the Elegaic Symmetry of the Rhetorical Chessboard
Mitchell
Hell or High Water (2016)
Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham. Written by Taylor Sheridan. Directed by David Mackenzie. Continue reading ‘Hell or High Water (2016)’
Not necessarily best. Just athletes you really love, for whatever reason. Here’s mine off the top of my head: Continue reading ‘Top 5 Favorite Athletes of All Time’
My Trump regime threads are mostly repositories for articles, tweets, etc., which I’ve tried to organize by categories (e.g., Russia scandal, corruption, etc.). I’m starting this thread to post responses I have for certain events, articles, etc. I could start separate threads, but I’ve been overwhelming the site with political posts, and I don’t want to do that. I’m hoping that I can post most of my thoughts and comments in this one thread, and that should not flood the site with politics.
For my first post, I want to comment on this remark: Continue reading ‘Journal in the Trump Era’
Confession: I really don’t know if my suggestion is actually novel or radical. Someone may have suggested. Then again, I don’t really know if the idea has any merit at all, so maybe no knowledgeable person actually suggested this. With that said, I want to throw out an idea first came to mind while reading Kissinger’s Diplomacy, specifically the section about Gorbachev. I don’t remember specifics now, but I’ll explain my general impressions and the way that relates to the idea I’m throwing out for consideration. Continue reading ‘A Novel and Radical Way to Deal with the Russian Threat’
As you get older, doesn’t it feel like time seems to speed up–i.e., time seems to go by faster? If this is true, why is that? I’ve had some theories about this, but I wanted to jot some of recent observations I’ve had. While the rate at which time passes seems to have been speeding up for me, right now, especially following U.S. politics, the passage of time seems to have slowed down considerably. Why is that? Continue reading ‘Thoughts on the Passage of Time’
Mitchell brought up the song “Heart” by Marty Balin. It’s the type of song that I definitely recognize, but I never really hear or think about much. It’s the type of song that probably doesn’t appear on 80’s compilations or played all that much on 80’s radio stations. Those songs were pretty familiar to me when they were new, but now they’re largely pushed back in the recesses of my mind. I’m interested in finding more songs like this. Here’s another example: Continue reading ‘Hidden Hits from the 80s’
I came across this Atlantic piece about Christopher Nolan’s recent criticisms of Netflix. Nolan believe that the Netflix’s policies are hurting, even killing, the movie theater business. Specifically, he mentions the policy of allowing internet access to films on the same day Netflix releases those films in the theater. Why not release the films in the theaters for a short period of time, and then stream them online? he asks. After all, Amazon does this, and they have had success. This seems like a reasonable point, and it got me to think, not only about ways online streaming services can actually boost the viability of movie theaters, but also of the new cinematic forms that could result if these two media formed the right, symbiotic relationship. Here are some ideas off the top of my head: Continue reading ‘How Streaming Video and Traditional Movies Can Lead to New Art Forms’
The New York Times published excerpts from an interview they had with Trump yesterday. I’m not sure if you guys read the New York Times, or if you have read this interview, but if you haven’t, I think this interview is worth reading. (Actually, Trump has given a series of these interviews, and they’re all worth reading.) I say that for a couple of reasons: 1) they give a lot of insight into Trump, especially how he thinks; 2) if you’re concerned about liberal bias, I think bias is less of a factor in interviews, because Trump’s words, which he controls, is the substance of these interviews. (To be fair, the times has printed excerpts, so bias can play a factor there, and it’s something to keep in mind. Still, readers get a largely unfiltered view of Trump in these interviews.)
In this post, I want to jot down some of my thoughts and reactions. (For what it’s worth, I’d recommend reading the interview before you read my comments or anyone else’s.) Continue reading ‘New York Times’s Interview of Donald Trump (7/19/2017)’
The MMQB.com has a fun game where twelve people draft players from the entire history of football. I didn’t read the whole thing yet, but I just had to start this because of Dan Fouts’s (who is one of the “GMs”) first round choice–which, I thought was surprising and hilarious. I’ll post more after I read it.
More news today about meeting between Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort and Natalia Veselnitskaya, Russian lawyer (who has ties to the Kremlin). I had two shout posts on this. The first here and the second one here
Today, the New York Times has a story regarding more specifics about the content of the Donald Trump Jr.’s emails. Here’s an excerpt (emphasis added):
The June 3, 2016, email sent to Donald Trump Jr. could hardly have been more explicit: One of his father’s former Russian business partners had been contacted by a senior Russian government official and was offering to provide the Trump campaign with dirt on Hillary Clinton.
The documents “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father,” read the email, written by a trusted intermediary, who added, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
If the future president’s eldest son was surprised or disturbed by the provenance of the promised material — or the notion that it was part of a continuing effort by the Russian government to aid his father’s campaign — he gave no indication.
He replied within minutes: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
As others have mentioned, these emails seem damning. Whether Goldstone and Veselnitskaya are connected to the Russian government or not, Trump Jr.–and Manafort and Kushner–knew the people they were meeting claimed to have ties to the Russian government. That’s damning by itself.
Now, Trump Jr. also released the entire emails. (I understand the New York Times was planning to do this, but they sought Trump Jr. for comment. Trump Jr.’s team asked for more time, and went ahead and published the emails.)
Why would he do that? I have some theories explaining why Trump Jr. talked so openly about this, including publishing the emails. Continue reading ‘Meeting Between Donald Trump Jr., Kushner, Manafort and Russian Lawyer, Natalia Velnitskaya’
Trump tweeted twice today about discussion a joint cyber security unit with Putin (an idea that seems crazy to me), and several hours later tweeted again about it.
The first Here’s the first tweet (and I included part of the subsequent tweet because it completed the sentence):
Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded…..and safe.
Here’s the second tweet later on in the evening:
The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn’t mean I think it can happen. It can’t-but a ceasefire can,& did!
It should be noted that in between the two tweets there were negative reactions to the first tweet. For example, Republican Senator Ben Sasse: Continue reading ‘Am I Off Base to Question the President’s Mental Well Being?’
This seems like the one of the main arguments the Trump administration will make to justify Trump’s conciliatory stance towards Russia–e.g., removing sanctions, returning Russian compounds on U.S. soil (not to mention Trump’s fawning approach to Putin, avoiding saying anything bad about him). So far, based on what I’ve read, this position seems rather dubious. U.S.-Russian Cooperation on ISIS: Do We Want Our Face Ripped Off Again? is from The Cipher Brief written by John Sipher, Director of Client Services at CrossLead, Inc. (He retired in 2014 after a 28-year career in the Central Intelligence Agency’s National Clandestine Service.), makes the common arguments I’ve read against this notion: Continue reading ‘Should the U.S. Make a Deal with Russia to Fight ISIS?’
Civil: Self-Sustaining Journalism is a Medium piece about a new way of doing and sustaining journalism. Honestly, I’m fuzzy on the way the concept will work, particularly the “cryptoeconomic” aspects. If anyone has a clearer idea about what they’re getting at, let me know.
This MMQB.com discussion about Colin Kaepernick raised an interesting issue–namely, the different preferences that offensive coordinators (OC) and defensive coordinators (DC) have with regard to QBs. Benoit says he asked about a dozen well-known DCs, who they preferred to face: Peyton Manning or Colin Kaepernick (and I assume this was when both were doing well). He said a vast majority chose Manning, which seems shocking. On the other hand, my guess is that if you ask OCs which QB they’d want for their offense, the vast majority would choose Manning. What’s going on here? What does this say about OCs and DCs? I’ll share my thoughts on this in this post. Continue reading ‘Offensive Coordinators Vs. Defensive Coordinators–QB Preferences’
Andrew Brandt, from theMMQB site argues that tanking play a vital for a winning NFL franchise. Do you agree?
Here’s a summary of Brandt’s views: Continue reading ‘Is “Tanking” the Way to Build a Winning NFL Franchise?’
That’s sort of the question, Senator Lankford asked a three person panel in a Senate Intelligence hearing a few months ago. Actually, he asked why the Russians interfered to such a large degree, in the present moment, in 2016. Here’s the video:
Clint Watts attempts to answer the question, but he actually seems to answer a different question–namely, why was the Russian interference so successful. (His answer is worth listening to.) Senator Lankford asks his question again. Here’s a breakdown of Watts’s answer (starting at the 2:30 mark; but it’s worth listening to his entire message), which I think is important: Continue reading ‘If Russia Has Been Trying to Interfere in Our Elections Before, What Makes 2016 So Different?’
I’m guessing this might receive a lot of attention, so I’m creating a separate thread for this (which I will like to this tread). To start, here’s Comey’s opening statement, annotated by The Atlantic Monthly. Next, this National Review article by Dan McLauhglin basically describes my reaction to Comey’s opening statement. The last paragraph does a fairly decent job of summing up the statement:
The narrative the Democrats desperately want is that Trump is under FBI investigation for criminal activity that invalidates the 2016 election, and has committed impeachable offenses. The facts they actually have are a lot less sexy: a president who wouldn’t respect the FBI’s independence and couldn’t understand why the FBI Director couldn’t publicly exonerate him when he wasn’t under investigation. But those facts are ugly enough in what they say about Trump’s ability to run a government that inspires confidence in the impartial administration of justice.
Actually, that first sentence does not describe my position. Continue reading ‘James Comey’s Testimony to Congress’
Concept: Form a group of journalists, a mix of conservatives and liberals, to serve on a panel that would review news stories and even political issues to identify areas of consensus on the key facts as well as identifying arguments or positions that are either legitimate or not. Above their politics, the members would be committed to Enlightenment principles and standards of journalism–and they would use these to analyzing the news and political events.
As an example, this panel could look at the ties between Russia and Trump campaign. They could identify the key facts, details about the case that are speculative, and they could analyze the various arguments and positions made by the Trump administration as well as those who oppose Trump.
I realize what I’m describing doesn’t really fit the description of an ombudsman, but I like the national ombudsman as a name for this. I do think this panel could also serve as traditional ombudsman role–namely, citizens could complain about certain reporting, and the panel could evaluate the reporting and then weigh in.
Purpose:
The purpose of the panel is to provide a basic and common understanding of important news and issues facing the nation–a way to specifically counteract the formation of individual information bubbles. The latter divides the nation and makes democracy far more difficult, if not impossible. The panel, by being ideologically diverse, and intellectually fair and rigorous, can help provide a way to help people get outside their personal bubbles.
Additional Feature:
The National Ombudsman could set up a website to publish their results with the a discussion section. The discussion section woudln’t be open to anyone. Instead, local newspapers could set up citizen’s editorial boards and they could choose some of these individuals to participate on these online discussions. Part of the idea is to find thoughtful and civil individuals, as well as weed out trolls, foreign or domestic.
Trump Presidency (1)
Trump Presidency (2)
Trump Regime (3)
Trump Regime (4)
Administrative Personnel Profiles
Here’s the fifth thread.
Here’s a two minute video explaining how Putin benefits from Donald Trump’s time in office:
Basically, Putin wants to weaken the American system of government, disrupt, if not tear apart, its society, to support his narrative that Western democracy isn’t very good or desirable, that authoritarianism is actually a superior system. I believe the U.S. and the West are now in a battle of these two competing narratives. There are reasons to believe that those in the West should take this battle very seriously–i.e., it’s a battle that can be lost. In this thread, I will explain reasons for this as well as other implications, particularly for critics of Western democracies. Continue reading ‘A Short Video on What Putin Wants in the U.S.’
![Double Vision [Expanded]](https://lastfm-img2.akamaized.net/i/u/34s/7eaa3143ef4548b0c816692dba25c9f5.png)
