pink" cattle futures exposition will be disappointed, and I am sure we all have our favorite Hillary whoppers which have been overlooked here.

Do let me add - people are quick to point at pictures from the 2008 campaign and note that eight years in the White House have aged Obama but my goodness: eight years out of the White House have been hell on Hillary.

Good God and Bathrooms At Yale

The NY Times runs an utterly transgressive column about transgender bathrooms, common sense, mutual respect, and conventional rule-making process at the Federal level.

The author is Peter Schuck, emeritus professor at the Yale Law School. Lest you wonder, Prof. Schuck was also on the non-progressive side of the snowflake/Halloweenie debate at Yale last fall, and is not exactly a true believer in the power of Bigger and Better Government. Since he is not a well-credentialed progressive they won't be taking any insights from him listening to him, but maybe the rest of us will.

 

The Study Of Bullshit

We thank Ronald Bailey of Reason for passing along this seeming parody:

Conservatives More Susceptible to Bullshit Than Liberals

The article itself is amusing and if it is a spoof it is fooling me. I loved this clarification of the nomenclature:

Whereas philosophers have been primarily concerned with the goals and intentions of the bullshitter, we are interested in the factors that predispose one to become or to resist becoming a bullshittee.

However, other issues remain:

Importantly, pseudo-profound bullshit is not trivial. For a real-world example of pseudo-profound bullshit and an application of our logic, consider the following:

“Attention and intention are the mechanics of manifestation.”

This statement bears a striking resemblance to (a), but is (presumably) not a random collection of words. Rather, it is an actual “tweet” sent by Deepak Chopra, M.D., who has authored numerous books with titles such as Quantum Healing (Chopra, 1989) and The Soul of Leadership (Chopra, 2008) and who has been accused of furthering “woo-woo nonsense” (i.e., pseudo-profound bullshit; e.g., Shermer, 2010).

Ah, well, but then again, sometimes pseudo-profound BS contains real profundity. I recall this classic John Madden tale from 1980:

Gesturing at the "motivational slogans" on the walls, Madden adds, "I never believed in pep talks. Once, though, in desperation, I invented an inspirational saying that made absolutely no sense—'Don't worry about the horse being blind, just load up the wagon'—and the amazing thing was that John Matuszak understood it."

Now wait, I understood it too. Although as a life-long conservative I would, wouldn't I?

Hold The Front page, or, Thank Heaven For Our Free Press!

Things we learned from the NY Times and the Washington Post: From the Times, Trump is a womanizer and doesn't seem to respect women, a newsflash only to those who have missed thirty years of People Magazine and late-night comedians. And we certainly don't want a womanizer anywhere near the White House, do we?

Speaking of Hillary and Bill, did'ja know Hillary is a bit of an Establishment Creature in a year when the public seems a bit disenchanted with the established crony-capitalist order? Also, she's kind of lacking in the warmth and fuzziness department, and has some ethical challenges. She has become what she beheld - Hillary's The One!

Who knew?

NOW THIS IS BREAKTHROUGH STUFF: The Legacy Media have completely missed the extraterrestrial angle.

I Love These Puzzles

Maureen Dowd delivers an interview with Trump titled "The Mogul And The Babe". Sarah Palin is not mentioned and I am left suspecting the "babe" in question might somewhat improbably be Ms. Dowd. OTOH, the column concludes with a throwaway anecdote about Babe Ruth, so maybe MoDo is engaging in the sort of subtle double entendre for which she earns the big bucks.

Whatev. This has not been my day for puzzles. The Times crossword du jour (which was a holdover from earlier in the week) had as one clue "2016 campaigner". We had four letters with [blank] [blank] U Z and I was mumbling "Jindal"? Perry? Huckleberry? WTF"?

A dark moment when we finally got it. Talk about blocking.

SPOILER: No, not Kasich either.

 

Saving Ben Sasse

The highest elected NeverTrumper is in trouble in his home state.

So Much Winning We Will Get Sick Of It

The House Republicans have their power of the purse recognized by a Federal judge. Now its on to the DC Circuit, and then the Supremes. Will it reach the Supremes in time for a 4-4 tie, or will a Hillary (or Trump!) judge provide a 5th vote?

Trump's Muslim Ban? Just A Stray Thought

People who like this sort of thing - random proposals unmarred by contact with intelligence or reality - will like this:

Trump: Muslim ban 'just a suggestion'

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump, who issued a December press release "calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," said Wednesday such a ban "hasn't been called for yet" and it was "only a suggestion."

It's the latest lightning-speed evolution for the real estate tycoon as he pivots from the provocateur who upended the Republican primary to a general election candidate preparing to square off with likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"We have a serious problem, and it's a temporary ban -- it hasn't been called for yet, nobody's done it, this is just a suggestion until we find out what's going on," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee told Fox News Radio's Brian Kilmeade Wednesday.

 

To be fair, the temporary nature of the proposed ban until we can transition to a better thought-through approach has been under-emphasized. However, just off the top of my head I can remember Trump explaining that ISIS was more of a problem for Putin, who should be left to solve it, an idea that morphed to us bombing the hell out of ISIS. I recall that, despite the US being on the verge of another epic recession, Trump would retire the national debt over eight years. How?!? Surpluses of over $2 trillion a year? Tariffs? Asset sales? A sale/leaseback of Yellowstone, or the Seventh Fleet? Nevermind - Trump will negotiate a de facto default and the United States creditors will give us an EZ pass. Well, then - if they let us off at 50 cents on the dollar, we only need surpluses of $1 trillion a year. That's not ludicrous, just ridiculous.

 

Whatever. We survived a President who improvised red lines with no real regard for the possible consequences, so maybe we can survive this. But I had the boring old idea that Obama's random word generation should be a cautionary tale, not an aspiration.

 

WHAT TOAD JUST HOPPED OUT OF OBAMA'S MOUTH NOW? Lest you have forgotten, we elected and re-elected a guy with a history of running his mouth before engaging his brain. Meeting with foreign foes with no pre-conditions? Jerusalem must remain "undivided"? Egypt no longer an ally? Hey, whatever. I am sure the list is longer and welcome suggestions.

 

Here's an entry, from Rich:

Mark Penn, who owns a public relations firm handling communications for the Barack Obama Foundation, credited Obama with uttering the “stupidest thing ever said by a president in foreign policy.”

In a March 2012 email sent to Hillary Clinton’s private email address, Penn lambasted Obama for his statement to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that he would “have more flexibility” on missile defense issues after the 2012 election.

“This could be about the stupidest thing ever said by a president in foreign policy,” wrote Penn. “To explicitly say that he is laying low on nuclear defense policies because of his election right now and tell your opponent that is to politicize all foreign policy, evidence weakness that can be exploited by others, and undermine the administration’s credibility. “

"Stupidest thing ever"? Well, that March 2012 date precedes the red line debacle.

The Times On Hillary's Emails - Everybody's Doing It

The Times fronts the latest Admin spin as they brace for Team Obama's cover-up on Hillary's emails:

Released Emails Show Use of Unclassified Systems Was Routine

By STEVEN LEE MYERS MAY 10, 2016

...

A review of the 30,322 emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private server that the State Department has made public under the Freedom of Information Act provides an extensive record of how such sensitive information often looped throughout President Obama’s foreign policy apparatus on unclassified systems, from embassies to the United Nations to the White House.

The senders included Denis R. McDonough, currently the White House chief of staff and previously the deputy national security adviser, and Susan E. Rice, the former American representative at the United Nations who is now Mr. Obama’s national security adviser.

Many of the emails were sent over the State Department’s unclassified system, state.gov, which is considered secure but not at the level of the State Department’s system for emailing classified information.

At the State Department, the Pentagon and the White House, among other agencies, officials have two systems for email, one for classified messages and one for more routine business. They are nicknamed the “high side” and the “low side.”

And below the "low side" we have...

Mrs. Clinton’s private server — set up in her home in Westchester County, N.Y. — was assumed to be even less secure than the State Department’s “low side,” although the unclassified servers at some government agencies have been hacked in recent years.

Their gist - officials routinely use the "low side" for stuff that arguably ought to be classified and put on the high side. Therefore, Hillary's use of an even less secure server has no criminal implications relative to national security, State Department record-keeping requirements, or the Freedom of Information Act.

Yeah, whatever. I live for the day when a top Goldman Sachs official explains that all these SEC and Dodd-Frank electronic record keeping requirements puzzle and confuse him, so he put all his email on a private server. Who wouldn't?

 

Get In Line

McCain alter-ego Mark Salter talks Trump:

Mark Salter, the most prominent and most defiant Republican to announce his support of Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, thinks the 2016 campaign could literally — no joke — drive the billionaire developer insane.

Go insane over this race? Trump will hardly be the first.

Ignorance Is Her Best Defense

The earnest progressives at the Wapo's Plum Line spin the latest Hillaryphilic leaks about the FBI investigation. First, the spin from the Barry/Loretta side of the investigation, which of course is desperate to rationalize the eventual non-indictment of Hillary:

Officials: Scant evidence that Clinton had malicious intent in handling of emails

...

The involvement of the U.S. Attorney’s Office is not indicative that charges are imminent or even likely. One official said prosecutors are wrestling with the question of whether Clinton intended to violate the rules, and so far, the evidence seemed to indicate she did not.

Oh, well then, no malicious intent and therefore no crime? Please. Without even looking it up I am sure that reckless disregard of security protocols is illegal, regardless of intent. Why am I drawing a blank on the Clinton acolyte who stuffed top-secret documents into his trousers so he could study them at home? Sandy Berger, of course, who has regrettably died. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for mishandling classified information and lost his national security clearance for three years; such a loss of clearance would certainly limit Hillary and her circle of advisers if anyone thought she would actually take such restrictions seriously.

As to the law itself, no surprises:

18 U.S. Code § 1924 - Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material

(a) Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.

No one is tasking me with spinning this in Hillary's favor, so I won't even try. But Paul Waldman of the Plum Line heroes up!

That point about her intending to break classification rules is important, because in order to have broken the law, it isn’t enough for Clinton to have had classified information in a place where it was possible for it to be hacked. She would have had to intentionally given classified information to someone without authorization to have it, like David Petraeus did when he showed classified documents to his mistress (and then lied to the FBI about it, by the way). Despite the enormous manpower and time the Justice Department has devoted to this case, there has never been even a suggestion, let alone any evidence, that Clinton did any such thing.

Uh huh. Where was Waldman to explain that to Sandy Berger, who simply intended to study some National Archive documents in the comfort of his home or office. And of course, there is the famous 'smoking email' in which Hillary instructed an aide to strip the classified markings from a balky document that wouldn't go through a secure fax and send the darn thing by email. Apparently the aide didn't actually do that, so maybe all is well?

Well, that's their spin and they will be sticking to it.

Open Threading It

Yeah, what took so long?

Two Thumbs Down

Based on the story so far this tow truck driver deserves any ridicule and derision he gets:

Tow Truck Driver Shows Up to Help Stranded Motorist When He Sees Sticker on Her Car That Makes Him Drive Away: ‘Call the Government’

A North Carolina tow truck driver recently took a controversial stand after he was dispatched to pick up a woman stranded on the side of I-26 in Asheville, but there was just one problem for the tow truck driver — the car was covered in stickers supporting Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

According to WHNS-TV, Kenneth Shupe, a self-described “conservative Christian” who supports presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, was sent to give the unidentified woman a ride Monday, but once he arrived at her location and saw that her car was covered with “a bunch of Bernie Sanders stuff,” Shupe politely told the woman that she was “obviously a socialist” and encouraged her to “call the government” for a tow instead.

“Every business dealing in recent history with a socialist-minded person I have not gotten paid,” Shupe told WHNS. “Every time I deal with these people I get ‘Berned’ with an ‘e’ not a ‘u.’”

Shupe told the news station that because of Sanders’ socialist views, he decided long ago not to do business with any of his supporters. Still, Shupe said that he respects a person’s choice to support whomever they want.

First, I smell ex post BS on this "never get paid" rationalization. Instead of chatting with her about calling the government he might have asked for cash upfront or a credit card number. If he did, the story is strangely silent about it.

Other wrinkles, as described by the driver's mother:

Her daughter is disabled and has a disabled sticker in the car;

Her mechanic had agreed to pay the tow truck driver, a fact which the driver could have attempted to confirm;

The card was damaged enough that the A/c was not working on a hot North Carolina day.

To which I would add - this is not some airhead waving her hands in her driveway with a dead battery. It is a woman by the side iof an interstate with a damaged car. She has not had an opportunity to shop around for politically compatible tow service operators. My goodness - a damsel in distress ought to trigger White Knight mode, and this driver should have gotten her home with his trusty steed.

Raylan Givens of Justified has this right. I bet this driver runs into a**holes all day.

THIS DOESN'T CHANGE MY MIND: Here is a different news account:

WLOS — GREENVILLE, S.C. -- A tow truck driver refused to a help a customer stranded on Interstate 26 in Asheville on Monday.

"Something came over me, I think the Lord came to me, and he just said get in the truck and leave," said Ken Shupe of Shupee Max Towing in Traveler's Rest, S.C.. "And when I got in my truck, you know, I was so proud, because I felt like I finally drew a line in the sand and stood up for what I believed."

Motorist Cassy McWade says she was in a car accident, and the family called their regular mechanic to drive about 45 minutes north in order to tow her home to Traveler's Rest from the side of the Interstate. He wasn't able to make the trip, so McWade says he called Shupe.

He arrived after about an hour and began the process of towing the vehicle.

"He goes around back and comes back and says 'I can't tow you.' My first instinct was there must be something wrong with the car," McWade told News 13 on Wednesday. "And he says, 'No, you're a Bernie supporter.' And I was like wait, really? And he says, 'Yes ma'am,' and just walks away."

This version also doesn't describe any give-and-take about whether he would get paid, although he raises the topic with the reporter:

He believes Bernie Sanders supporters are socialists, and says he's had problems with two customers over the last six months who supported Bernie Sanders. He said they caused him problems over paying their bills.

"I've had some horrible experiences in the last six months with towing cars for this mindset individuals, in that I don't get paid. They want to argue about a $50 tow bill, and it turns into just a drama and a fuss. And I said, you know, I'm not going to associate with them, and I'm not going to do any business with them," Shupe said.

"I'm really not interested in doing business with that clientele," he said of Sanders supporters.

Oh, well. Let's hope he was just having a bad day and does not really believe this is the way to represent earnest Christians. I'm not interested in participating in a two minute hate and sure, if a Hispanic tow operator had walked away from a Trump supporter he'd be getting a shoulder ride down Fifth Avenue (or at least, down MSNBC) right now, but still - progressive manners should not be aspirational for conservatives.

 

Sharing His Pain

Dan Turkel of Business Insider contemplates Nate Silver's data-driven debacle on Trump. Obviously, Nate Silver had plenty of company in believing Trump would not be the Republican nominee (Yes, my hand is raised), just as he has plenty of company in believing Trump can't beat Hillary (or Bernie!).

It's hard to scale the Trump Ascendance relative to the Leicester City Foxes, but some Black Swans are coming home to roost this year.

IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE GETTING NERVOUS: My two-cent theory on Trump's success with voters disenchanted with the current governing class: "Trump" is one syllable whereas "Eff you" is two. Succinct! And yeah, this bodes poorly for Hillary.

Any Minute Now

Polls close in Indiana at 7 PM Eastern.

OK, the analysts are calling this for Trump, who wins all the delegates.

Continued drama on the Hillary/Bernie side, however.

Ted, We Hardly Knew Ye

Ted, we hardly knew ye. But when we did, we didn't like you.

On fourth and goal Cruz just couldn't get it into the end area in Indiana. His verbal gaffe left him out at fourth base.

STILL IN THE FOOTHILLS:

Trump accuses Cruz's father of helping JFK's assassin

The ascent to Peak Crazy continues.

 

Black Lies Matter

I did not expect this.

Those Jobs Are Taken

More from Trump:

Trump: 'We can't continue to allow China to rape our country'

Yeah, I thought Trump had explained that was the job of Mexican immigrants, legal and otherwise. Hard to keep up.

INDIANA WANTS ME: Who am I going to believe, the Times or those misguided Trump and Bernie backers who think the economy is underperforming?

The picture of manufacturing decline and middle-class retreat has become a driving narrative of the presidential race, spawning economic populism on both the left and the right.

Yet Indiana, which holds its primary on Tuesday, defies an easy picture of Rust Belt decline. By many measures, the state is humming economically, offering a contrarian reality to the gloomy scenario that the presidential candidates are presenting to motivate voters.

I do have questions about some of the Times niumbers:

With nearly one in five jobs in manufacturing, the highest share of any state, Indiana’s gross domestic product is accelerating faster than any of its Great Lakes neighbors, according to the latest figures from the Commerce Department.

Unemployment at the end of last year was 4.4 percent, below the national average of about 5 percent. Even though the figure has ticked up in 2016, economists attribute the increase to the large number of people returning to the work force, including job seekers moving to Indiana.

Factories in heavily industrial Elkhart County, a center of recreational vehicle manufacturing where unemployment has been significantly reduced, have resorted to calling a homeless shelter to look for workers.

The Indianapolis region is growing faster than Chicago, Cleveland or Detroit, and personal income statewide rose 3.6 percent last year, faster than the national average.

Voters are probably more interested in personal income than GDP. At the BEA site, this report tells me that Indiana's personal income rose by 4.0 percent from 2014 to 2015, lagging the national average of 4.4 pct. I also glean (my emphasis) that

Growth in Michigan, and eight other states (Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Texas, Indiana, Kansas, and Tennessee) was boosted by bonuses paid to workers represented by the United Auto Workers for ratifying new contracts.

Voters in Indiana probably have a pretty good idea whether they work for the UAW and can expect those bonuses annually or as a one-off windfall.

Personal income in 2014 rose in Indiana by 0.5 to 2.9 pct (I can get the map but not the table) which again lags the national average of 3.9 pct.

Where do the rosier Times numbers come from? Somewhere, probably, but although they mentioned the Commerce Dept, which runs the BEA, I can't find a match.

MORE: Timesman Gabriel Tripp takes a moment from his day to cite these per-capita figures for Indiana:

In 2015, Indiana had a per capita personal income (PCPI) of $40,998. This PCPI ranked 38th in the United States and was 86 percent of the national average, $47,669. The 2015 PCPI reflected an increase of 3.6 percent from 2014. The 2014-2015 national change was 3.5 percent. In 2005, the PCPI of Indiana was $31,272 and ranked 38th in the United States. The 2005-2015 compound annual growth rate of PCPI was 2.7 percent. The compound annual growth rate for the nation was 2.9 percent.