NOTICE TO READERS

This is my “retired” blog.

From 2004 to 2014, I blogged (long-form, since I started out writing for magazines) nearly every day.

And was featured in Salon, Crooks and Liars, The Moderate Voice, The Democratic Daily, BlueOregon, The (Eugene, Ore.) Register Guard, The (Portland) Oregonian, the Eugene Weekly, The Omaha World Herald, on the local AirAmerica affiliate KOPT and on PBS. (See sidebar for PBS interview). Etcetera.*

[* As in there are more, but I don’t spend a lot of time cultivating my C.V.]

Since 2014, I have blogged infrequently and occasionally, but when I do, I post here.

Courage.

—Hart Williams

The New Stochastic Terrorists

Trump, Elder’s campaign falsely claimed fraud before California votes were counted — a growing GOP tactic
By Elise Viebeck and Tom Hamburger
Washington Post

SAN FRANCISCO — Former president Donald Trump’s false voter fraud claims found new life in California’s biggest election this year.

The top Republican seeking to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in Tuesday’s recall declined before the election to say whether he could accept the results. A website affiliated with his campaign invites visitors to “sign a petition to stop the fraud of the California recall election.” And a previous version of the site — published before the election took place — blamed voter fraud for Newsom being “reinstated” as governor.

There is no evidence for these claims, which have nonetheless been amplified repeatedly this week by former president Donald Trump. But their arrival in the country’s largest blue state offered proof of their currency within the Republican Party, where some leaders have increasingly sought to undermine public confidence in Democratic victories by baselessly alleging that elections are vulnerable to manipulation.

TFG’s denialism was a planned tactic from long before the election of 2020.

If you doubt that, consider Larry Elder’s pre-election claims that the election was/is rigged. And recall that, at the beginning of his “run” for California Recall Governor, he said that the2020 election was fair and square — until Trumpanzees started flinging poo and he then recanted.

I am writing this presuming that the election turns out as expected. Because the threat is REAL, no matter the outcome.

Death By Willful Ignorance

Madness is in the news again:

 One person stabbed as COVID anti-vaxxers and counterdemonstrators clash in front of L.A. City Hall
Los Angeles Times

An anti-vaccine rally at Los Angeles City Hall turned violent on Saturday, with one person stabbed and a reporter claiming he was assaulted, according to police and protesters on the scene…

War of the Worlds 1953 lobby card – PUBLIC DOMAIN

There is a moment from the 1953 George Pal movie version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds that remains indelibly etched in my memory:

The Martians have kicked our Terran ass quite thoroughly. Even the Flying Wing dropping an atomic bomb on them has had no effect. The city is panicked, but the scientists have one last ditch chance: they have a blood sample; they will move their laboratory and personnel to the Rocky Mountains to research ANY kind of weapon that can harm the Martians.

And then the yowling mob …

I Told You So When No One Would Listen

A feast of crow for our national media. Shame. Shame.

Not all press inspirations are angelic in nature.

This is what I wrote on St. Patrick’s Day, this year”: [“Narrative News as (well-intentioned but dangerous) Propaganda”]

Eight murders in Atlanta neatly fell into the (politically correct) narrative. Alas, it quickly appeared that a DIFFERENT narrative was in evidence, and no one seems to want to talk about that.

Worse, guest after guest on cable news has explicitly rejected the “sex addiction” narrative so as to pursue the “anti-Asian bias” narrative.

WTF people?

The truth is the truth and the facts are the facts unless you are locked in a fundamentalist worldview/mindset in which facts are only meaningful if their cherry-picking advances a pre-existing narrative.

Yes, mindless racism against Asian-Americans (discounting Indians, who, like Egyptians, look wrong to fit their respective continental stereotypes) is bad and wrong.

But so is the American HATRED of sex and sexuality. (Ask Larry Flynt, who was paralyzed by such a screwloose. He’s dead, so you’ll need a medium or a Ouija board).)

But this didn’t fit the narrative of beating our breasts and putting on sackcloth and ashes over anti-Asian racism. Nope. The corpses were humped in furtherance of political ends, and that always ends badly. So, today:

Afghanistan – The End of the Tar Baby Story

h/t dvorasnell

American Soldiers FOB Baylough – Dept of Defense photo

At the end of the day — as we always should have known — we’d be gone and the Taliban would still be in Afghanistan.

U.S. Leaves Its Last Afghan Base, Effectively Ending Operations

Thomas Gibbons-Neff / New York Times

July 2, 2021Updated 9:33 a.m. ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — American troops and their Western allies have departed Bagram, Afghanistan’s largest air base, officials said on Friday, turning over to the Afghan government the sprawling outpost from which the United States waged war for nearly two decades.

With little fanfare and no public ceremony, American troops left the base on Thursday night, U.S. and Afghan officials said. The closure effectively means that major U.S. military operations in Afghanistan are all but over.…

I wrote this many years ago:

A Ted Cruz Interlude

Regarding Ted Cruz:

An Important Public Service Announcement

Dreaming of snark [note © 2021 Hart Williams. All content licensed stock or Public Domain.]

Naturally, we hope for a quick cure.

A little housekeeping: the new WordPress block system is entirely too cumbersome and absurd to occasion my complete relearning of a new typesetting system, so don’t expect very much blogging in future.

Hello WordPress!

Thanks WordPress. You managed to silence me when the entire Rightie Blogosmear™ couldn’t.

Courage.

Narrative News as (well-intentioned but dangerous) Propaganda

 

NOTE: This post originally appeared in The Moderate Voice on March 17, 2021. WordPress has changed to a new and useless composing system that’s taken a month to disable.

 

Cops: Shooting suspect says he targeted spas because of sexual addiction
Shaddi Abusaid / Atlanta Journal-Constitution

—  Cherokee sheriff says 21-year-old bought gun hours earlier  —  Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds said Wednesday the suspect in a metro Atlanta spa shooting spree that killed eight people bought the gun he used hours earlier.

Eight murders in Atlanta neatly fell into the (politically correct) narrative. Alas, it quickly appeared that a DIFFERENT narrative was in evidence, and no one seems to want to talk about that.

Worse, guest after guest on cable news has explicitly rejected the “sex addiction” narrative so as to pursue the “anti-Asian bias” narrative.

WTF people?

The Coming Vaccine Scandals

Contractor Who Was Awarded $34.5 Million in Government Money and Provided Zero Masks Pleads Guilty to Fraud
J. David McSwane / ProPublica

—  The VA and FEMA agreed to pay a first-time vendor in a desperate search for protective equipment.  Now Robert Stewart admits he defrauded three federal agencies and lied about being in the Marine Corps.

When billions of dollars are at stake, the crooks appear as surely as ants at a picnic.

I don’t know why humans so often fail to use their ability to project the future based on the knowledge of the past, but here we are again.

Here are some simple propositions:

1. The Coronavirus vaccines are, currently, the most valuable liquids on Earth.
2. Almost zero lip service (and, alas, security service) is being given to ensuring a fair and equitable rollout to ALL Americans.
3. Plans mentioned are to ship the vaccine directly to pharmacies.
4. The potential for bootlegging, theft and sale to those who will pay a premium is STAGGERING.

It doesn’t take a lot of thought to parse that out, but in the Kumbaya of trying to vaccinate everybody, that basic human urge to make money from tragedy is all but ignored in all reporting, and, sad to seem [sic], policy.

I will stick with my pre-election suggestion:

Beware the False Kumbaya

UPDATED BELOW

Let the whining begin. Seldom have grownups been so desperately sensitive and given to bitter weeping:

 Tale of two briefings: Jen Psaki treated much differently by press than Sean Spicer
Brian Flood / Fox News

—  Biden press secretary faces mostly friendly questions from mainstream press  —  Biden WH press secretary takes mostly softball questions in first briefing  —  CNN pundit-turned-White House press secretary Jen Psaki held her first press briefing on Wednesday and the mostly friendly questions were a stark contrast to the way media members treated the Trump administration’s first event.…

I will pass over the fact that virtually every statement in the story is a lie or a blatant distortion.*

Where Are All Those Votes?

Now we know it was a fair and transparent election:

Bush Center

Statement by President George W. Bush  —  President Bush congratulates President-elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Harris  —  DALLAS, TEXAS — I just talked to the President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.  I extended my warm congratulations and thanked him for the patriotic message he delivered last night…

OK. Nothing to see here. Move along move along. Blue won. Or did they?

Let me engage in a bit of rational, logical conspiracy theory*.

As the Trumpists rail that the election was “stolen” one salient fact has been glossed over: the presumption that all pollsters in all states (and in every presidential election since 2000) “got it wrong again.”

Really? That might bear a scintilla more of interest. Let’s do a little deduction, shall we?