Why Turkey Changed It I Can't Say... (w/ Update)

(see Update below):

Oh man, this is crazy beyond crazy:

For the Sixth Time in Its Modern History the Turkish Military Has Seized Control.

OH SHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIII---

Istanbul had just suffered a serious terror attack a few weeks ago when their airport was shot up. I don't know if the situation around that, along with the ongoing fighting against ISIL and fractuous dealings with the Russian military, had pushed the military to turn against Edrogan.

From The Atlantic:

The Turkish military says it is taking over Turkey in order to restore democracy. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was on vacation, said those who attempted the coup would face the “highest price.”

The situation is so fluid at the moment that posting anything more than this - that Erdogan called on the mosques to rise up and the military called for a curfew - would be foolish. Your best bet is to click on those two links and keep up with the official news channels.

As for my two cents:

Never a huge fan of coups. Uprising by the populace, I'm mostly in favor of that because it's the people who are having their say. Military coups have a nasty habit of killing too many innocent people. Unfortunately, in some situations where the political situation has logjammed, a coup could be the only sane response by people in those straits. Could, not always...

This is tricky, and messy, and you don't ever want to encourage this sort of thing.

The key to this is Erdogan. He's been an autocrat in power: Pushing out rivals at an alarming rate, violating various civil liberties, and establishing a more theocratic government that was at odds with a secularized military.

Back to that Atlantic article:

Erdogan served as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s as part of an Islamist party, but was barred from politics and imprisoned in 1998, a victim of the periodic crackdowns on religious parties that have characterized the Turkish state since its founding. He returned to politics with the AKP, or Freedom and Justice Party, a more moderate party that melded Islamism with modernizing impulses. Erdogan became prime minister in 2003. The rise of the AKP initially fed speculation that the military, a staunchly secular institution loyal to the precepts of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, might launch a coup, as it had done many times in the past.

But Erdogan managed to strike a middle path, drawing in some liberals who applauded his modernizing steps, as well as more conservative and religious voters. He kept the military at bay, in some cases prosecuting generals for alleged coups. His “Turkish model” was highly lauded abroad, with Western leaders and analysts hoping it might represent a successful fusion of Islamist politics with liberal democratic principles—a fusion that came to be seen as ever more necessary as Islamism became entrenched across the Middle East. President Obama in particular grew close to Erdogan, holding up him as a model.

But Erdogan’s liberalism only went so far. As his tenure lengthened, he broke with the enigmatic religious leader Fethullah Gülen, a longstanding ally who is now exiled in Pennsylvania. It soon became apparent that his goal was not a liberal democracy but a sort of revival of Ottomanism. Erdogan grew increasingly autocratic, cracking down on the media and drawing power to himself, working to transform the Turkish presidency—traditionally a relatively weak position, compared to the prime ministership—into a strong one. He became president in 2014, but the civil war in neighboring Syria and increasing tensions with Kurds encouraged him to grab even more power. By earlier this year, reporters were referring to Erdogan as being “on a march to dictatorship.” Even if Erdogan is able to survive the coup and reassert control, the Turkish model is dead—and so are any hopes that Erdogan might be a liberalizer or a democrat.

If Erdogan wins this fight, it's more than likely he will crack down even further: a guy on the path to dictatorship rarely backs up and lessens his need for control. If the military coup wins, there's every likelihood they won't relinquish control until they've stabilized their own issues regarding the Syrian Civil War, ISIL, and Kurdish separatism (which will be particularly messy as the Kurds in Iraq are one of the U.S.'s staunchest battlefield allies versus the very dangerous ISIL).

Just one more Gordian Knot re-tying itself back into an unbreakable mess again.

I really really don't like this year 2016 right now.

Update (7/16): The coup failed within hours of the attempt, although there's still reports of resistance and there's still people missing. The death toll is in the hundreds - 161 so far, with thousands wounded - and the cleanup process will likely reveal more casualties.

This coup and the aftermath will have adverse effects on the war effort against ISIL, the ongoing Syrian civil war and refugee crisis, and Turkey's relationships with NATO and their attempt to join the EU.

For myself, I'm still conflicted over this. As I said above, Erdogan was already turning himself into a dictator, and he's going to be in the mood to assume even more control and punish far more people than he needs to... which basically ensures there'll be another attempt because people who know it's possible will inevitably push back.

That Guardian update is already reporting Erdogan has dismissed nearly every judge in Turkey. There's no evidence the judicial system was involved in the coup - all the news reports has only a faction of the military committing it - yet Erdogan is striking out at any group in an attempt to establish who's loyal or disloyal no matter what. There are news reports Erdogan was pushing to dismantle an independent judiciary back in June, so this move stinks of autocratic power-grab.

A Quick Post For Laughing Insanely at Trump's Pick for Vice President (w/ Update)

A more serious post will follow.

So today, in the middle of Friday (traditionally a news dump day in the United States), and after weeks of indecision that could no longer be delayed because the CONVENTION IS NEXT MONDAY, and after the evening where Trump said he would delay his announcement in honor of the tragic terror attack in Nice, France during Bastille Day...

Without much fanfare, the Trump campaign announced they were going with Governor Mike Pence of Indiana as Trump's Vice Presidential nominee.

As part of the announcement, the campaign revealed their brand new bumper sticker logo of doom, thusly:

They REALLY didn't think this one through, did they?

Because I swear, first thing I realized when I saw that logo was "why does it look like Trump's T is inserting itself into Pence's P?"

Put it another way:

"This is even better in GIF form!"

(I would love to get a downloadable GIF of it someday...)

And to think, the Republicans are the party putting the "NO PORN" policy on their platform, those naughty boys...

Sigh. That's pretty much the only thing to laugh about. More on the horror story aspect of this later.

(Update): Annnnnnnnnd, the Trump people pulled the logo from their websites within less than a day.

We're gonna miss it now it's gone.

Somebody's gonna get fired for this. Induce satisfying wave of Schadenfreude... ahhhhhhhhhh...

This Is How Bad It's Gotten In The Republican Senate

You would think that the Republicans in our U.S. Senate could make an easy job of advising and consenting on a relatively non-partisan federal position as Head Librarian of the Library of Congress.

Nope (via the Washington Post).

It seems even a job as uncontroversial as librarian of Congress isn’t immune to congressional infighting.

Librarian of Congress nominee Carla Hayden — the chief executive of the Baltimore public library — breezed through a Senate committee hearing in April, and, within weeks, the committee voted unanimously to recommend that the Senate approve her nomination to be the 14th librarian of Congress.

“The nominee, in my opinion, brings a wealth of experience to the position and it is my hope that this experience will lead the Library of Congress in a way that . . . meets the demands of the 21st century,” Senate Rules Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said of Hayden, who would be the first woman and the first African American to lead the agency.

But not all Republicans agree, and as a result Hayden’s nomination has been held up. There has been no public explanation for the five-week delay, although privately some conservatives have been critical of the positions Hayden took as head of the American Library Association, including her opposition to parts of the Patriot Act and a law requiring libraries to install Internet filters to block pornography. Others decry her lack of academic heft, saying the position is a scholarly one...

Trust me, public librarians can handle reference research requests as well as the college librarians! /rage

Any excuse would do in a storm of their own making...

The most likely reason is that at least one Senator wanted to throw a conniption at ANYTHING that could get passed during an Obama administration, so said Senator placed yet another "secret Hold" to delay the floor vote.

This is, after all, a Republican-controlled Senate that has refused to fill the largest number of vacancies our government's seen in modern times.

Just remember these GOP Senators can easily avoid even TALKING to a Supreme Court nominee like Garland without punishment, while legal decisions are stuffed into limbo or sent back down to appellate courts woefully understaffed.

While lacking a Librarian of Congress wouldn't have brought the entire world collapsing, it's a sign of how lazy and ineffective these Republicans have been in some of the worst underperforming legislative sessions we've seen since 1948.

My professional emails the last four-five weeks had been packed up with pleas by fellow librarians to call our Senators to push for a vote. I dunno if our calls had much effect, but they FINALLY held a floor vote today... and Hayden passed 74 to 18, making her the first woman and first African-American Librarian running our nation's largest library.

It wasn't even a close vote because there wasn't much scandal or controversy involving Hayden or the Library of Congress itself (although the LOC is under calls to upgrade aging tech to improve its archival and copyrighting responsibilities). And yet her vote was on hold because someone wanted to be a jerkass.

Government isn't really broken, America. Government just has one branch under the whims of a political party - Republicans in both House and Senate - that wants to act like it's broken.

Two or Three Things

1) This is going to be a crazy week leading up to the Trump Convention. With the ongoing protests on the streets over the escalating violence between cops and citizenry, Obama making an appearance in Dallas for the memorial services there, Bernie lining up to endorse Hillary (much to the outrage of the BernieBros who feel betrayed), and the unsettling feeling that there's just something amiss with the rebooted Ghostbusters movie. Just sayin'.

2) I don't think I can afford going to this year's Tampa Bay Comic Con. :( Even though that promises to be a saner, happier, healthier convention than the one in Cleveland :shudder:

3) Last I heard from Infidel753 he was coping with impending surgery for something, and I'm just wondering if there's been any word on that and if he's okay.

Cycle of Violence, Unending

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... - Reverend Martin Luther King Jr (1967).

What are we doing to ourselves?

This past week we had two questionable, honestly horrific situations where police used lethal force to kill two black men, Alton Sterling one day and then Philando Castile the next, in situations that begged the question - yet again - at what point should lethal force even be considered? In Castile's case, it was over a minor traffic stop - over a busted tail light? - that for a white guy - like myself - would have meant a warning from the cop and the chance to drive home and fix the tail light by tomorrow. But for a black guy like Castile it was a death sentence.

And then things got worse last night when - during a peaceful street protest in Dallas regarding Sterling and Castile's deaths - a gunman with an assault rifle took a sniper's position overlooking the protest and opened fire on the cops working the security detail. The shooter wounded twelve officers and civilians, killing five.

Every account about the protest up until then was that it was by the book, nobody causing problems, a genuinely peaceful protest that by all definitions our Constitution encourages. Word is, Dallas is one of those cities than has been effective in maintaining professional relations dealing with the public, had been avoiding the militarization of the police that took place in Ferguson and Cincinnati and a hundred other cities, that had been reducing the kind of bad confrontations that led to last night's protests in the first place. 

There is horrifying irony in this, that a place where policing was actually working right had to suffer the loss of four police officers and a transit officer to another angry guy with a gun. All because one angry Black - a military veteran of Afghanistan with no previous police record, and "upset about the recent police shootings" - decided to take his "revenge" on the cops who had nothing to do with those other deaths.

We're still not over what happened in Orlando last month, home to the worst one-shooter gun massacre in our nation's history. Given how bloody that history is, that fact ought to upset every single American. The fact of that shooting - like every other mass shooting our nation's seen - involved yet another angry guy with access to military-level assault rifles ought to stir up action to prevent such guys from easy access to weapons that can kill in a heartbeat with the pull of a trigger finger. And yet...

And yet we dare not talk about any attempt at sensible gun safety laws lest the NRA throw yet another hissy fit. I don't even know why they bother to throw one: they're too busy raking in the dough as more gun nuts race out to the armories to buy up more weapons and ammo out of fear that "Obama's gonna take our gunz."

/headdesk

We cannot gather in peace in public to protest or celebrate or dance or learn. We cannot assemble in our churches or our schools or our shopping malls without fear of the angry guy wielding the almighty gun. We cannot calm down our police forces, who fear every traffic stop and street protest for the likelihood of violent escalation, who overreact and kill those who didn't deserve to die.

Meanwhile, we keep making this nation a safe place for angry guys to get guns, and to use those guns, even on the good guys like cops doing their jobs, to keep the cycle of anger and violence going.

...Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. - King

We are all part of that darkness, all because of a few who live for - who love - that hate.

Where are we going that we cannot see in this darkness?

The Trump Veepstakes: Or, Guess Who Has To Bring $500 Million to the Interview? (w/ Update)

Considering how strapped for cash the Trump campaign now is for the general election part of the cycle, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is asking for a "franchise fee" just to even get through the door for the one-on-one chat.

After all, that's how the sports leagues do it, and we know how bad Trump wants to be a sports owner (and how terrible he is at it).

Anyhoo, the buzz is that Trump has narrowed down his Vice Presidential selection to three main choices (there may be others, naturally), although the New York Times has added a fourth name I don't hear much about: New Jersey Governor and former Primary opponent Chris Christie, former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, and Senator Joni Ernst.

So here now are my evaluations for each pick, and why we're all still screwed:

Chris Christie: New Jersey, Governor

Pros: Has governing experience. Retains high profile within the Republican party and some popularity among the ranks. Has his fans among the Far Right media establishment. Can debate well. Can fund-raise well, having ties to Wall Street and corporations that would otherwise not do business with Trump.
Cons: Is still undergoing a criminal investigation into Bridgegate, which will make the campaign an easy target for accusations of corruption and incompetence (even from fellow Republicans). Actual performance for the state especially the economy has been... terrible. His public profile depicts him as having been turned from a big bully into Trump's lackey, with reports of him sent out to get cheeseburgers for his boss once. Is not that popular with the general electorate (being a jerkass to teachers can do that to a reputation), and not popular enough to flip New Jersey for the Electoral College. On a minor note, he does not diversify the ticket in any way, especially for geography: tradition is that the VP has to come from another region of the country to balance things, and New Jersey is too close to New York. Granted, that's an unwritten rule and has been broken once or twice before (Clinton/Gore the most recent), but it will stick out.
Odds: He's likely the fall-back option in case the others say no.

Newt Gingrich: Georgia, former US Speaker of the House.
Pros: Has the political experience with nearly two decades in the House and at least four years as Speaker. Is considered a party Establishment figure. Far Right media treats him as a "wonk" expert on issues, which counters Trump's lack at everything. Takes care of geography, coming from the Deep South and from a state (Georgia) that could become a toss-up if Trump keeps declining in the polls. Is a noted Clinton rival from the 1990s. Has been a vocal defender for Trump during the Primaries, so he's brown-nosed well for this (and unlike other party leaders, he actually wants this).
Cons: For all his experience and position within party ranks, is still viewed as a liability and a troublemaker. Does not play well with others. Was back-stabbed and left to rot by his own House allies when he faltered at his Speakership job in 1998. Last campaign attempt - in 2012 for the Presidency - flamed out. Best-known for having gone after Bill Clinton for extramarital affairs in the Oval Office... while committing the same sin on his second wife (with the woman that would become his third wife) at the same time. And what he did to his first wife was worse. Had been caught and fined for ethics violations while serving as Speaker. Essentially a bigger hypocrite than philandering Trump. While Gingrich may prevent Georgia from flipping, there is no guarantee he can secure the rest of the Southern toss-up states like Florida and North Carolina. Does nothing to repair relations with minorities or women voters. Oh, and he writes really bad alternate-history novels.
Odds: Newt is - hilariously - the glamour pick among the finalists simply because of his constant media profile. But Newt highlights all of the sins that Trump possesses - Ego bordering on Id, adulterous behavior, scandalous habits, insulting comments towards others - with none of the strengths needed to make the ticket acceptable to general election voters. Considering Trump doesn't care about all that, Newt may have a solid shot at getting this.

Mike Pence: Indiana, Governor
Pros: Has the governing experience. Well-known among Republicans as a Social Conservative who defends "religious freedom". Comes from a Midwest region that the media always portrays as "small town Americana" and takes care of the geographic balance. Simply doesn't have the baggage that Christie or Gingrich carry.
Cons: If he is known at the national level, it's for pushing an anti-gay law that pretty much forced businesses to discriminate. The fallout from that law hurt his popularity at home and led to serious push-back from a lot of angry business owners. While his "religious freedom" stance plays well with the Far Right, it will not win over general election voters. Overall record as governor hasn't been flashy, and economic performance of the state has been minimal under his watch. Brings little to the ticket except a lack of unethical behavior.
Odds: Pence is considered the "safe" pick, if by "safe" you mean "pandering to the extremist moralists who don't respect 60 percent of Christians who ARE pro-gay". Has none of the national presence that Newt and Christie have... and yet none of the sins. I just don't see him as fitting Trump's environment all that well.

Joni Ernst: Iowa, Senator
Pros: Freshwoman Senator from the heartland (Iowa). Wildly popular with the Republican base. Social Conservative. Comparatively youthful (mid-40s) who can project as a future Presidential candidate herself. Although elected to office, still presents herself as an "Outsider" that would fit Trump's Anti-Establishment message. Served in the military during the Second Gulf War, which counters Trump's background as a draft-dodger of Vietnam. Female candidate for the Veep spot to counter Hillary's "woman card".
Cons: Comes from the Steve King Wingnut faction of Iowa. Her fights against Planned Parenthood and social services will not win over women voters, which hurts Trump more with a voting bloc already despising him. Putting her on the ticket does not guarantee Iowa will flip to Red (it voted Blue for Obama in 2008 and 2012) nor will it flip many other Dem-leaning states in that region. Does not have enough elective experience to balance out Trump's entire lack of experience.
Odds: There's a solid possibility here that Trump will like her for the optics - war vet, motorcyclist, anti-government rhetoric, eager to shill the outrage - but there's more risk with her as a still-unknown player on the national stage. If I had to grade her chances, it's right behind Newt and just ahead of Pence.

So that's how I'd scale it:
1) Newt (50 percent)
2) Ernst (30 percent)
3) Pence (15 percent)
4) Christie (5 percent)

And if the Veep pick comes out with, say, Rick "No Ethics" Scott, let's just break out the schadenfreude and shout all "Let 'Em Crash."

And why are we all still screwed? Because Trump is still at the top of the ticket, and the Republicans are campaigning on a bad tax-cut, no-immigrants, no-social-aid, bomb-em-all platform despite how vaguely they try to word it.

We should get a decision soon. The convention's two weeks away.

(Update 7/10/16): We're still about a week away and the timer's ticking down... and for what we know Ernst and Pence have dropped hints neither of them will accept. Right now the buzz is that Trump is liking one of his foreign policy advisors, retired Gen. Michael Flynn. It's not that unusual a pick - military officers have run for the Presidency after all, and there's been a handful of campaigns that made the Veep pick a military guy - but Trump is going for someone who does not counter his own lack of elective experience. The biggest reason Flynn is on Trump's short list is the retired general's insistence that jihadist radical Islam is the biggest threat to the United States, fitting Trump's world-view. The scary thing about this is Flynn seems more confrontational about this as a scary neocon "always at war" mindset. There's also no evidence Flynn would be effective enough on the stump or versed in other domestic and economic issues to impress the general electorate.

It's Gonna Be a Trump Convention. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (w/ Update to the Update)

(Update 7/5/16: Hello again Crooks and Liars readers visiting via Mike's Blog Round-Up, and thanks again to Batocchio from Vagabond Scholar who always treats me well! Please check out all the other posts on my blog, this one article was part of a four-for-Fourth I did for the 4th of July!)

As cometh the month of July, so too does both of the major party conventions for the Presidential nominations (they're doing it a little earlier than usual because of the Rio Olympics starting at the end of the month).

The Republicans are going first starting July 18 through July 21, in the Great Lakes city of Cleveland OH. They should have scheduled prime-time speakers on each evening, with Tuesday night being the big delegate count to confirm the winner, Wednesday night the Vice-Presidential nominee's speech along with a major guest speaker, with Thursday night being the winning nominee giving the big speech to accept the party's nomination and send everybody home with a go-get-em mood.

That's about all we can say about it right now. I'm serious.

The GOP convention may be less than two weeks away, but there's still a ton of confusion and mayhem tied into it.

There's still buzz about the delegates trying to revolt against putting their votes in for Donald Trump (I really don't wanna link to that site, but when the arch-conservative websites are worried...), the guy who won the Primaries and yet is the most unliked, unwelcomed figure in the party's entire history to be getting the nom.

The number of corporate sponsors have dwindled to where the convention will not be as swank or well-funded a get-together as previous conventions have been.

The number of people willing to show up - and we're talking the party elites, the lobbyists, the deep-pocket funders - keeps dropping, as though nobody wants to be caught on film or camera being anywhere near the city of Cleveland. ...Well, okay, granted, that's normal for Cleveland but still this is supposed to be a major shindig where EVERYBODY who's supposed to be ANYBODY within the Republican ranks has to be seen.

Trump promised a full list of speakers some time last week, but then held off until this week, suggesting problems finalizing the invites. Rumor has it five of the main slots of speakers' appearances will get filled by Trump family, not exactly a good sign.

And then there's the party platform. This is a minor, almost routine part of the nominating convention where the elites get together and hammer out a set of issues and political stances that the Presidential candidate - and the the party as a whole - will campaign on for the General Election.

It's looking like the Republicans won't even make one. Per Ed Kilgore at New York:

For a political party known until quite recently for its virtually unanimous support for the dictates of conservative ideology, the GOP has got some shockingly large divisions on issues today, thanks to Donald Trump. His speech earlier this week on trade is an example: There is no way to identify a single inch of common ground between Trump's attacks on globalization as the source of all evil and the views of the Republican-leaning U.S. business community... Slightly less heated but still important are Trump-GOP differences over social security and Medicare... Immigration, of course, has created its own well-known intra-party fault lines. And there's trouble all over the national-security landscape...

...All these divisions make the drafting and adoption of a party platform — normally a chore so routine and boring you don't even hear about it beyond marginal arguments over the precise language of planks on abortion or guns — perilous...

How to avoid trouble? Well, two distinguished conservatives (one the president of Hillsdale College, the other a member of the actual platform committee) writing at the Washington Examiner have an idea: Make the platform so abstract and brief that none of the divisions even appear...

Essentially, make the platform so vague that people can see what they want to see in it - even if there's no there there - and come away satisfied.

The platform will likely claim to uphold the Declaration and the Constitution and mom and apple pie, throw in a call for less federal control and more states rights without anything more specific, and just leave it at that.

THAT still runs the risk of Trump seeing it as an opportunity to scrawl his own design on that blank slate - screeching all about his latest Twitter war -
which will come across to an audience eager for any details as the party's real platform.

The Republican party, basically, is setting themselves up to fail in whole new ways.

Granted, the RNC and the convention organizers are bound to force Trump to stick to some kind of scripted speech, something vetted and spellchecked to appeal to the masses without alienating the base, but on the biggest stage yet there's every likelihood Trump's gonna ad-lib in some way. There's still the possibility the scripted speech isn't going to be the sop to the general electorate the Republican Establishment hopes it will be, because those guys really are tone-deaf.

So, here comes the oncoming train wreck.

What could possibly go wrong...?

Added: Oh, and I totally forgot this part, but they still don't know who the Veep nominee is. Trump is "vetting" three suckers candidates right now with Chris Christie, Newt Gingrich, and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence at the top of the list. Although don't be surprised if Trump "goes rogue" at the last moment and selects someone not getting talked about. Thing is, given the poor quality of the party's Primary candidates, it should be a given that the Vice President selection is going to be a dead fish for the general electorate...

Revision to the Addendum with the Update: There is a final list of guest speakers available now, and it's actually quite respectable with known party figures like Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan. Thing is, I think those guys are OBLIGATED to show up. Some of the more interesting highlights are that four spots are taken by Trump's kids - usually just one or two speak - and there's not a lot of up-and-comer figures on the list (likely that's going to be Oklahoma governor Fallin, who's building up a intraparty fanbase).

What's interesting is the party's schedule: They are planning even prime-time around set themes, and the themes are BENGHAZI, Bill Clinton's sex scandals, and Jaywalking.

So, basically, they're taking the "Eastwood Rants At Empty Chair" spectacle and multiplying it by INFINITY.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG...?

Terror Attacks: Everybody Suffers

News is just coming out from Saudi Arabia today about coordinated bombings in three major cities: Qatif, Medina, and Jeddah.

Sunday witnessed two massive bombings in Baghdad, with a death toll currently at 213 victims.

Just last Friday the world was reeling from a violent attack in Bangladesh when gunmen seized a popular restaurant filled with Westerners and were executing hostages when the police had to storm in to save the survivors.

Istanbul was hit last Tuesday with a terror attack at their airport that left 44 dead so far.

This has been a bad week - up to now - for violence and death and sorrow.

There are two things tying all of these attacks together:

• Almost all of these strikes are linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (also known as ISIL or ISIS or Daesh, but I prefer to call them Angry Assholes). 
• Every one of these attacks happened in Muslim nations.

There are reasons for this.

The current war in Iraq/Syria over Daesh-held territories is going pretty poorly for them: they've lost major cities and are getting hammered on all sides. Daesh's survival is now keyed on spreading themselves to under unstable regions such as Libya and Africa, and also Yemen. They're basically down to relying on stirring fear and destruction in the civilian areas of nations they're fighting.

The other reason these attacks are happening in Muslim nations is because these violent jokers aren't really Muslim.

Like all violent jokers, the Daesh assholes simply employ whatever story they want to fulfill their self-serving needs. They may claim some pure Utopian ideal of an Islamic caliphate, but what they really want is to be gods-on-Earth able to dish out pain and sorrow to anyone they don't like. The worst form of bullies, with religion their excuse and other people's blood their currency.

So for all their anger and outrage aimed at Western nations that dominate the globe, these terrorists are just as angry and violent towards every Muslim they view as "unworthy" or "not of the TRUE Faith". They'll be just as happy shooting and bombing other Muslims who make the mistake of acting tolerant and open-minded of other faiths (which the Quran allows), because those Muslims deny these terrorists any claim of a unified cause for violence and hate.

There are a billion Muslims in the world. Not all of them are violent or want to be. We need to recognize that here in the United States, that the peaceful Muslims that are in the majority across the globe are at risk as much as we are.

Looking Back At Brexit, And Realizing a Few Things

Following up on the immediate reactions I had two weeks ago, and on a more reasoned response to Infidel's anger to that knee-jerking I did... a few more thoughts now that some time has passed and the consequences are bearing fruit.

First off, that these Brits really don't know how to pull off a successful independence movement. You'd think after all the times they've had it done to them the last 250 years, they've have picked up a few tricks by now...

Second, the way the political parties in the UK are mishandling their responses to the Leave results. There is now - two weeks on - very solid evidence that NOBODY thought the British voters would go this way. Because everybody responsible for the debacle is fleeing the sinking ship or else facing intraparty mutiny (via Brogan Morris at Salon.com):

...A jaw-dropping tale of how a powerful few convinced an angry electorate to shoot itself twice in each foot before asking whether or not that was a good idea, Brexit is the ultimate in political farce. And what’s astounding is that nobody seems to be taking credit for it, even though its satirical conceit is so complete. Just who is responsible for Brexit?

We can look to nicotine-fried hard-right fear goblin Nigel Farage as the man who instigated the EU referendum and got the anti-immigrant vote out with some glorious Nazi-inspired propaganda; to (soon to be ex-) Prime Minister David Cameron, who confidently agreed to the referendum to see off Farage’s Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (added: during the 2015 Parliamentary election) only because he thought he’d win; and to cuddly yet violent former Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who elected to lead the campaign for Britain to leave the EU only because he thought he’d lose, albeit come close enough to a win that he could challenge Cameron for the PM role...

Well, Cameron resigned immediately after the Leave win was verified, in one of the most humiliating defeats a Prime Minister ever inflicted upon himself. Boris was ostensibly the likely replacement within the Tory ranks, but his lukewarm waffling about following through on the Article 50 requirement to Leave opened himself up to a backstab move by his own allies and he dropped out of the race.

Back to Morris:

Then there’s Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the officially pro-EU Labour Party, who – a long-time Eurosceptic himself – deliberately sabotaged the Remain campaign; and apparent malfunctioning android Michael Gove, the Vote Leave campaigner who assured voters there was no need to listen to the experts who accurately predicted the economic crisis Britain now finds itself in...

Corbyn's already suffered a vote of No Confidence but refuses to step down because it was "non-binding", arguing instead that his opponents are not true Labour/progressive. The likelihood of Labour splitting means the largest opposition party against an equally divided Conservative party won't be there as a sane or viable alternative for voters should Parliament require an emergency election. (If anyone knows if the Liberal Dems are able to claw their way to viability after last year's debacle, let me know)

And Gove is the guy who backstabbed Boris... and even Gove is in the crosshairs now for his miscues and bad lies. The likeliest challenger vs. Gove - Theresa May - may be popular among the Tory voters but she's got some hateful issues of her own.

And this is just breaking right now as I write this: the main culprit behind the successful Leave vote - UKIP's leader Farage - is quitting his leadership of that minor factional party "in order to get his life back." But in truth he's fleeing like a coward: he's going to be held accountable - due to his extreme lying about Leaving being beneficial and use of racial fearmongering - for the coming storm of economic and social upheaval, and he'd rather be hiding in the shelter when that storm hits.

Meanwhile, race relations in the United Kingdom have gotten darker and messier (via Reuters and Huffington Post):

The number of hate crimes reported to British police online, including some assaults, has increased by more than 500 percent in the week after the country voted to leave the European Union, a senior police chief said on Thursday.

The number of hate crimes reported to police through its online portal — one of several ways incidents can be reported — was 331 since the vote, compared with a weekly average of 63, said Sara Thornton, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

The increase supports anecdotal evidence of abuse toward Muslims and Eastern Europeans following the referendum, in which concern about immigration drove many people to vote to leave the 28-country EU...

This is what happens when a movement supposedly for reform and independence on a Populist bent - the valid arguments to break free of an European Union that was corrupt and incapable of reform - gets hijacked by haters like Farage and Murdoch-owned papers like The Sun who turned Brexit into an American-esque fearmongering crusade against the Dreaded Other of immigrants and foreigners.

So... in looking back, all I'm still seeing is confusion and few good choices left for the British people.

You lot should have left the independence stuff to the experts...

Gonna Go FOUR For the Fourth, Baby!

It's the 4th of July, peoples! Yes, all eight of you regular readers of this blog - and some of you spambots from China that gained self-awareness in the last 27 nanoseconds - knows what that means!

New Brunswick tourism has never been busier.

I'm gonna blog like crazy today, people. I'm gonna try for four separate blog entries - this is the first - and I'm going to go down fighting because it's what George Washington would have wanted: More YouTube clips!

And if we had cell phones in 1776, we'd have had this:

from Elodie on Sparklife

That needs to be on a t-shirt, swear to God Elodie...

Anniversary: Battle of Gettysburg Day Three, and The Real Cause of the Civil War

I have, right here, the actual Honest To God reason for the Civil War:

DONUTS WITH RED WHITE AND BLUE SPRINKLES are SERIOUS BUSINESS, ROBERT DOWNEY JR!!!!!!!

...okay, back to the history lesson.

On this day at Gettysburg, General Lee decided on an all-out attack at the Union center. Believing the Northern forces would be too spread out and reinforcing the flanks he had attacked on Day Two, he wanted to send as massive a number of troops he could - three divisions - to break the Union line altogether.

Problem was distance. It was pretty much a half-mile march across open terrain, and there was no damn way any army would last long crossing that space.

Look at that: that's what 14,000 men had to cross facing 10,000 guns in a near-perfect defensive position...

Lee planned on a massive artillery barrage as a means of softening up the Union lines before he sent his divisions across. It didn't work: Confederate artillery overshot the Union defensive positions along Cemetery Ridge leaving most of those troops and their own cannons intact. And the South didn't have enough artillery to ensure they could take enough Union positions out.

And somewhere before 3:00 PM, Pickett's Charge - along with Trimble and Pettigrew's divisions - marched across that open field.

It ruined the Confederate army: over 60 percent of those divisions were killed, wounded or captured. Generals like Lewis Armistead were killed. Troops and officers Lee could not replace were gone forever.

Instead of a decisive Confederate victory - and one that could garner European recognition and support - it was a decisive Union victory. Combined with the loss that same day of the key city of Vicksburg - which meant the Mississippi River was under full Union control - it signaled that the Southern states would not, could not win their war to preserve their way of life (i.e., agrarian plutocracy driven by slave labor and King Cotton).

And yet they kept fighting for two more years of civil war... and a hundred years of Jim Crow segregation and lynching... and another fifty years fighting the civil rights laws of the 1960s and today... /headdesk

Florida Is Toxic This Summer

This is disgusting (via the Tampa Bay Times):

Instead of red, white and blue, the color of the day is green. Thick, putrid layers of toxic blue-green algae are lapping at the sand, forcing Martin County officials to close the beach as a health hazard.

"I've seen Jensen Beach closed for sharks," said Irene Gomes, whose family has run the Driftwood Motel since 1958. "I've never seen it closed for an algae bloom before."

As bad as it looks, the stench is far worse, driving away Gomes' motel customers, chasing off paddleboard and kayak renters and forcing residents to stay indoors.

"It smells like death on a cracker," said Gomes' friend Cyndi Lenz, a nurse. Morgues don't smell as bad, she added.

The toxic algae bloom afflicting Jensen stretches for miles along the Martin County shoreline on the state's Atlantic coast near Palm Beach. It's also coating the water in the Indian River Lagoon and the St. Lucie River. It's thick in Lake Okeechobee, where the toxicity is 200 times above what the World Health Organization says constitutes a human health hazard.

There are four counties under emergency status right now, with much of Southeast Florida coastal regions doomed to a toxic summer.

This economic and environmental disaster was cooked up in the stew pot that is Lake Okeechobee, where state officials have not required pollution limits to be met since those limits were created in 2001, according to Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society.

That's where the algae bloom started in May. Nobody knows what sparks an algae bloom, when a benign population of a few microscopic creatures suddenly explodes into millions, said Gil McRae, director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg. Heat has something to do with it, and a good supply of nutrient pollution.

Lake Okeechobee is more than just Florida's biggest freshwater lake. It's also a repository for nutrient-polluted runoff from suburbs and farms around its rim and a reservoir for drinking water for communities south of the lake. The nutrients come from fertilizer, manure and septic waste.

The lake is also a threat, because the earthen Herbert Hoover Dike — built around its rim after a 1928 hurricane pushed it over its natural banks and killed hundreds — is at risk for leaking and collapsing. To reduce the chance of a breach during hurricane season, the Army Corps of Engineers tries to keep lake water levels between 12.5 feet and 15.5 feet above sea level.

Thus when heavy rains hit, as happened in January, the Corps starts dumping water from the lake. It goes west via the Caloosahatchee River into the waters surrounding Fort Myers and Sanibel, and east via the St. Lucie River into the waters around Stuart.

Inevitably, algae blooms follow, with seagrass die-offs, fish kills and other economy-damaging consequences. The last time there was a bloom close to this size and intensity, back in 2005, the estuaries took months to recover, Parry said.

So guess who Rick "No Ethics" Scott blames for this?

Scott contends the culprit is the federal government because it has yet to fix and raise the dike.

Guess who's REALLY at fault?

In January, Scott signed into a law a sweeping rewrite of the state's water policy that included a loosening of the restrictions on dumping pollution into the lake. Now instead of going through a strict permitting process governing their discharges, sugar companies and other agriculture operations need only show that they're following a set of "best management practices."

That basically means "oh, we'll take the polluters word that they're not poisoning everyone with their bullshit (literal)."

We're talking about a governor in Scott - and Republican-controlled legislature in Tallahassee - that's refusing to abide by the voters who approved Amendment One in 2014, an attempt to set up a fund that would buy up and maintain wetlands such as the Lake Okeechobee area in order to preserve the environment and our precious water supply. Instead he's letting the Big Sugar businesses and other agribusiness corporations in the area pollute to their hearts' content, with this as the result. The release of lake water into the surrounding rivers and canals wouldn't be a problem if the water was pollution-free in the first place.

And if Scott wants something done about the Army Corps of Engineers to fix the levees, he'd better start yelling at a Republican-controlled Congress about increasing funding for projects like these. Oh, right. They won't.

Florida is toxic this summer because our governor and his cronies are toxic.

For the love of GOD, fellow Floridians. VOTE. THEM. OUT.

Anniversary: Battle of Gettysburg at Little Round Top

Fighting would continue for the remainder of the day, but Little Round Top held. The bayonet charge saved the Union flank, and in its own way the Union itself.

Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th Maine received the Medal of Honor.

Anniversary: Battle of Gettysburg

First three days of July in 1863, our nation witnessed one of history's most important, epic battles of all time.

...I think I got the wrong channel, hold on...

Oh, here we go.

That was General Buford, the first highest-ranking officer on the Union side to get to Gettysburg and realize how important the high ground was going to be there. He did what he could to prevent the Confederate forces to get that high ground first, and thanks to the arrival of General Reynolds' division they were able to deny the Confederates the hills on the eastern side of the battlefield.

On the Confederate side, General Longstreet realized exactly how bad the terrain was and argued against General Lee fighting for it, suggesting instead a flanking move towards DC to force General Meade to come off those hills. But Lee still wasn't sure where the entirety of the Union army was - his cavalry scouts under Jeb Stuart failed to report back, sowing confusion - and he wanted to fight, needing a victory on Union soil to convince Europe to recognize the Confederacy at last or else force the North to parley for a truce.

For the Union army, they were battered on that First day but held the high ground, giving them the advantage for the Second day...

Gonna Be Lonely in Cleveland (w/ Update)

Here's a "What If" scenario: What if they threw a Republican party and nobody came? (via the Washington Monthly and Politico)

With the convention less than a month away, POLITICO contacted more than 50 prominent governors, senators and House members to gauge their interest in speaking. Only a few said they were open to it, and everyone else said they weren’t planning on it, didn’t want to or weren’t going to Cleveland at all — or simply didn’t respond.

As Alex Isenstadt at Politico notes, many of the party leaders and best-known figures are just flat-out avoiding the convention... which is unheard of and an open rebuke towards party unity. Martin Longman at Washington Monthly makes the argument that these party conventions - with their prime-time broadcast slots and intense media coverage - are supposed to be no-brainer invites for the up-and-coming hotshots and attention hogs:

...So, I took a look at the list of speakers at the 2012 Republican National Convention, and guess what I found?

Pretty much anyone who was anyone had a speaking slot there, from Speaker John Boehner, to House members like Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Marsha Blackburn, to up-and-comers like Mia Love, to senators across the ideological spectrum, to pretty much every major Republican governor in the country.

Romney made sure that Latino governors Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada were given primetime slots. Govs. Scott Walker, Chris Christie, Mary Fallin, Bob McDonnell, and John Kasich all made appearances, most of them prominent.

And now none of them can find the time to even pop in for a brief handshake rally off-camera for the party faithful - basically the Trumpshirt Far Right voters - during an afternoon panel at one of the nearby hotels.

These conventions are where your rising stars are supposed to show off their oratory and national appeal. Where your party elders come out for one more rousing speech to excite the base and make the pundits go "wow". For the ones thinking ahead to four years for their turn as the Presidential nominee, you gotta make a speech on prime-time after 8 PM EDT.

Longman counted out a list of who spoke at the 2012 GOP convention. Think back to 2008: you had the people from the primary campaign - as a "Participation" prize - who lost to the eventual nominee McCain; you had party leaders like Boehner (at the time the Minority Leader in the House); you had up-and-comers like Mary Fallin (current governor of Oklahoma). I can't recall anybody turning down an appearance in 2008, despite the clear signs that the voters were going to reject the Republicans after the debacle of the Bush the Lesser years. It wasn't because they wanted to: they needed to show.

I can't imagine anybody turning down an appearance for the Democratic convention THIS year. They don't have any confirmed list of speakers yet, but Hillary is not the toxic dump that Trump is. I'm willing to bet Bernie Sanders is going to insist on a spot to speak in prime-time. I'm willing to bet Hillary is going to want the party's two biggest orators - her own husband Bill Clinton and the current President Obama - providing fireworks leading up to her clinching nomination.

And when each of them were party up-and-comers, both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama eagerly took their moment to shine before national audiences. Bill even f-cked it up in 1988 as the "rising star" speaker: he went an hour too long and bored everyone into booing him. It was such a blow to his national aspirations that he did the night show circuit to apologize. By 1992 he got better. Obama spoke in 2004 as a then-state Senator running for the US Senate and drew rave reviews.

There's bound to be a sizable number of little-known Democratic Congresspersons or state-level officials eager to show off on the national stage. None of them are going to be fleeing from Hillary in terror the way the Republicans are avoiding Trump.

And Trump is toxic: the polling right now has him losing around double digits, and has him without argument the least-liked candidate running for the President of all time. Hillary currently has 88 percent of the Democratic ranks supporting her: it's not what Obama had in 2012 at 92 percent, but it's close. Trump currently has 79 percent of the Republicans backing him: by comparison Romney had 93 percent support in 2012 and still lost a relatively close race. Trump can't afford to be that low: the non-party voters tend to split even between candidates (although this year...) so there's no guarantee Trump can win enough of them over. Hillary's 88 percent is more due to Bernie supporters still holding a grudge against her: once the convention's done she's bound to get into the 90s like Obama.

Given how Trump has continued to campaign with the nomination locked up - failing to "pivot" to the moderate center, brash and reckless and idiotic public appearances, with little regard to ground-game dedication - there's no sign that Trump is going to get better at this. There's every sign Trump is going to be radioactive to the general electorate.

Nobody wants to be around Trump when he's this radioactive.

I'm actually feeling some sympathy for the party delegates coming in from the states to cast their nominating votes. They're the only ones who CAN'T beg off avoiding this impending mess. And even then someone's suing to get out of it.

So... Cleveland. It's looking like more people are gonna turn out for a Browns game than for the Republican convention.

The Factory of Sadness won't have nothing on the Trump Nobody-Else-Show.

Update: well, I spoke too soon. Trump was able to line up speakers for his convention after all.

Mike Tyson...

and coach/chair-tosser Bobby Knight...

...

Not exactly party elders or up-and-comers are they?

Revision to the Update: It turns out Mike Tyson has not been offered nor accepted a speaking invite. So on that level, he's sane. Whew.

Addendum to the Revision to the Update (7/5): Word now that Scott "Couldn't Even Make It Out of Round One" Walker will be one of the key speakers. This is actually a good pickup for the convention as Walker is one of the Establishment-type governors that can show the party is "supporting" the show. He's not exactly known as a great orator nor a big draw for the voting base, of course, but any port in a storm will do...

New Book - Surviving the Age of Obstruction: Notes On the Obama Years

Well, you were warned:

I decided earlier this year to get some of my blogging articles here at Notice a Trend and put them into book format.

I had several reasons.

First, I was inspired by Molly Ivins. She had published many a newspaper and magazine column into well-received books one of which - Nothin' But Good Times Ahead - my Aunt Dot gifted me for Christmas back in the day.

It's a doable thing, one that I think more bloggers ought to look into. Not everybody reads off the Internet: there are people we could reach with our writings in book form that would never see our work online.

Second, I work at a library and I handle collection development in the Political Science and History shelves. And I am getting sick and tired of seeing a ton of anti-Obama drivel sitting on those shelves. It's like for every pro-Obama or progressive-leaning book, there's ten anti-Obama Far Right nonsense crowding out the space. So here's my contribution to balancing those shelves (if any libraries routinely order books via Ingram, one hopes).

The book contains selected essays from this blog focusing on the ongoing Republican obstructionism, the failures of Republican ideology, the rise of Barack Obama as a focus of Far Right ire, and the successes Obama achieved in spite of the obstruction.

I've included a handful of new essays that are not published on this blog, so there's that enticement.

Think of this as my Eagles Greatest Hits Volume One. Except for the lack of platinum awards or guitar riffs. I think my lyrics to "Dammit Republicans Stop Being Crazy" far outshines "Already Gone"... (granted, "One of These Nights" is too good IMHO)

If you do purchase a copy - THANK YOU - if you can do me a favor and leave a review on the site purchased from. If you like the book, please leave a good review. If you don't like the book... go ahead and be honest about it. I trust your judgment. If you notice any spelling or grammar errors... /shakes head ...just let it slide... Danke.

Link to the publisher bookstore
Link to Amazon.com page
Link to Barnes & Noble page

That Moment When You Realize An Argument Is Going the Wrong Way

I woke up this morning to find that Infidel753 has been so upset by the reaction he's seeing online about both the Pulse shooting and the Brexit vote that he's walking away from blogging (he's also coping with real-world physical pain and surgery, so there's that) at least for now.

I've got this sinking feeling in my gut that I'm one of the ones who pushed him off the ledge, so to speak.

By his reaction - his complaint of people berating the British voters for speaking their mind - I think he's pointing at the bit in my "You Tossers" rant a few days ago where I blame the voters for being short-sighted and ill-informed. Well, here's what he wrote:

No one seemed to have any knowledge or awareness of the actual issues -- restoration of national sovereignty and independence (however sacred if it were a Third World country involved), the desire to return power from an unelected oligarchy to an elected government, the economic devastation wrought by the euro currency and the EU's enforcement of (very Republican-like) austerity policies on already-weak south European economies -- or the implications of the fact that polls show support for the EU plummeting in all its member states, not just in the UK.  That's hundreds of millions of people who have been living under the damn thing for decades.  Which is more likely -- that they are totally misreading their situation, or that you are totally misreading their situation?...

Bloggers who should know better rushed to ridicule the democratic decision of the British people (soon likely to be replicated in any EU member state where the public gets a chance to vote on its own future), based apparently on some combination of received opinion from the popular media, the fact that Donald Trump approved of the decision (remember the old adage about a stopped clock being right twice a day), and, bizarrely, a perceived similarity between Trump and Boris Johnson, based on a slight physical resemblance and a tendency toward iconoclasm.  I always knew Americans tend to be ignorant about the outside world, but this is astonishing.  Is it really impossible to look at other countries' politics except by ridiculous, shallow analogies to something American?

Even stupider have been the efforts to legitimize this reaction by zeroing in on one individual who was quoted as saying he didn't think his vote would count (every population includes a few idiots), Google searches about what exactly leaving the EU will involve, and suchlike, in an effort to depict the British people as naïve fools who didn't know what they were doing.  Trust me, they knew.  This contemptuous disdain for the will of the people when they vote against the rule of a self-appointed oligarchy is exactly the kind of thing I'd expect from the authoritarians who support, well, Trump -- or worse...

Infidel has a valid point in that the Europeans have a better sense of what's going on with their situation that we (or I) do over here on this side of the pond. That the Leave voters had sensible reasons for cutting ties with a bureaucratic system and economic coalition that had little transparency, accountability, or understanding of how their ongoing Austerity measures were cutting into people's lives.

And I don't want this argument to get any worse or cause further divide. If only I can make one point of my own here.

My biggest concern was and still is that the Leave voters honestly didn't realize that the chaos they've voted for is going to be just as traumatic as staying under an EU system that wasn't working as intended. And that it is going to be chaos now not only in the United Kingdom but across all of Europe, which is going to affect everything else in this global economy. And chaos isn't always a good thing.

I want to argue in favor of greater push for reforms, not outright rejection. That's what they should have voted for (and I noted Cameron was an idiot for not framing the referendum to include a "stay but reform" option).

And if I came across as angry and petulant or uncaring of the British voters' right to express themselves, for that I apologize. (It didn't help that the ones I saw pushing for Leave the most - Farage and the UKIP - were shilling a racist anti-immigrant argument as well as lies about what benefits leaving would bring)

I DO respect the right and power of people to vote. I want people to show up to vote (and dammit, just don't vote Republican... sorry, I had to... you know...) because as every election has proven, every election and every vote matters. I just get frustrated - A LOT, this is what I get for living in Florida - when people seem to vote against something for what I see are the wrong reasons.

I know Infidel is going to be busy with real-world stuff right about now, and it sounds like he should, especially if he's prepping for major surgery. I wish him well and that he comes out of that healthy and improved. I don't want him leaving in a foul mood. I respect his opinion and his values, and if I crossed a line with him, that's on me and I got to do better than be flippant and angry all the time.

...Just one last thing. I'm with the Scottish voters on this point (warning NSFW): Trump's still an idiot.

Looks Like I Picked The Wrong Week To Stop Sniffing Brexit

So there I was yesterday, promising I was going to cut back on social media and blogging. I am just honestly doing too much of it right now.

So both the Old Gods and the New decided to screw up my blogger vacation with arguably the biggest global crisis since the 2007-08 economic meltdown.

Thursday, the United Kingdom - England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and various other commonwealth areas tied into it - held a "nonbinding referendum" on an up or down vote: to Leave the European Union - a major economic and trade coalition of European nations - or Remain.

It was also called #Brexit, a melding of "Britain" and "Exit" that worked well as a Twitter hashtag.

It was a serious argument for the UK for decades over joining the Union at all: the debates between joining or standing alone were pretty fierce if I recall my history, up until they actually joined (with restrictions, not full membership) in order to reap certain economic benefits such as making the entire Euro market the largest trading bloc and engine of finance/industry on the planet. Once they were in, the arguments subsided for the most part... except for flaring up last year because of homeland fears over immigration and businesses fleeing to other nations (gee, sounds familiar...)

It was supposed to be a throwaway moment: it was something Prime Minister Cameron promised to do last year during the Parliamentary elections as a way to keep voters from bolting to the anti-EU, anti-immigrant UKIP (aka British Trumpshirts) during a potentially tight run. The expectations - and the polling - kept pointing to a tough but clean win to Remain with the EU, because honestly most of the elites in politics and the media believed the voters wouldn't be stupid enough to commit economic suicide.

And then they counted the votes.

I swear to the Gods - the Old and the New - that the very second the incoming ballots showed Leave was going to eke out a win, the entire global economy melted down faster than a cup of Dipping Dots at an August afternoon preseason football game at Raymond James stadium.

The British Pound dropped to a 30-year low compared to the US dollar. In about an hour it dropped faster than a blue whale without a parachute.

To say that the global markets went into panic mode AT THAT MOMENT and remained so well into today would be an understatement.

And so here I was, sitting at home watching all of this on an Internet I swore I wasn't going to pay attention to, and this was pretty much the one thought bouncing through my head:

YOU TOSSERS! YOU HAD ONE JOB!

You Brits could have retained some stability in all three major areas of public concern: your economy, your culture, your government. All three are now burning in the dumpster fire.

The economic consequences are being felt now... with every likelihood of things getting worse once the mechanics of leaving the EU kick in.

The outrage among younger voters - who overwhelmingly backed Remain - is going to stick with that electorate for a very long time.

Prime Minister David Cameron went in one hour from being one of the most powerful men on the planet - Prime Minister ranks somewhere below President of the United States and slightly above the Actor Currently Playing The Doctor - to resigning from office in utter humiliation. Few Prime Ministers fell so low so fast. The resulting battle among Conservatives for the new leadership spot will likely spill over into a broken government, forcing a new round of elections sooner than the required five-year cycle.

Not to mention the likelihood that the very existence of the United Kingdom - anchored by the British Parliament - won't survive the year. Scotland AND Northern Ireland - both of which rely on the EU economy more than England - are calling for referendums of their own to force independence from Great Britain. The daily reality of everything from Queen Elizabeth's reign - and that has serious repercussions at home and abroad - all the way down to passports and travel rules across Europe are taking a huge hit here.

It's as though - and there's evidence pointing to it - the voters for Leave didn't realize what the hell they were voting for until AFTER THEY FOOKIN VOTED.

Buyer's remorse is reportedly now rampant across the countryside. Cliches are getting thrown out there like there's no tomorrow. Sorry, had to.

This is a cascade of failure across time and space. If the Brits weren't working on a functional TARDIS before all this, they are fookin building one NOW.

This was a spectacular failure of leadership within British government itself. Cameron failed to consider the actual likelihood of a bad result, and didn't create alternatives on the ballot to avoid a catastrophic either-or Sadistic Choice. It didn't help that factions within the Conservative ranks itself sowed chaos. Boris Johnson in particular - as close a clone of Trump we'll ever get: a glory-seeking Upper Class Twit - had pushed publicly for #Brexit as a way to take out Cameron and claim No. 10 Downing for himself, but apparently JUST NOW figured out how costly the bill is going to be. If he gets The Iron Throne to be Prime Minister, it's going to be ruling over a land of ash and White Walkers. All hail Boris, First of His Name... King of Nothing...

The main opposition party - Labour - didn't do any better. Ostensibly campaigning to Remain, they did a very piss-poor job of it. Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is facing a No-Confidence vote: the party itself may lose all of Scotland as a political ally if they split off. Gordon Brown for some godforsaken reason is starting to look good.

And the one who really won this referendum is a son-of-a-bitch. The UKIP leader - Nigel Farage - was one of Leave's biggest proponents: Farage pushed a narrative about the threat of immigrants and lost jobs, as well as making promises that the UK would recover money from the EU that could go back towards paying off their NHS (Health care). And yet not a day passed after his victory that Farage admitted on television that his claim about the NHS was "a mistake." No, it wasn't a mistake, you racist SOB: You lied.

This was a monstrous failure of communication by the media outlets tasked with keeping the electorate educated and informed. It does not surprise me one bit that one of the bigger proponents for Leave was one of Rupert Murdoch's papers The Sun. Decades of pushing populist narratives and bad reporting onto the British population - much like what he's been pushing here in the U.S. with Fox Not-News - has created an electorate that's poorly informed and motivated by flawed opinions masquerading as news.

This was a horrifying failure of civic responsibility by the voters themselves. Too much self-indulgence, too short-sighted and short-term, and too disinterested to take the entire thing serious enough. And now their economy is tanking so fast their personal wealth - any retirement funds, any investment portfolios, the very cash in their pockets - could be gone by Monday.

This is a massive warning sign to the United States electorate. This is it, folks: this is what Nativist Populism looks like. This is what anti-immigrant, anti-Establishment fear-mongering creates. A large enough number of voters bought into the lies and scams of the likes of Farage - who exaggerated fears about immigrants and lied about the benefits of Leaving - into voting against their own self-interest and needs. We've seen it too many times here in the U.S. already, where a solid bloc of voters routinely vote against social aid or improvements to their cities and counties and states all because they buy the Populist snake-oil. And now the Brits are doing it to themselves. And it's frankly getting too scary to see how this is going to be a problem for us here in the U S of A.

Think we critics of Donald Trump are joking about how bad it's going to be for the United States - and the world - if Trump wins? Just look at the UK right now, in the last 24 hours: that will be the US after Election Day this November if Trump gets a majority of the Electoral College. And it will get worse every other day following that.

Speaking of the devil, Trump for some Ungodly reason was in Scotland as the Brexit vote was taking place. He made some insane brain-fart tweets about the referendum, and then today made a public speech about Brexit... and how it was going to be great for that golf course of his that he was there to promote.

There is now a Gallifrey-sized dent in my desk where my head slammed into it.

I remember the terror I felt for my own nation's near-miss with economic meltdown: all the way back during that Long October of 2013. At one point I realized that one of the biggest reasons our Republican overlords in Congress were hell-bent on forcing an economic crisis was because they had no real idea what it would really look like. I mean, they never really believed the underlying causes of the 2007-08 Economic Collapse was due to massive deregulation and greedy banks: the Far Right kept believing it was bad government, high taxes, and Fannie Mae. So in their minds, they could make their own government default on its own and there wouldn't be any major consequences (or at the least blame Obama and the evil hippie libruls).

The British Far Right and their entire Conservative Tory wing apparently viewed their relations to the EU in the same light of ill-informed ignorance. They acted as though cutting ties to every other major economic power on their own continent would be mutual, beneficial, and safe. They are honestly getting sideswiped right now by the economic meltdown they've just caused and are continuing to generate. Here's more evidence: the British economy just slid from fifth to sixth in the world economic leader board behind FRANCE. You think we Yanks joke too much about France? The Brits are now personally humiliated they are doing worse than France. And there's nowhere to go but down...

Other than outright negating the entire referendum and pledging to stay within the EU - which is doable, but would likely cost them their earlier privileges with the EU as a penalty, and would likely break the Tories as a ruling party for the next decade (if not longer, if the youth voters remember this shitshow) - they are now on a terrifying train ride into economic and political isolation.

If not utter ruin.

I never knew the 1960s. I was literally born in its wake - 1970 - and so can only remember it as history.

I am wondering if 1968 was just this maddening, just this chaotic across the board. All this uncertainty and horror and rage and angst and dread.

The dread I felt about the likelihood of Romney beating Obama back in 2012 was nothing like this.

For the first time in my life, I fear the future.

What the hell is wrong with us?

Vacation From Social Media

I'm feeling a little burned out from the information overload with blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, Phishing, Dishing, Listing, and other forms of xerography.

...made you look up the word xerography, didn't I?

I'll still blog a thing or two: there is bound to be some outrage I have to rant against, or a personal announcement about my pending collected works book.

But I gotta cut back. I'm overdoing the cray-cray myself, and I gotta take stock of things in the Real World.

I've also committed to doing Camp NaNo this July... so yeah, gotta focus on things.

Look, if something comes up, or if Michael Taggart comes back asking to talk about his dad, get my attention right f-cking quick by posting a comment here and type everything in CAPS LOCK under an Anonymous account. That should do it.

Update  6/24: DAMMIT ENGLAND YOU HAD ONE JOB.

Sigh. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

There's Something Happening Here

...What it is involves the Democratic Party stepping up in a public way to call for votes on gun safety.

Earlier this week, the Senate Democrats forced a filibuster to get the Republicans in that side of Congress to hold floor votes on bills to restrict gun sales at least to those who were on DHS "watch lists". Granted, the votes all failed as the Republicans - and a handful of Democrats in pro-NRA states - denied any semblance of sanity over publicly-supported gun laws. And we're not talking about things like universal background checks getting a vote, even though that has an 86 percent approval from a majority of Americans (including enough gun owners to make a dent in the NRA arguments).

Tonight, when the Republican-controlled House tried to finish up their session before the extra-long summer recess - having failed to consider a ton of much-needed action on, well, EVERYTHING - the Democrats stood up and challenged the Republicans to at least hold up-or-down votes on two gun regulation bills in their wing of Congress.

Speaker Paul Ryan and the rest of his buddies pretty much closed up the session and walked away.

The Democratic Congresspersons stayed.

Led by John Lewis, one of the civil rights giants of our era, over 100 make that 189 Democrats are staging a sit-in to call attention to the need to vote on the matter. It doesn't matter if they'll lose - and they would lose the vote as the Republicans are firmly pro-gun-worship - what the Dems want is an official record of it.

What the Democrats are doing are making a public display of who is on which side of the gun debate. And that the Democrats are the ones who are on the side of a majority of Americans who want sensible gun control laws.

Of course, the Republicans are dismissing the sit-in. They dare not engage otherwise, lest they point up how their Congress is unresponsive to the very American people they're supposed to serve.

Rather than vote, Ryan would rather call the sit-in a "publicity stunt" as though unworthy of our attention. But Cole over at Balloon Juice is right: it IS exactly a publicity stunt because THAT'S HOW YOU DRAW ATTENTION TO THE ISSUES THAT NEED SOLUTIONS.

Ryan ordered the cameras turned off for the House floor to avoid the bad optics that could get loose on cable channels - CSPAN! - but he failed to take away smartphones that the Democratic Congresspersons are using to share snaps and video feed to social media sites. (I'm not sure how to embed into the blog at the moment, but the Internet should provide)

Follow the Twitter hashtag #NoBillNoBreak

This is something that's been long overdue: pushing back against the political indifference of the Republicans when it comes to gun violence and public safety.

This is something happening in Congress. At long fucking last.