Phil Mayes's Blog, page 4

What Are They Thinking?

March for Science in Santa Barbara

I often check Fox News online to get the conservative slant on news. Poor as it might be, the comments are ten times worse. Here are some from their March for Science reporting.

These people are a joke. The problem with ignorance is that ignorant people are too ignorant to know they are ignorant. Such idiocy. Getting rid of the US Dept. of Energy would pretty much make this climate change claptrap go away. God creates the climate… What’s the question here?...

Reconciling the Various Reasons for Trump

After the election, I concluded that Trump won with three appeals:

Bring back jobs Drain the swamp Build the wall

and that I approved of the first two. (It’s now clear that all three are unlikely to happen.)

Many people have offered reasons why Trump won, and they fall into three areas:

Election problems Economic hardship Racism

I won’t go into the electoral issues (Comey, gerrymandering, fake news, Clinton, Russia) here. There are stats that make a good case for both jobs and racism bein...

States Rights

Have you seen how strongly Republicans are supporting States rights with regard to sanctuary cities?

I posted elsewhere a few weeks ago that people should be consistent on their position about States rights, but I’ve moderated my position. Think of the power hierarchy as:

UN > Country > State > County > City > Borough > Family > Person.

It doesn’t matter which level you choose to have the controlling say; if it takes an unethical position, it has no moral justification for it. In other words,...

5 Reasons to Enjoy the Trump Regime

The blows are relentless. Our news feeds deliver multiple shocks each day. The barrage slows time down — surely it can’t be only 24 days since the inauguration?

And yet there is joy to be found in all this.

1. The Explosion of Satire

Late-night comedy has accepted the challenge. Not only does it make us laugh, its caustic humor strips away the lies and dissimulations and shows us the attempts to distort reality.

2. Knowing that Trump watches TV

Watching SNL has the added pleasure of knowing t...

A Frenzied Legislative Crackdown on Civil Rights

LA Womens’ March

I’m seeing a flurry of bills that limit protest:

Resisting arrest can now be considered a hate crime in Louisiana Republicans pass bill to charge demonstrators for police overtime costs North Carolina Republican proposes legislation that would ban people from yelling at lawmakers A new bill would protect drivers who ‘unintentionally’ hit Dakota Access protesters with their cars GOP State senator to propose bill criminalizing “illegal protests” Not a new bill, but:Felony Char...

The Press Versus Trump

The NYTimes just published a fascinating article, not for its content, but for its tone. Starting with the headline “With False Claims, Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift“, the message is that the Trump administration lies, and those lies are being unequivocally called out. I have been a subscriber for 30 years and have never seen such a clear denunciation. It starts with the opening paragraph:

President Trump used his first full day in office on Saturday to unleash a remark...

A Supreme Court Strategy for Democrats

Democratic Senators should refuse to approve any Supreme Court nominee until Merrick Garland is renominated. This would be a principled stand that

allows Republicans to make amends for their recalcitrance, offers acentrist appointment to adivided country, and is less radical than Republican calls to leave the seat vacant for 4 years.

A divided country deserves centrist appointments.

Tackling the Problem of Fake News

Slate is launching an attempt to mark fake news. They will “rely on crowdsourcing and human moderation by Slate staffers and contributors.” There will probably be sabotage attempts by bad actors, and the results will be criticized for liberal bias just the way Snopes was attacked, but it’s still heartening to see organisations rising to the challenge.

Only Conservatives Fall For Fake News Stories

There has been much coverage of fake news stories and how they might have affected the election. Interestingly,the news site owners said that the only stories that went viral were pro-conservative ones.

He was amazed at how quickly fake news could spread and how easily people believe it…. “We’ve tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You’ll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.” Source.

He s...

What Went Wrong

Here’s what went wrong. There were establishment and populist candidates on both sides. Thirty years of tax cuts, trade agreements and computerization gave all the productivity gains to the top, and the average personsuffered. Republicans chose the populist candidate, the DNC chose the establishment candidate, and the populist candidate won.

So I blame the DNC