JustOneMinute

Another Russian Spy Outed!

Hmm, so Roger Stone and Julian Assange both appeared on this guys's radio show and the host later served as a go-between?

NOT the plot twist I was looking for, although the talk show host/Mayoral candidate/hiding in plain sight cover is clever.

Send better Russian spies.

Matt Lauer Fired!

Matt Lauer out, and I'm with The Donald on this one:

NBC fires Matt Lauer for alleged 'inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace'

• NBC News fired "TODAY" show's Matt Lauer, the company announced Wednesday.
• "TODAY" show hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb announced Lauer's firing on-air.
• President Donald Trump tweeted about the firing moments later, saying "wow."

Who the heck is next?

Al Franken Stealing Comedy Bits

Al Franken is borrowing from real comedians with his latest defense:

Franken, who said he has posed for “tens of thousands of photos” over the years, says he does not remember any that included his hand sliding down to cup women’s backsides, as several have alleged.

“I don’t remember these photographs, I don’t,” he said. “This is not something I would intentionally do.”

We all remember 'Just say "I forgot".'

Traditional Sunday Morning "How 'Bout Them Big Cats" Open Thread

We're talking college football, and with the top two teams losing over the weekend the playoff plot thickens yet again. The Pitt Panthers stunned Miami on Friday and the Auburn Tigers surprised no one by beating an undefeated Number One for the second time in three weeks (go long toilet paper).

Alabama has a very narrow path back into the playoffs (Thanks, Auburn!). And Ohio State may yet find its way into the playoffs, so the Cavaliers/Indians/Buckeyes trifecta has life.

False Accusations And Horrible Behavior

An interesting puzzle was posed to Times readers (p. 12-13) and aired by Helen Smith at PJ Media:

In the NYTMagazine from 11-12-17,  I read about the results of a study conducted online in June by the New York Time's research-and-analytics  department "reflecting the opinions of 2,903 subscribers who chose to participate": 

This week's question:  Would you rather have done a horrible thing that only you know about, or have everyone think you did a horrible thing that you didn't do?

Interesting. The post is titled "Do New York Times Subscribers Have the Morals of an Alley Cat?" because 72% favored doing the horrible thing and keeping it secret. Geez, I know Hillary has a lot of time on her hands to respond to things like this but how many other Clintonistas are out there?

But on behalf of alley cats and Times subscribers (I am one) let me call for a booth review. "Horrible" is pretty vague. If one thinks of murder, rape or child abuse then OMG - these respondents are sociopaths.  

OTOH, maybe the horrible thing is a hmm, white lie such as telling a friend you are skipping lunch to see the doctor when really you are bailing out because you can't bear one more nanosecond of their whinging about the ex. Non-supportive in their time of need, and what kind of horrible person would do that, amirite?

The rest of the gray in this question comes from behavior that is "victimless" but deplorable. An easier one - busted for illegal gambling. The false accusation will embarrass family and friends and may result in loss of your professional license. Actually gambling a bit and keeping it secret hurts whom? That choice doesn't seem so difficult and may be the sort of thing the 72 percenters had in mind.

Trickier on the grey scale would be a victimless incident such as a businessman soliciting a prostitute in Vegas. Probably legal, definitely painful to spouse, kids and friends. Would making them endure the pain of a false accusation be preferable to engaging in the behavior and bearing the guilt alone? Mileage may vary.

Without any context for the question or baseline of other poll respondents I would not use this survey to conclude that a majority of Times readers are working without a moral compass. Of course, combined with their support for Hillary...

The Morning After

Let's get that traditional "Who's shopping and why?" open thread.

Happy Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving, safe travels, and do find a few things to be thankful for. I, choosing off of a long list of candidates, am currently thankful that the whole Paleo diet thing need not be 24/7/365. Well, unless cave men gorged on apple pie and ice cream in which case, Paleo-up!

Women For All!

Weird Al Franken has two more accusers. He is not even pretending to apologize:

In a statement to HuffPost, Franken said, “It’s difficult to respond to anonymous accusers, and I don’t remember those campaign events.”

Not exactly "Believe the women" material. In any case, they described the venues, and it is not as if he ever knew their names.

Going To Our Left

Thank heaven for science:

Do Lefties Have an Advantage in Sports? It Depends

The CW is that lefties have an advantage in many sports, generally because of an oddity value (both lefties and righties normally face righties, so in a lefty-righty showdown only the righty is making adjustments). But what does science say?

Violins, cameras, school desks, computer mouses, can openers — these are just a few items that demonstrate how routinely disadvantaged left-handers are in this world.

One notable exception may be sports. Whether it’s Lou Gehrig in baseball, Wayne Gretzky in ice hockey, Martina Navratilova in tennis or Oscar De La Hoya in boxing, some of the best athletes in history have been portsiders.

But even in this realm, the southpaw advantage may vary, being more pronounced in sports where a player has less time to react to an opponent, like table tennis, according to Florian Loffing, a sports scientist at the University of Oldenburg in Germany and author of a study published Wednesday in Biology Letters. In such games, he found a higher proportion of lefties than in those with longer intervals between players’ actions.

Hmm. Reaction time? I am anticipating a minefield since I read many years ago that left-handed bowlers have an advantage (The righties are overlapping each other's paths in the oil coating the lane but the lefty generally has the left side to himself, enhancing predictability and consistency). However, as in other sports lefties have equipment issues in bowling (left-handed bowling shoes? Who knew?)

And here we go!

This “nurture” idea is supported by studies that have found a higher incidence of left-handers in professional interactive sports compared with the general population, but not in non-interactive ones like darts, bowling or golf.

Golf? C'mon - how many people will choose to find the special equipment and coaching for an athletic ten year old lefty who wants to try golf? Teach 'em righty! And I recall reading about southpaw baseball players who golf righty saying that having the stronger arm in the lead provides an edge. I don't golf, so what do I know?

As to bowling, lefties may not be over-represented in the overall bowling population among college students, as per the cited study but they are over-represented in the top ranks of bowlers.

Geez - send better Fake News.

Revolting At State

I don't know what this means but it looks like T Rex is losing the house:

State Dept revolt: Tillerson accused of violating U.S. law on child soldiers

OK, Tillerson is not recruiting child soldiers. He is declining to include Iraq, Afghanistan and Myanmar on the bad actors list of countries that use child soldiers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of about a dozen U.S. State Department officials have taken the unusual step of formally accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of violating a federal law designed to stop foreign militaries from enlisting child soldiers, according to internal government documents reviewed by Reuters.

A confidential State Department “dissent” memo not previously reported said Tillerson breached the Child Soldiers Prevention Act when he decided in June to exclude Iraq, Myanmar, and Afghanistan from a U.S. list of offenders in the use of child soldiers. This was despite the department publicly acknowledging that children were being conscripted in those countries. [tmsnrt.rs/2jJ7pav]

Keeping the countries off the annual list makes it easier to provide them with U.S. military assistance. Iraq and Afghanistan are close allies in the fight against Islamist militants, while Myanmar is an emerging ally to offset China’s influence in Southeast Asia.

So wait, haven't we been providing military support to Iraq and Afghanistan for years? Well, yes - under Obama the countries would be listed and then granted a waiver.

Documents reviewed by Reuters also show Tillerson’s decision was at odds with a unanimous recommendation by the heads of the State Department’s regional bureaus overseeing embassies in the Middle East and Asia, the U.S. envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the department’s human rights office and its own in-house lawyers. [tmsnrt.rs/2Ah6tB4] “Beyond contravening U.S. law, this decision risks marring the credibility of a broad range of State Department reports and analyses and has weakened one of the U.S. government's primary diplomatic tools to deter governmental armed forces and government-supported armed groups from recruiting and using children in combat and support roles around the world,” said the July 28 memo.

There may be a good reason for Tillerson to handle it this way but I am not coming up with it.  

Will The Dream Kill Christmas?

Oh my - Congressional leaders may or may not be able to separate action on some version of the DREAM act with a funding bill needed to keep the government open. One scenario is a government shutdown for the holidays:

Concern is growing in both parties that a clash over the fate of Dreamers will trigger a government shutdown this December.

House conservatives have warned Speaker Paul Ryan against lumping a fix for undocumented immigrants who came to the country as minors into a year-end spending deal. They want him to keep the two issues separate and delay immigration negotiations into 2018 to increase their leverage — which both Ryan and the White House consider reasonable. 

But many liberal Democrats have already vowed to withhold votes from the spending bill should it not address Dreamers, putting Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer in an awkward spot if they don’t go along.

Democrats know Republicans need their votes to fund the government past the current Dec. 8 deadline, and many want Pelosi and Schumer to stand firm against the must-pass bill until leaders save the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Late in the story Politico describes the divisive issues:

The kind of solution being advocated by Democrats or even centrist Republicans could incite a riot in the GOP ranks. In exchange for a DACA fix, conservatives want to boost border security, curb “chain migration” and force companies to set up E-verification systems to check that their workers are here legally — proposals most Democrats will oppose.

Ok, 'chain migration', reuniting extended families, will obviously be important to the currently documented Democrats originally from elsewhere, as well as to the future Democrat voters they hope to wave in. Switching to a merit-based system similar to, well, every other country, has abstract yet diffuse benefits for the US as a whole, so why would Dems vote for that when their own voters can gain a specific benefit? 

But seriously - Dems will oppose efforts to enforce the current law by means of border security and E-verify? OK, of course they will, but I agree - based on his campaign rhetoric, not to mention the concept of a rule of law, Trump ought to be dead-set against the sort of compromise these Dems seem to want.

Unmoored And Buffeted

How great is it to watch Lena Dunham spend a few moments on the sexual harassment dunk tank? Here is a woman of no conviction and no evident ability to anticipate the most obvious of points and counterpoints and she is simply flailing.

The gist - in a moment of weakness Ms. Dunham gave in to antiquated notions of loyalty, justice and fair play, delivering a statement in support of a male colleague accused of rape.

Now, pause a moment and reflect on the current "believe the woman" environment. Can anyone anywhere imagine that ardent feminists will thank Ms. Dunham for her clarification and decide to back away from the accuser? Are feminists saying "Believe the woman unless Lena Dunham vouches for the man"? Of course not - the outrage was inevitable, although evidently a surprise to Ms. Dunham. Geez, forget about chess or checkers - can she even manage a game of CandyLand?

In any case, since Ms. Dunham is a woman of little character her belief in loyalty didn't last any longer than a bag of potato chips in her dressing room.

Here is her opening salvo and the frantic backpedaling:

Dunham and Konner had defended Miller in a statement to Variety on Friday, saying, "While our first instinct is to listen to every woman’s story, our insider knowledge of Murray’s situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3% of assault cases that are misreported every year."

Miller, through his attorney, told the publication that he "categorically and vehemently denies Ms. Perrineau’s outrageous claims." Perrineau confirmed to the Wrap on Friday that she had filed a report with law enforcement alleging Miller had nonconsensual sex with her in 2012, when she was 17. 

Dunham has since apologized for defending Miller.

"I naively believed it was important to share my perspective on my friend's situation as it has transpired behind the scenes over the last few months," she said in a statement Saturday on Twitter. "I now understand that it was absolutely the wrong time to come forward with such a statement."

Oh for heaven's sake - If this is the wrong time to stand up for a friend, when is the right time? After the accusations have taken hold and his career is ruined?

 

This Is How We Keep Trump

A rising economic tide will left Trump's ship, at least through the midterms. Timing being everything, we wonder what the Fed will be up to by late 2019 when the Presidential contest will be underway, but sufficient unto the day.

Mississippi Burning

Readers of the NY Times Sports section get a bit of a trivia quiz today:

Why People in Mississippi Have to Watch the Giants

Most football fans in the South who turn on CBS at 1 p.m. Sunday to watch N.F.L. football will see Baltimore at Green Bay. A much smaller portion of the audience in the South — mostly those living in Florida — will see Jacksonville at Cleveland.

And then there is the pocket of TV viewers in Mississippi who will be shown Kansas City at the Giants. The Giants are a very bad team, and the Chiefs are not exactly Mississippi’s team.

So what’s the explanation?

On each Sunday during the football season, CBS and Fox broadcast several football games simultaneously, but send only one to your home. The process by which the networks decide which game you will see is called regionalization.

They go on to explain how CBS decides which games might be appealing in which regions. Not exactly gripping stuff but the Giants question was a clever lead.

And the answer? You probably guessed it - somewhere on the Upper West Side there is no doubt a Times reader who thinks Giants QB Eli Manning got nicknamed while playing at Yale. Many of the rest of us remember he went to Ole Miss:

And what about that portion of Mississippi that will be served Chiefs-Giants? Giants quarterback Eli Manning starred at the University of Mississippi, and CBS believes that a lot of people in the state still want to watch him play.

Individual players are usually not important enough to dictate where a broadcast goes, but there are a few exceptions — mostly quarterbacks who are from, or who attended college in, places other than major metropolitan areas. Besides Manning, Carson Wentz (North Dakota State), Deshaun Watson (Clemson), Teddy Bridgewater (Louisville) and Marcus Mariota (born in Hawaii) are among the players who might influence a broadcast decision.

“J.J. Watt, as unbelievable of a player he is, is not changing our map,” Correa said. (Watt, who plays for the Houston Texans, is from Wisconsin and was a standout at the University of Wisconsin.)

Sunday Morning

Away we go. A river of Hollywood sleaze via Matt Drudge. This time its Russell Simmons and Brett Ratner.

Expanding The SDI

The NY Times looks at a US push to enhance and expand our defense against North Korean missiles. All interesting but in describing the deployment of offshore drones prepared to shoot rockets in the boost phase they include a rhetorical question which I can answer:

A boost-phase idea getting much notice would be to have drones patrol high over the Sea of Japan, awaiting a North Korean launch. Remote operators would fire heat-sensing rockets that lock onto the rising missiles.

A boost-phase idea getting much notice would be to have drones patrol high over the Sea of Japan, awaiting a North Korean launch. Remote operators would fire heat-sensing rockets that lock onto the rising missiles.

OK, I can tell you why we didn't think of that years ago. Back in the day the original goal of Reagan's "Star Wars" was to defend against Soviet missiles. Unlike North Korea, the USSR was not a relatively small country right next to an ocean. Consequently, unless we thought the Russians would let us fly drones over their land and well inside their air space the drone concept would not be useful.

A Brookings study from 2001 advocated boost-phase defenses against Iran, Iraq and North Korea. A snippet:

Another problem is finding reliable basing. The North Korean threat is the easiest to handle. Because North Korea sits on a peninsula, its missiles can be defended against using sea-based interceptors alone, though a land base on Russian soil near Vladivostok might be worthwhile if Moscow agreed. 

Right concept but sea only. They coulda woulda thought of armed drones, which were deployed in Afghanistan in 2001 but really came into their own just a few years later.

One Too Many Blows To The Head For NFL Commish

I seem to be starting every weekend with a two-minute drill about the ongoing debacles in the NFL. ESPN has a long article about the dispute between powerful owner Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and commissioner Roger Goodell. I would say it is mostly "Who cares?" stuff, other than to note that the NFL geniuses have sportswriters talking about Game of Thrones power struggles rather than the games on the field. However, this facet of Goodell's controversial contract extension negotiations caught my eye:

ESPN has reported that [Goodell] asked in August for a compensation package of about $49 million a year, if every incentive is met, plus use of a private jet for life and health care for life for his family.

Say what? I get that after one becomes accustomed to the private jet lifestyle it is hard to go back. But for a guy making that much money to want family health care covered while leading a league that has been offensively stingy about providing that for its own players takes NFL tone-deafness to a new depth.

ERRATA: At a glance, eligible players receive medical coverage for the five years after they leave the league. Not exactly a lifetime.

Saved Bill, Got Trump

Here's a feminist who resolutely refuses to learn from the past:

I’m a feminist. I study rape culture. And I don’t want Al Franken to resign.

Her gist - Yeah, I'm a Democrat, but however bad Franken is the Republicans are worse. And they won't resign in the face of scandal so why should we?

That is the deal that saved Bill Clinton and eventually torpedoed his wife, so how is this strategy working out for the Dems?

 

I Am Not A Doctor But...

I am not a doctor but I bet I could play one on television. Anyway, my developing theory about the insanity in Hollywood gets a whiff of oxygen from Kiss frontman Gen Simmons' latest antics:

Fox News Bans Kiss Frontman Gene Simmons for Life

The Kiss frontman’s inappropriate and sexist antics during a Fox office meeting led to his being kicked off the network and out of the building for good.

...

“The lunatics have taken over the insane asylum when respected business entities such as yourself ask guys that like to stick their tongues out,” Simmons answered, “what I think of Harvey Weinstein.” 

“Okay, I’m a powerful and attractive man, and what I’m about to say is deadly serious,” he continued. “Men are jackasses. From the time we’re young we have testosterone. I’m not validating it or defending it.”

Maybe not, but within minutes he was demonstrating it. According to a knowledgeable Fox News source, Simmons showed up on the 14th floor to do a book-plugging interview with FoxNews.com’s entertainment section, but instead barged in on a staff meeting uninvited.

“Hey chicks, sue me!” he shouted, and then pulled open his red velvet shirt to reveal his chest and belly, according to the source. Then he starting telling Michael Jackson pedophilia jokes, and then bopped two employees on the head with his book, making derisive comments about their comparative intelligence according to the sound their heads made when struck.

“It was pretty severe,” the source said.

After Simmons’s misconduct was reported to a supervisor, and then to human-resources executive Kevin Lord, the Kiss frontman was permanently banned from the building and will no longer be permitted on any Fox News or Fox Business Network programming.

OK, tasteless and juvenile. Maybe Al Franken is providing his material.

But the theory? I bet a lot of these aging Hollywood types would behave a lot more like humans if they stepped away from their Doctor Feelgood and the low-T patches that are being waaay over-prescribed.

Just guessing, of course, but there is no steroid testing in entertainment the way there is in sports.

Al Franken's Turn In The Dunk Tub

Al laughed when a friend took a photo of himself groping a sleeping young model, but he's not laughing now. Dem. Senator Al Franken has a sexual assault situation to deal with.

And there was never a chance that this was an isolated incident. The only suspense is how many other women will come forward, since the Senator is not yet a total has-been and the Democrats need his Senate vote. Then again, the Minnesota governor is a Democrat so they will keep the seat if a successor needs to be appointed. Drama!

I adore his apology. OK, his second one, after he realized the first one wasn't getting it done:

'I respect women. I don't respect men who don't,' the accused government groper added. 'And the fact that my own actions have given people a good reason to doubt that makes me feel ashamed.'

He specifically addressed the photo, shot as the USO performance troupe headed home the day before Christmas in 2006.  

'For instance, that picture. I don't know what was in my head when I took that picture, and it doesn't matter. There's no excuse. I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself. It isn't funny. It's completely inappropriate. It's obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture,' Franken added. 

He looks at it now and feels disgusted? When in the last eleven years did this enlightenment come to him? Sweet jiminy, we aren't talking about misbehavior at his senior prom - Franken was  fifty-five at the time and a lot closer to being a senior citizen.

Oh, well, har de 'effin har. Maybe Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau can share some yuks and help him deliver some words about respect for women.

UPDATE: Plot twist! Here we have Weird Al Franken being an obsessive stalker but it's NOT sexual. Instead, he is frustrated by a dispute about... OMB numbers. And people say comedy is dead.

Overestimating The Power Of Coincidence And Common Cause

Wiki-leaks dumped Podesta IV on October 11, 2016. On the morning of October 12 they tweeted Don Trump Jr. exhorting him to get dear old dad to tweet a link to their latest, noting that his followers could dig up stories the press is missing (willfully or otherwise).

Fifteen minutes later Trump Sr. tweeted a link-free reference to the non-coverage of the Wikileaks material by the "dishonest media". Cause and effect? Oooh, we can hear the rubles jingling and imagine Putin's smile!

Or maybe not. Fox News, probably not a ranking member of Trump's "dishonest media" had coverage of some of the new material on the evening of Oct 11, as well as a generic rant on Hannity about the slack effort of the media to break any of this stuff. So a tweet from Trump was probably somewhere in his mind, with or without a prod from Wikileaks.

[As an example, the Fox reporter leads with John Harwood, debate moderator, passing along media tips to Team Clinton. The failing NY Times had no coverage. The failing NY Times also missed the Donna Brazile leaked questions story that cost her her CNN gig two days later. Ooops.]

So do we really think Don Jr. called his dad five minutes after receiving the Wiki-tweet to remind him that the media was torpedoing him and going easy on Hillary? C'mon - it was Oct 10 when Trump was expressing his love for Wikileaks - is it implausible that two days later, following a fresh barrage from Fox News, he would hit that note again even without a reminder from his son?

Trump and Wikileaks were on the same page - they both wanted this stuff noticed. Doesn't mean they were conspiring or colluding.

Bringing People Together

Embattled Senate candidate Roy Moore gets off a good line here after four more women come forward with tawdry accusations:

Unsurprisingly to just about anyone here in the northeast Alabama community where Mr. Moore began his political career, the Republican nominee has defiantly shrugged off the anger and broadsides of Republicans in Washington.

Indeed, to simultaneously be on the offensive and the defensive is almost customary for Mr. Moore, who was, in effect, twice ousted from the Alabama Supreme Court.

“Obviously, I’ve made a few people mad,” Mr. Moore said during a campaign stop at a revival in South Alabama on Tuesday. “I’m the only one who can unite Democrats and Republicans because I seem to be opposed by both.”

Siege mentality.

One of the accusations also evokes fond, distant memories:

But as Mr. Moore’s supporters struck an aggressive posture, the candidate’s troubles mounted when the Alabama Media Group and The Washington Post each published accounts from women who said they had interacted with Mr. Moore years ago. One of the women, Tina Johnson, said that Mr. Moore had groped her buttocks in 1991, when she was 28.

“He didn’t pinch it; he grabbed it,” Ms. Johnson said, according to the Alabama Media Group report. Ms. Johnson said she had been meeting with Mr. Moore, then a lawyer in private practice, in relation to a child custody matter.

Twenty-eight years old? Hey, she wasn't fourteen or sixteen! Which prompts a flashback to the early Wild Bill Clinton years and somebody's tell-all book about the 'bimbo eruptions' with which the Clinton War Room contended on an almost daily basis. The quip, probably from James Carville and certainly paraphrased - "Today is a good news day - the allegation is about consensual sex."

DEEP ERRATA: And they wonder why we think they are weak on defense: In the course of double-checking my 'war room' memory (I'm thinking the non-consensual stuff started with Paula Jones in 1994) I came across this gem from Carville, reported without comment by the Times: 

The argot of the campaign would make a pacifist shudder. The room where Mr. Carville works and shouts is the "war room." Betsey Wright, the longtime Clinton aide who oversees the research operation that investigates and answers accusations against the candidate, is, a campaign official said, "the Secretary of Defense." Describing the campaign's reaction to an attack by President Bush on Mr. Clinton's health care proposals, Mr. Carville estimates the level of response in Pentagon jargon as "Defcon-5," or highest alert.

OK, Defcon-5 is the lowest level, but thanks for playing Toy Soldier. And Carville is a Marine. Geez! Or to be fair, since this scale is commonly misunderstood, maybe Carville was dialing it to "Dumb" for his audience, namely Times reporters and the readers who love them. Of course for real flair he should have dialed it up to Defcon 11. No other war room can do that!

And is there a statute of limitations on Times corrections? Twenty-five years may be enough.

Reality (Or The Perception Thereof) May Overwhelm Roy Moore

Steve Bannon having second thoughts about his man in Alabama?

But over the past few days, Bannon has begun privately taking the temperature of those in his inner circle to see what they think of the Moore allegations and to get their sense of how to proceed, according to four knowledgeable sources. Late last week, the Breitbart chairman said, “I will put him in a grave myself,” if he determines that Moore was lying to him about the numerous accusations, a source close to Bannon relayed.

Bannon emphasized, to both friends and colleagues, that he’s uncomfortable with the charges of sexual harassment and child molestation that have been levelled at Moore. But he wasn’t convinced that the initial flood of on-record testimony, starting with the first Washington Post story last week, was anything more than a hit job. And he believes it may have been planted by #NeverTrump operatives to put the screws to Moore’s campaign.

Several of Bannon’s most trusted allies have already told him that it would be “insane,” as one put it, to believe at this point that the Moore accusations are baseless. They have also warned that the time is rapidly approaching when he would have to disavow Moore before it appeared as though he was simply caving to political pressure. (Critics of Bannon, of course, argue he should never have backed Moore in the first place.)

There is nothing trickier than a shameless, opportunistic hit job with a basis in fact. Especially when the 'facts' are impossible to verify or refute.

If You're Having Trouble Despising The NFL Owners...

if the NFL owners have not yet lost your confidence this may tip you over the edge:

Debilitated Players Accuse N.F.L. of Stalling on Settlement Payments

The families of debilitated former N.F.L. players say the league is obstructing their access to an estimated $1 billion settlement over concussions by reflexively rejecting valid claims and bogging down the process with unreasonable demands.

After a contentious five-year fight between the league and many former players who had accused the N.F.L. of hiding the dangers of head trauma, the two sides agreed in 2015 to a settlement that covers nearly every former player for the next 65 years.

Now the families and their lawyers describe a succession of roadblocks as they try to claim payouts, from as little as a few thousand dollars to potentially several million dollars, to help thousands of retired players left mentally infirm, in some cases severely, from years of hits and tackles on the league’s fields.

Of 1,400 claims filed so far, 140 have been approved, which legal experts say is startlingly low. The remaining 90 percent of those claims are in the process of being evaluated or have been sent back to the players and their lawyers to amend before they can be approved.

Playing football is hazardous to your health. Also hazardous to your health? Getting between these owners and a stray nickel.

Under Siege

David Brooks is fascinating today:

The Siege Mentality Problem

Why are so many conservative evangelicals in Alabama still supporting Roy Moore? For that matter, why have so many evangelicals around the country spent the past two years embracing Donald Trump?

I just took part in a compelling conversation on this subject at the Faith Angle Forum, founded by the late Michael Cromartie of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and came away with one core explanation: the siege mentality. In fact, I’d say the siege mentality explains most of the dysfunctional group behavior these days, on left and right.

You see the siege mentality not just among evangelical Christians but also among the campus social justice warriors and the gun lobbyists, in North Korea and Iran, and in the populist movements across Europe.

The siege mentality starts with a sense of collective victimhood. It’s not just that our group has opponents. The whole “culture” or the whole world is irredeemably hostile.

This connection was interesting and will ring true with sports fans:

Leaders, even sports coaches, try to whip up the siege mentality, because it makes their job easier. After all, this mentality encourages people to conform and follow orders. Resentment can be a great motivator. It’s us against the world!

I suspect Mr. Brooks has personal experience with feeling besieged. But why is this social trend so problematic now, especially if, as with sports, the concept is timeless?

Why is this mind-set so prevalent now? Well, it’s partially because the country is divided and many groups feel under assault. According to a Pew Research Center poll, 64 percent of Americans believe that their group has been losing most of the time.

But that’s not the main reason the siege mentality is so prevalent. It’s because we’re in a historic transitional moment and the very foundations of society are now open to question.

The older among us have to be wondering how he compares this to the polarization and drama of the 60's.

In the 1960s the civil rights leaders suffered injustice and oppression. But they had a basic faith in the foundations of society. They wanted a place at the table.

Today people are more likely to think the table itself stinks, or there is no common table. Today Christians are more likely to argue that the liberal order itself is intolerant toward faith. Social justice warriors are prone to argue that America is racist and oppressive in its very bones. The evil is inherent in the basic structure.

I don't remember the anti-war crowd as thinking the system was fundamentally fair. I'll try two other guesses - with the current media and technology it is easier for the aggrieved to find each other, either to huddle in defense or go on the march against evil. Even those who customize their Facebook and Twitter feeds to tune out the Other Side know the opposition is out there.

On the other other hand, our Founding fathers managed to organize a revolution without even Tweeting and our friends in the South engineered a secession a century later without Facebook, Matt Drudge or Jon Stewart.

The second driver is the endless need for politicians to raise money, which doesn't seem to be accomplished by sending out pamphlets noting that, while our opponents have some good points, our arguments are stronger. Just for example, the apocalyptic "Donate now or we will all DIE!" approach has been a staple of the pro-choice crowd since the 70's, not to mention the gun-grabbers or the gun nuts gun rights enthusiasts or the environmentalists.

Mr. Brooks has a bit of an LOL conclusion, although to be fair it seems like he stopped rather than finished, presumably due to space considerations:

The fact is, the siege mentality arises from overgeneralization: They are all out to get us. It shouldn’t be met with a counter-overgeneralization: Those people are all sick.

It should be met with confident pluralism. We have a shared moral culture, and some things are beyond the boundaries, like tolerating sexual harassment. But within the boundaries of our liberal polity, we’re going to give one another the benefit of the doubt.

Suppose America’s leaders had gone to conservative evangelicals a decade ago and said: Look, we understand that changing attitudes about gay marriage put you in a tough position. We’re not going to stop doing what we think is right, but we’re going to try to work out some accommodation with you on religious liberty so you can feel at home here and practice your faith.

That might have felt more like a conversation than a siege. That might have spared us the populist revolts that brought us Roy Moore, and Donald Trump, and the repugnant habits of mind that now excuse them.

Oh, please - nobody can fund-raise off of adult conversation. More to the point, the left won their court victories on gay marriage by successfully arguing that the bans were based on irrational homophobic bigotry. Pivoting to reconciliation with those 'bigots' would have taken extraordinary dance skills unlikely to be appreciated by the audience on the left.

A better example would have been the argument about legal and illegal immigration. Obviously the left characterizes any concept of immigration control as hate-based racism but the illogic of that view is revealed by the fact that even stalwart liberals sometimes admit that the US cannot have both open borders and a generous social safety net.

McConnell On Moore

I understand that Senate candidate Roy Moore's core supporters don't exactly hang on every word of Republican establishment pinata Mitch McConnell but this is still a big deal:

McConnell Calls for Roy Moore to Drop Out of Senate Race

WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said Monday that Roy S. Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama, “should step aside” and that he believes the women who have accused Mr. Moore of sexual misconduct when they were teenagers.

“I believe the women, yes,” Mr. McConnell said at a news conference in Louisville.

Mr. McConnell also said that encouraging a write-in candidate to run in the Dec. 12 special election is “an option we’re looking at.”

Mr. Moore, a judge who was twice removed from the state’s high court, first for refusing to remove the Ten Commandments from the Supreme Court grounds, then for refusing to accept gay marriage, responded defiantly. He showed no sign of leaving the race ahead of Alabama’s Dec. 12 special election date.

 

Escalation On The Korean Peninsula

Escalation on the Korean peninsula and possible trouble in Paradise:

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — President Donald Trump is exchanging school yard taunts with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

In a response to North Korea calling Trump’s speech in South Korea “reckless remarks by an old lunatic,” Trump tweeted from Hanoi on Sunday morning: “Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?’”

Trump goes on to say sarcastically, “Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend — and maybe someday that will happen!”

First, this harks back to one of the great Republican debates and is a fight we can win! Unless RocketMan starts wondering  how Trump can even manage to tweet with those stubbly little fingers, in which case all bets are off.

But the cloud on the horizon is this - Asian culture typically values the elderly, unlike youth-obsessed America, and isn't it fun to generalize about two billion people? In any case, why is Trump so sure that "old" is an insult and how do those of us who, if not poised for the bell lap but conscious of its approach, feel about this?

And can we safely assume the "no body-shaming!" crowd will fall down sobbing upon hearing of this thrust and riposte? Whatev. I can't let fun-spoilers spoil my fun.

For The Night Shift

They told Glenn Reynolds that if he voted for Hillary (OK, what were the odds?) that bastions of misogyny would fall. And they were right!

Saturday Action!

The traditional Stand and Salute Veterans Day / college football open thread.

And yes, we thank all vets for their service. As has been remarked many times, this country has a much better military than its political class deserves.

Maybe Kevin Spacey Should Play Roy Moore In The Movie?

I'm ahead of the curve here because Spacey is toast and Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore is still kicking. Maybe Moore should hold out for Mel Gibson.

Does Roy Moore Have A Neighbor?

Does deplorable-if-true-and-it-probably-is Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore have a neighbor with the same flair for football as the fool who assaulted Rand Paul? "Dating" 14 year old girls as a 32 year old West Point grad? Come on. Send better culture warriors.

Jonah Goldberg has more but plenty of prominent Republicans are backpedaling away like Falcons defensive backs playing against Tom Brady (which is to say, with ineffectual conviction).

UPDATE: With Trump on my side. Sort of:

"Like most Americans, the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a person’s life," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters on Air Force One en route to Da Nang, Vietnam. "However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside."

Well, nothing is going to be "proven" in the next few weeks. How, and by whom? If I recall the WaPo the criminal and civil statute of limitations kicked in decades ago. The good people of the great state of Alabama will make their choice and they may have lots of reasons to stick with Moore. Doesn't mean I have to support him, and Trump (at least through his spokesperson) seems inclined to keep his distance.

 

Chasing Mosquitos

Good news for those in favor of mosquito genocide, but not as good as the headline:

US government approves 'killer' mosquitoes to fight disease

US Environmental Protection Agency will allow release of insects in 20 states and Washington DC.

Yea!, but...

The EPA restricted the release of MosquitoMate’s product, called ZAP males, to 20 states and Washington DC. The agency has previously said that those places “are similar in temperature and precipitation to areas where efficacy of the ZAP males was tested” — Kentucky, New York and California. The EPA decision excludes much of the southeastern United States, which is home to dense populations of mosquitoes and a long mosquito season, because MosquitoMate did not conduct field trials there.

The southeast is where the bugs are. More importantly, the Asian tiger mosquito targeted by this version is the lesser carrier of Zika, dengue et al - the Aedes Aegypti is the bigger threat there. However, on that front:

By contrast, MosquitoMate has developed and tested a variety of Wolbachia-carrying A. aegyptimosquitoes in the Florida Keys and Fresno, California, without drawing much public attention. The EPA received only 14 comments during the public-comment period for the Florida trials, and most of them were positive. The company plans to submit an application to the EPA for nationwide release of that species, says Dobson.

 

Mowing The Lawn, Digging Up Dirt

The plot sickens with Rand Paul and the baffling neighbor.

Wednesday Afternoon

Let's have the traditional Hump Day open thread.

The Mourning After

Euphoric Democrats? Groan. But maybe they will be over-confident and fail to hone their message of All Anger All The Time.

And what about the Republican side? Surely they have no reason for over-confidence. The failing NY Times says that in swing states Trumpism is a loser without Trump although even they admit that Establishment Man Gillespie may not have been a credible choice to carry the Trump banner.

As an alternative, these pollsters say that Trump as messenger overwhelms and undermines the message. One might presume that a similar message from a more temperate voice would work fine. Or put people to sleep - we will know more in a year.

What Could Go Wrong?

Unless Mark Zuckerberg has engineered the repeal of the law of unintended consequences this will end badly:

Facebook asks users for nude photos in project to combat revenge porn

In Australia pilot effort, company will ‘hash’ images, converting them into digital fingerprints that prevent any other attempts to upload the same pictures

Big Brother is leering at you.

Election Afternoon Open Thread

All eyes turn south. Well, all eyes north of Virginia - SOOO NYCentric of me.

LATER: Ooops!

Carter Page Is Becoming A Big Deal

The gist - previously undisclosed meetings and emails (despite a subpoena) and an intention to plead the Fifth Amendment - are troubling.

Something for The Night Shift

The traditional 'Now what?' open thread.

York On The Steele Dossier

Byron York points to circular logic in the reporting on the Steele dossier. And I had not seen his debunking of the tale of the change in the Republican platform to go easier on Russia vis a vis the Ukraine.

Heaven Help Us

Texas church shooting.

Sunday Morning

The traditional Sunday morning stand, sit, kneel or get out of the way open thread.

Upset Saturday

Tough day for Ohio State and Penn State. Let's see what the morrow brings.

Saturday Afternoon

Game day!

Off To A Slow Start

I've been distracted by our booming economy. Or to be more accurate, our booming stock market and steadily-recovering economy.

Please, Don't Poison People

OMG:

Pakistani Bride Charged With Poisoning Groom’s Family, Killing 17

MULTAN, Pakistan — Pakistani police arrested a newly married woman on murder charges after she allegedly poisoned her husband's milk and it inadvertently killed 17 other people in a remote village, a senior police officer said Wednesday.

 

Tax Plans, Trial Balloons and Granfalloons

Tax bills are supposed to originate in the House, and we have the outline of a proposal of a draft of talking points, as unearthed by the NY Times.

What's the old saying? No tax plan survives first contact with lobbyists? In any case, I like the politics of focusing on the middle class and not cutting the top rate. That said, if they raised the threshold for entering the top bracket I would not gnash my teeth. I just can't listen to yet another round of Paul Krugman railing that billionaires are corrupting our politics so therefore we must raise taxes on everyone earning more than $250k.

If I were ending the mortgage interest deduction I would phase it out over, e.g., ten years rather than grandfather people in their current situation. Grandfathering tends to lock people in place without mitigating the body blow to resale values that will come about with elimination of the deduction. Very tough on those who can't wait it out for whatever reason. The good news is mortgage rates are low, so the value of the deduction ain't what it used to be.

As to the deductibility of State and Local taxes, lots of background from the Tax Foundation. As a resident of a high tax Blue State I'm not feeling patriotic about paying ore taxes. On the other hand, I have to admire the raw nastiness of sticking it to high tax Blue States and the high-earning college-educated Republicans who detest Trump.

This Is Perjury?

These people are just spitballing and having fun now; logic has left the building. Jeet Heer at TNR:

Looks like Jeff Sessions perjured himself.

Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the election has entangled the attorney general. In his sworn testimony during his confirmation hearing in January, Sessions was asked by Senator Al Franken, “If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?” Sessions responded: “Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have—did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”

However, George Papadopoulos in his plea deal admitted to wanting to contact the Russians and Sessions, hmm, knew about it. Sort of. From Mr. Heer:

As CNN reports this morning, “The chairman of Trump’s national security team, then Alabama Senator and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions, shut down the idea of a Putin meeting at the March 31, 2016, gathering, according to the source. His reaction was confirmed with another source who had discussed Sessions’s role.”

The NY Times has more color:

At a March 31 meeting in a foreman’s lounge at the Trump Hotel in Washington, which was under construction, with Mr. Trump and the rest of the foreign policy team, Mr. Papadopoulos pitched the idea of a personal meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin. Mr. Clovis and others immediately expressed doubts about the wisdom of the idea, noting that Russia was under United States sanctions and denouncing the “optics” of a meeting with Mr. Putin, according to a former campaign aide who attended the meeting.

But Mr. Trump listened with interest and asked questions of Mr. Papadopoulos. Mr. Trump “didn’t say yes, and he didn’t say no,” said the former aide, who agreed to describe the meeting on the condition of anonymity.

Finally, Mr. Sessions, as the campaign’s top national security official, spoke vehemently against the idea, asking others not to discuss it again. Mr. Trump did not challenge him, the former aide said.

Nonetheless, Mr. Papadopoulos continued to pursue the notion of some sort of meeting for several months, updating Trump campaign officials on his efforts, the court records showed.

As to which campaign officials were updated and whether any of them brought Sessions into the non-loop, well, I don't know and neither does Mr. Heer. But absent that information Sessions' claim that he was not aware of any contact with the Russian government is unimpeached.

Distilling Papadopoulos

Bloomberg runs a breathless headline:

Papadopoulos Claimed Trump Campaign Approved Russia Meeting

And so he did, although eventually Team Bloomberg admit that the meeting never happened nor is there any evidence presented supporting the iudea that it was approved, rather than just puffery from Papadopoulos.

The NY Times, almost certainly unwittingly, does a nice job of distilling the absurdity of the Papadopoulos role to a few paragraphs:

How a Trump Adviser Repeatedly Sought a Meeting With Russia

...

On March 14, 2016, Mr. Papadopoulos, while traveling in Italy, met a professor who claimed to have substantial connections with Russian government officials. At the time, Mr. Papadopoulos was set to become a foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign. [Sidebar: "Set to become"?!? Per the stipulation, p. 2, Papadopolous claimed he met The Professor prior to joining the campaign and the FBI busted him for lying about the timing. Whose side is the Times on?]

On March 24, Mr. Papadopoulos met again with the professor, who brought a Russian woman he introduced as having ties to the Russian government.

After the meeting with the professor, Mr. Papadopoulos emailed the Trump campaign supervisor and members of the campaign’s foreign policy team about arranging a meeting between campaign and Russian officials to discuss how United States-Russia relations would be if Mr. Trump were elected.

In response, the campaign supervisor said that he would “work it through the campaign,” but that no commitment should be made at that point, adding, “Great work.”

On March 31, at a national security meeting in Washington, D.C., with Mr. Trump present, Mr. Papadopoulos said that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

So to recap - Trump has hosted Miss Universe in Moscow, entertained development deals for sites in Moscow, and sold real estate to money-laundering Russian oligarchs all over the world. Papadopoulos has met a Maltese professor at a cocktail party two weeks earlier. To whom will Trump turn if he needs access to movers and shakers in Moscow?

And that is not even talking about Manafort and his own connections to Russia and the Ukraine.

Bonus points: Let's note that Papadopoulos was not above some shameless self-promotion in talking up his Russian contacts. Could that have carried over into his emails to his Russian buddies when he said a meeting had been approved?

And for a last note of unreality: Papadopoulos had a resume [ Link to WSJ_Career] that included a stint at a Model UN and a few months doing little to nothing for Ben Carson. He had no apparent personal connection with anyone in the Trump campaign and got the "job" of foreign policy adviser because the Republican fo-po establishment was boycotting Trump. Finally, he remained based in London. Everything about this screams "peripheral non-player". 

Which inevitably means to the conspiracists that he was an incredibly crafty, carefully placed cut-out given the lead on a shady outreach to Russia to engage in campaign dirty tricks, or something. But in Realityville he would never have been trusted with that sort of role.