Idiotes and their Predators

“Idiot” in its original form is what I’m talking about here. Ignore both meanings 1 AND 2. Look at the derivation.

id·i·ot (id’ee-uht)
n.
1. A person who is considered foolish or stupid.
2. A person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers. The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered offensive.
[Middle English, ignorant person, from Old French idiote, from Latin idiota, from Greek idiotes, private person, layman, from idios, own, private; see s(w)e- in Indo-European roots.]
~ American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.  2011

‘Idiot’ comes to us from Athenian democracy and is the term reserved for those who do not participate in civic life.

America is beset with idiotes.

They have never been to a political party meeting in their lives, even though anyone can pretty much join any party they want to. They have never been to a city council meeting, a hearing of the state legislature nor anything more civic than a free tour of the state capitol.

And their votes count for just as much as yours or mine.

 Which makes them easy prey for predators. Example:

Back in the Saddle Again

I know I said I was semi-retired, but the RNC auto da fé in Cleveland has convinced me that this election is such a clear and present danger to our democracy that remaining silent would be an act of omission on the order of treason, and I am returning to the fight for the duration.

Courage.

NY Times confirms my Saturday reporting on Russia

For all you “patriotic Americans”  giving me endless shite over my original investigative reporting (mostly in social media): TOLD JA SO.

As Democrats Gather, a Russian Subplot Raises Intrigue
David E. Sanger / New York Times

WASHINGTON — An unusual question is capturing the attention of cyberspecialists, Russia experts and Democratic Party leaders in Philadelphia: Is Vladimir V. Putin trying to meddle in the American presidential election?

Ah, but the NYT remains at least 48 hours behind my reporting: 

Disinformation and Its Guzzlers

There’s an old saying in journalism: if something is too good to be true, it probably isn’t.

Bernie Sanders Campaign Chief Says Someone Must Be ‘Accountable’ for What DNC Emails Show
MaryAlice Parks / ABC News!

—  Bernie Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said his team was “disappointed” by the emails from the Democratic National Committee leaked through WikiLeaks, which seemed to reveal staff in the party working to support Hillary Clinton.

For left-wing anti-Hillary zealots, the news is “too good to be true” outstripping their wildest conspiracy theories. Now, given that, how credible would you say these documents are?

Let’s start with what we know: the documents were hacked. We KNOW that.  So, hacked by whom?

Happy 47th Moon Day

Sometimes known as “A Secret History of Neil Armstrong”

Quincy Jones presents platinum copies
of “Fly Me to the Moon”) to Neil Armstrong (right)
and Senator John Glenn, September 24, 2008.

From the 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing ….

A Secret History of Neil Armstrong
July 20, 2009

Finally, somebody’s paying attention to the Moon landing, 40 years ago, today.

Over the past several years of blogs, I have tried to keep some remembrance of our most profound anniversary, a future holiday perhaps, on a par with the discovery and taming of fire: the species’ first extraterrestrial landing.  (See 2001: A Space Odyssey for more on this.)

The Plagiarists Double Down

The Trump Campaign responds to plagiarism allegations

This is for those with eyes that see and ears that hear. The rest of you can go back to watching Faux Nooz — who have decided, Ailes-wise, to double down on defending plagiarism and spouting the usual tropes about “liberal media.”

Melania Trump’s speech plagiarizes parts of Michelle Obama’s
Gregory Krieg / CNN

(CNN) At least one passage in Melania Trump’s speech Monday night at the Republican National Convention plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

A later version of the same article contains THIS opening:

(CNN) Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has no plans to fire anybody on the campaign or to take any disciplinary action against anyone for the Melania Trump speech plagiarism controversy, CNN learned Tuesday. As campaign chairman Paul Manafort indicated at his morning news conference, the campaign’s posture is to simply move on from this without addressing it any further.

Manafort denied allegations that Melania Trump plagiarized a Michelle Obama speech on the first night of the Republican National Convention, calling the accusation “just really absurd.”

Ah, facts, those stubborn things. Someone at the MSNBC table was chiding Lawrence O’Donnell with the implicit false equivalency that the Democrats were going to be as fast and loose with facts as the GOPs were being, and wasn’t that going to be tough. O’Donnell, tellingly, replied that there really weren’t many facts to check that day, since nearly all the speeches were long on rhetoric and spartan on facts.

This is actually a problem, no matter that Donald and his thuggish new campaign manager, Manafort, are perfectly comfortable lying with a straight face.

Twitzkreig, or Why Progressives Lose

The past 24 hours ought to have been the beginnings of a grand coalescence of progressives to begin a campaign to — unlike the GOP  victimhood mendacity — truly take our country back from a troglodyte philosophy that is so ideologically rigid, flawed and fossilized that it ends up as an endless round of “There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza” circular reasonings, e.g. “We cannot raise taxes for any reason” and “We must fight an [un]just war” both of which lead  to an irreducible and ineluctable contradiction*. Solution? Declare victory and move on. The examples are infinite. Which is why our nation stands teetering on the brink of disaster, a death by ten billion paper cuts aided and abetted by Grand Old Party lemon juice. But, instead?

Donald Trump Is Right About Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
New York Times
  —  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg needs to drop the political punditry and the name-calling.  —  Three times in the past week, Justice Ginsburg has publicly discussed her view of the presidential race, in the sharpest terms….

Ironic, considering that the selfsame New York Times elicited the interview which they use to pile on to our Supreme Court Justice.

Now, who would these craven Monday morning quarterbacks be?  The faceless New York Times Editorial Boors. (sic) Er, I mean “Bored” … er, “Board.”

It is an exemplar and a symptom of a far greater malaise, characterized not so much as the infamous “circular firing squad” but, rather, shooting ones’ self in the foot. INTENTIONALLY. Let me Liberal-splain it for you.