Bryan’s not a Catholic, but he grasps the concept

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Bud, this second one is not my fault. Bryan posted it today and asked me to give a “ruling” on it. Take comfort from the fact that it is only tangentially about abortion.

Dang. I chose the coding for including the parent Tweet, but as so often happens, it didn’t show up. Here’s what Bryan was reacting to:

Here’s what I said back, warning him that my “ruling” could not be considered to have been given ex cathedra:

See, this is why we had the Reformation. Some people (a whole lot of people) didn’t want to adhere to what the church was teaching, so they became Lutherans and Calvinists and such. It’s why Bryan, for instance, is a Presbyterian. They didn’t go around calling themselves “Catholics Against Papal Authority” or whatever. They became something else.

And back in the day, that was a major commitment. You took your life into your hands making such decisions. For instance, my ancestor Thomas Wyatt the Younger, a Protestant, was beheaded for opposing the Catholic Bloody Mary. (He made a big PR mistake: The plot against her was known as “Wyatt’s rebellion.”) Similarly, many people who stayed Catholic lost their lives under Mary’s half-sister Elizabeth.

Hans Holbein painted Thomas Wyatt's head, years before he lost it.

Hans Holbein painted Thomas Wyatt’s head, years before he lost it.

Today, we can take these stands freely, without putting our lives on the line. So when you stop believing in the teachings of the Catholic church — or the Anglican or the Presbyterian or what have you — you can just glide into calling yourself something else. A lot of the American story is about people doing just that. Families that had been Catholic and then become Anglican in the old country went on to become Congregationalists, then Unitarians, then Transcendentalists, then in some cases back to be Catholic.

It’s sort of our American birthright. You don’t believe in what Church A believes in anymore? You can join Church B, and no one will chop your head off for it….

Jim Clyburn just called me an extremist (which says a lot about Washington)

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Bud, get ready to duck, because this has to do with abortion, at least tangentially. In fact, I’ve got another couple of post ideas that do the same. You might want to sit these out, since it bugs you when the topic comes up.

Anyway, yesterday James Clyburn sent me this personal note, with my name on it and everything — so I’m taking it personally (a little, anyway):

Brad –

45 years ago, the Supreme Court handed down one of their most powerful decisions in Roe v Wade, codifying a woman’s right to access a legal abortion in the United States.

You’d think that would have settled the matter — but extremists have been trying to strip women of this basic reproductive right ever since….

So basically, since I’m opposed to this absolute right that allows highly interested individuals to make decisions about whether other individuals live or die unilaterally, without due process, much less appeal, I’m an extremist. Instead of, you know, a believer in the rule of law who wants the unborn to have the same shot at survival that a murderer gets. (And yeah, I’m opposed to capital punishment, too. That’s part of what “pro-life” means.)James Clyburn

But never mind me, and never mind abortion. This is not about me. It’s not even about Jim Clyburn. It’s about the fact that this is the way people in both parties in Washington speak about people who disagree with them.

Lord knows the Republicans do it. And this is one of the ways that Democrats do it. They appeal to their hyperpartisan bases by using language that delegitimizes people who disagree.

I try not to do this (I may fail, but I try). You know why? Because I have lots of friends — earnest, thoughtful people — who disagree with me on this issue. For the most part, I avoid talking with them about this. But when we do discuss it, I try to be respectful.

And you know what? I’ll bet that in a one-on-one conversation with a constituent, Jim Clyburn would try to do the same.

But not in press releases and other political speech. You know why? Because these days, Democrats and Republicans only speak to their own sides. And those other people are personae non gratae, and not worthy of consideration…

 

I thought Miami was in the Super Bowl. I read the signs wrong…

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Dolphins car

I saw this car in traffic this morning, and I though, Aha! Miami is in the Super Bowl! Now I won’t sound completely ignorant if someone brings up the subject!dolphin flag

Like Tom Sawyer, I was proud I had found it out detective fashion; I wouldn’t give shucks for any other way — such, as, for instance, lifting a finger to look it up, which would have been against my principles.

Smugly, I made note to keep my eyes and ears open to see if I could passively learn who the other team was. (There’s pretty much always at least one other team involved in these things, you see.)

And then Bryan had to blow me out of the water with this comment.

Huh. The Eagles and the Patriots. OK. I stand corrected.

But… but… why was this guy flying the Dolphins flags, other than the fact that they went with the color of his car? Is it not customary among football fans to fly such flags on a day when their team is going to play, or in the days leading up to it?

The folkways of you people confuse me…

Open Thread for Monday, January 22, 2018

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shutdown

Not all that much going on:

  1. Senate passes spending bill, clearing way to end shutdown — For three week. Whoopee. Lindsey Graham sent out a release encased in the usual exclamation points: “! Graham Votes To End Government Shutdown !” But as he acknowledged, this is no win for the country. Personally, I think I’d be tempted to hide that I had anything to do with what’s happened up there.
  2. Who drops everything to watch such boring news live? — Admittedly, I’m not a fan of getting news via video. But I often wonder, when I see live feeds like the one pictured above, I have to wonder who stops everything to watch the Senate or the House vote on ending the stupid shutdown. It’s certainly not historic. We’ll be doing this again in three weeks. I’d as soon watch paint dry…
  3. Amazon Go: convenience and concern at new checkout-free corner shop — Technology is going to have to get better and smarter for me to trust a gimmick such as this. I mean, I love Alexa; she’s a lot of fun. But she’s not playing with a full deck. Last night I asked her to “play some Memphis soul,” and she had no idea what to do (even though Google and Wikipedia know exactly what I mean). To make it easy, I told her to play anything from Stax Records. She was totally flummoxed. Meanwhile, Netflix still doesn’t know what kind of movies I like.
  4. The State has a new editor — based in Raleigh — Newspapers are not what they used to be, and you can hardly point to more dramatic evidence of that than the fact that our own daily newspaper will be overseen by an editor in Raleigh. Someone who thinks “Carolina” is located in Chapel Hill. You know, like the paper was a Starbucks or something. At least that’s the way they make it sound. Yet there is still someone here with the title of executive editor. We’ll see what this all means as time passes. It will be extremely helpful when The State puts something on the front page explaining it all. That will be a start.

go-gallery-interior._V534007255_

 

SOME numbers are interesting, and significant

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sigdig-1monday

We have a lot of arguments here based on the fact that some of y’all are numbers people and I’m a word guy.

But sometimes I appreciate numbers, too.

I don’t like them when they don’t mean much. For instance, back when I was still at the paper, there was a period in which the newsroom would post a “By the numbers” graphic with some stories. The numbers were usually not very pertinent to understanding the story. It was obvious that some senior editor (I suspect a managing editor who was at the paper in those days, but I don’t know because our interactions with the newsroom were minimal) had decreed that there would be at least one such feature a day, whether the story lent itself to that treatment or not.

But fivethirtyeight has a feature called “Significant Digits,” or “SigDig,” which identify stories with numbers that mean something. A sampling from today’s installment:

4 congressmen

Rep. Patrick Meehan, Republican of Pennsylvania, will likely face an investigation by the House Ethics Committee. Meehan reportedly used taxpayer money to settle a complaint by an aide that he made repeated romantic overtures towards her, and grew hostile when she did not reciprocate. Meehan was, until these accusations came out, on the House Ethics Committee that’s investigated the sexual misconduct cases of at least four male members. [The New York Times, The Boston Globe]

86 patients

China is testing cutting-edge gene therapy technology on human beings, with at least 86 Chinese patients having had their genes edited so far. China’s regulations on experimenting with humans are considerably more lax than many other countries’. [The Wall Street Journal]

1,062 Twitter accounts

Twitter has discovered another 1,062 accounts linked to a Russian agency that tried to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and will email 677,775 users who followed the accounts, or retweeted or liked one of their tweets. [Bloomberg]…

And so forth. That’s more like it! Every one of those numbers is a grabber, encouraging us to read further.

I mean, really: 86 Chinese people have had their genes “edited”? How many does it take before they can assemble a Chinese version of the X Men?

OK, Trav, this is kind of silly

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This came in from SC Democrats over the weekend:

A PORNSTAR, THE PRESIDENT, AND HENRY MCMASTER
Henry McMaster rolled out the red carpet for President Trump, will he do the same for the president’s mistress this weekend?330px-Stormy_Daniels_2010
Columbia, SC — Over the last several days, the Wall Street Journal revealed that President Trump’s lawyer used a Delaware corporation to pay hush money to pornstar Stormy Daniels weeks before the 2016 election to keep her from revealing an affair she had with the president while he was married to his third wife, First Lady Melania Trump. This weekend, Stormy Daniels will be visiting Greenville for a public appearance in which she will certainly talk about the president.
“Henry McMaster and Catherine Templeton have gone above and beyond to associate themselves with everything related to President Trump,” said South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Trav Robertson. “From what we know about the president, Stormy is bound to be his fourth wife and I can’t believe that Henry and Catherine would miss the opportunity to seek her endorsement. It’s the perfect time for them to talk about their South Carolina values as she kicks off what she is calling her ‘Make America Horny Again’ tour in Greenville.”
###

Yes, the thing about the porn star is a part of the general pattern of sleaze (along with the “Access Hollywood” tape, the multiple allegations of sexual assault, the behavior running beauty pageants, the casinos, professional wrestling and reality TV) of the most unfit man ever to hold our highest office.

And yes, wrapping yourself in the Trump mantle means wrapping yourself in sleaze. It’s a legitimate point, as far as it goes.

But this effort to be cute kind of misses the mark. Perhaps it’s the “Stormy is bound to be his fourth wife” part that throws it off….

William Butler Yeats: ‘The Leaders of the Crowd’

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by George Charles Beresford, sepia-toned platinotype, 15 July 1911As you know, there’s probably no poem I like to cite more, as political commentary, than W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming.”

I’m hardly alone in that; the piece is irresistible. Few statements better describe the basic problem of our politics over the last quarter-century than “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…”

Even better is this description of something I’ve noted and lamented in many contexts, regarding many issues:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Time and again, I’ve noticed that the people who want to rend and tear and destroy, the people with the very worst ideas, are indefatigable, while sensible people — being sensible people — are too seldom willing to resist as strenuously and as long as they ought.

Recently, I ran across another Yeats poem that I don’t recall having read before. If anything, its political commentary seems more focused on our particular moment, from the perspective of 1921. It’s called “The Leaders of the Crowd.” Here it is:

THEY must to keep their certainty accuse
All that are different of a base intent;
Pull down established honour; hawk for news
Whatever their loose fantasy invent
And murmur it with bated breath, as though
The abounding gutter had been Helicon
Or calumny a song. How can they know
Truth flourishes where the student’s lamp has shone,
And there alone, that have no Solitude?
So the crowd come they care not what may come.
They have loud music, hope every day renewed
And heartier loves; that lamp is from the tomb.

It’s all there: the rejection of fact and wisdom, the inventions of loose fancy, the pulling down of established honour, the calumny aimed at those who are different.

We’ve seen a rough beast go slouching toward Washington, and we’ve seen him arrive.

Anyway, the death of Dolores O’Riordan this week put me in mind of Yeats, so here’s something to listen to…

Without compromise, this blog will shut down at midnight

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Final blog negotiations will be intense, with innovative methods of persuasion brought into play...

Final blog negotiations will be intense, with innovative methods of persuasion brought into play…

I’m sorry that it’s come to this, but if we can’t come to some agreement in the next few hours, this blog will shut down at midnight.

Of course, it will be up and running again tomorrow, or whenever I feel like it, but the very fact that it will shut down at midnight testifies to our utter failure to come to agreement on key issues. The only consolation we have is that we can blame it on the Democrats. Or the Republicans — either way, I don’t care. Or the Russians. Or Colin Kaepernick. Or that wanker Louis C.K.

Suffice it to say, there is no shortage of scapegoats out there. But there is still no excuse for us not to sit down and try to hammer out an agreement.

It will take compromise, on all our parts. Here are some examples of the kind of concessions that will be required:

  • Bryan Caskey: Should concede that gun control is a pretty neat idea, and immediately agree to a total ban on bump stocks. He must further undertake not to mock said bump stock ban as an empty gesture that will accomplish nothing.
  • Norm Ivey: Will contribute two cases of his homemade beer to the party that will follow our signing ceremony.
  • Doug Ross: Must vote for an amendment acknowledging that luck plays a huge role in amassing wealth in America. The amendment will be in Spanish, so that illegal aliens can understand it.
  • bud: Will recognize, once and for all, that Donald Trump is the worst president ever — and not George W. Bush.
  • Dave Crockett: Sorry, Dave, but we all think it would be really cool if you would start signing your comments “Davy.” By “we,” I mean those of us who were little kids in the 1950s, and therefore remember a time before Fess Parker was Daniel Boone (which contributed greatly to millions of Americans confusing those two historical figures).
  • Barry will start using his full name, because it really, really bugs Doug that he doesn’t.
  • Kathryn Fenner will forgive us all and come back to the blog.
  • “Scout” will continue to largely agree with me (only putting it in better words), because we all know this world needs a heap more of that.
  • Juan Caruso will hire a lawyer to draft all his comments going forward.

As for yours truly, don’t you think I’ve given enough? Very well, I’m willing to listen to y’all’s suggestions as to what I should concede, if y’all can get over your shyness long enough to tell me where I fall short of perfection…

Now you’re acting more like yourself, Sen. Graham

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I don’t know what LIndsey Graham thought he was doing the last few months, building his new reputation as the “Trump Whisperer.” Did he think he could manage the grossly unfit POTUS, guiding him gently toward wise policy on immigration and making him think it was his idea?

Whatever his plan was, it didn’t work, and the moment that became fully apparent seems to have been the infamous “s___hole” meeting a week ago.

Now, he seems to have decided to concentrate his attention on actual grownups, people with whom he can have intelligent conversations and not feel the need to delouse afterward. He sent out this release yesterday:

Momentum Growing for Immigration Reform Proposal

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today welcomed the support of Republican Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) for a path forward on DACA and immigration reform.Graham-080106-18270- 0005

They will join Republicans Graham, Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) and Cory Gardner (R-Colorado) in backing this measure and working to protect Dreamers.

“It’s imperative that Congress act quickly so that young people who were brought to the United States as children, through no decision of their own, can stop living in fear of deportation.  I have talked with Dreamers living in Maine who have grown up in our State and have known no other country as their home,” said Senator Collins.  “This issue transcends political divisions, with members of both parties expressing sympathy for the Dreamers and support for a legislative solution.  I am proud to join this growing bipartisan group of leaders in advancing this important effort that will fairly address the needs of the DACA population, strengthen border security, and help improve our immigration system.”

“President Trump and the bipartisan members of Congress who met at the White House ought to be able to agree on a proposal that both secures our borders and provides a solution for DACA recipients,” said Senator Alexander. “I intend to support such an agreement which is why I’m cosponsoring the Graham proposal as a starting point for reaching consensus and will support other responsible proposals.”

“I am proud to be a part of this bipartisan solution for the Dreamers,” said Senator Murkowski. “We should not punish children for the actions of their parents. Those who were brought to this country by their parents, were raised here, educated here, lived here, and dreamed here, should be welcomed to stay here. They should have the right to work and a path to citizenship. Fulfilling that dream renews our American Dream. I have consistently cosponsored legislation to provide just that, and I am heartened to see so many diverse voices supporting a legislative solution for the Dreamers.”

“I thank Senator Graham and others for their commitment to strengthening border security and fixing our broken immigration system,” said Senator Rounds. “The current proposal is an important first step in more immigration reform that secures our borders and transitions to a merit-based system. Legal immigration is a proud part of our nation’s history, and today it plays an important role in our economy – including South Dakota’s own workforce which depends on temporary, H2B visa workers to fill jobs during the busy tourism and construction seasons. While this bill is not perfect, I will continue to work on a product that includes appropriate e-verify provisions, a stronger border security system and lays the framework for more reform, including work visas. These are the provisions required for me to support the bill in final form so we can get to the next phase, in which permanently increasing the cap of H2B visas will be a top priority for me.”

“I’m very pleased that our bipartisan proposal continues to gain support among my Republican colleagues,” said Senator Graham. “Our hope is to bring forward a proposal that leads to a solution the President can embrace. The goal is to begin fixing a broken immigration system by fairly dealing with the DACA population, securing our border, and moving toward a merit-based immigration system. This proposal would receive wide support and is a good solution for Phase I as we move to Phase II, comprehensive immigration reform.  As we debate how to fix a broken immigration system and who to allow to become an American, we must not change what it means to be an American.  As I’ve always said, America is an idea defined by its ideals – not by its people.  The idea of self-determination and freedom to speak one’s mind, to worship God as you see fit, and to be served by the government – not the other way around.  I believe there is bipartisan support for that concept.”

 Highlights of the bipartisan proposal include:

  • At Least Ten Years Before a Dreamer Can Become an American Citizen:  It would be at least ten years before a Dreamer can become an American citizen.  The legislation calls for a 12-year waiting period, but select Dreamers who registered for DACA could earn up to two years credit for time. Dreamers – who do not receive any federal assistance or welfare today – will likely continue to be ineligible for welfare and federal assistance for the first five years they have legal status.
  • The current Diversity Visa Lottery will be abolished, and a new merit-based immigration system instituted in its place. Half of the Diversity Lottery visas would be allocated to a new system for ‘priority countries’ who are currently underrepresented in visa allocation.  A new merit-based system would ensure those visas are awarded to those most ready to succeed in the United States.  The other half of the visas would be allocated to recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS).  After the TPS backlog is cleared, all of the former Diversity Lottery visas will be allocated to nationals of priority countries under the new, merit-based system.
  • Additional Border Security Measures: The proposal contains $2.7 billion in border security improvements, including the planning, design, and construction of a border wall and additional surveillance and technology along the border. There will also be several provisions from border security pieces of legislation related to border infrastructure and Customs and Border Protection operations and oversight.
  • Down Payment on Chain Migration: Parents of Dreamers would be eligible for 3-year renewable work permits.  There are no new pathways for them to obtain American citizenship.  If they brought a child who becomes a beneficiary of the Dream Act into the country, they would be ineligible to be sponsored for lawful permanent residence or citizenship by any of their children. Additionally, lawful permanent residents would only be able to sponsor their nuclear family members, their spouses and unmarried children under the age of 21.

They may not succeed, but at least he’s now working with people highly unlikely to disrupt a bipartisan meeting with an obscene racist rant…

Does anybody still look at these security alerts?

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CSID

Just got another of those monthly emails from that security service that the state offered us to help us keep our identities safe after the big Department of Revenue breach several years back.

About once a year, I try to log in, and I never remember my password, so I have to go through a bunch of rigmarole to get in, and when I do, all I find is a report on sex offenders in my area.

You?

I mean, does anybody still use this service?

Put an Apple Store near me, and I might take you up on it…

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Apple Store

Doesn’t Apple have a way to know where the person it’s sending an email to is located?

I got this come-on from the tech giant today, urging me to partake of various interesting activities “at an Apple Store near you.” Such things as:

  • Take a Photo Walk. And snap pictures that pop with Portrait Lighting.
  • Join a Sketch Walk. And expand your palette with Procreate.
  • Stop by for a Music Lab. And define your sound with GarageBand.
  • Drop in for Kids Hour. And spark their imagination and creativity.

OK, so maybe I wouldn’t actually take you up on these activities. I’m not that starved for stuff to do. I never have been. Back when I was at the newspaper, and an editor’s meeting would come up about the Weekend section or the community calendars we’d run in the paper, I’d always wonder what it would be like to be someone who actually had to go out looking for something to do. I had trouble imagining it.

Anyway, if I did want to do any of this stuff, I’d be out of luck. When I click on the link in the email that promises to let me “Explore all the amazing things you can do,” I am immediately identified as being in the “Augusta area.”

Yep, that’s right — not only does Charleston have an Apple Store and we don’t… not only does Greenville have an Apple Store and we don’t… but little Augusta has an Apple Store — and in case you haven’t picked up on it, we don’t.

I think they’re just taunting me. Taunting all of us. Because they hate us…

Admittedly, I don't have a strong personal desire to be in this picture, but what if I did? Why taunt me?

Admittedly, I don’t have a strong personal desire to be in this picture, but what if I did? Why taunt me?

Nancy Mace easily wins Jim Merrill’s former seat

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Nancy Mace

Drinking game video or no, Nancy Mace did what she was expected to do yesterday, which was easily win a legislative seat drawn for a Republican.

Here’s part of what she had to say about that:

Thank You Is Not Enough
Dear Friends,

I don’t look at this as a win for me. I look at this as a win for Berkeley and Charleston counties, for the Lowcountry and for the taxpayers of South Carolina. More importantly, it’s a win for substantive solutions aimed at fixing our most pressing issues – infrastructure, the nuclear power plant mess, education and the sustainability and safety of our communities.

We got here – together – because we believe our state can do better. Because we know new perspectives are long overdue in Columbia. And because we can see that the old way of doing things in state government keeps coming up short on so many levels….

So far I haven’t seen a statement from the loser, Democrat Cindy Boatwright. In fact, her last Tweet was at 11:15 a.m. yesterday. I see that one of her friends posted this, though:

Cindy, this was only Round 1, and you fought a GREAT 1st Round. Round 2 starts tomorrow. So, take heart, stay strong, keep the faith and know that we believe that you not only can win but, in November when it will count for the full term, you WILL win.

May God bless you! You have much to be proud of. And I, for one, am very proud of you.

Really? The folks in that district have to turn right around and do this again this year? Sheesh…

When he gets overridden 40-0, does the governor ever think that maybe, just maybe, he might be wrong?

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F4906019-98FA-0573-FFE7587092030DAE_headerimage

That’s what I was thinking when I read this:

More than 200 of South Carolina’s oldest, most fire-prone school buses will be replaced by the next school year.

The state Senate voted 44-0 Tuesday to override Gov. Henry McMaster’s veto of $20.5 million to cover the cost of buying 210 new school buses. The House voted to override the governor’s veto last week.

That money will help the state cut the number of fire-prone 1995 and 1996 buses in operation to 349, better ensuring the safety of thousands of S.C. students who take the bus to school each day….

Not a single vote to sustain, in a body dominated by his own party — and containing some senators who don’t like the gummint spending money no way, nohow. Yikes.

At least he got eight votes last week in the House last week. Of course, 107 voted to override…

Columbia named a ‘City on the Rise’

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Soda City market, just one of many signs of a more attractive city./file photo

Soda City market, just one of many signs of a more attractive city./file photo

This came in last night from Mayor Steve Benjamin:

Dear friends,

We’re thrilled to share that Columbia has been named one of the 29 “Cities on the Rise” for 2018 by National Geographic Travel! As the world’s most widely-read travel magazine, National Geographic Travel chose Columbia based on both a unique set of metrics and expert picks from its editors.

The Nat Geo team worked with global destination branding advisors Resonance Consultancy in developing a Small Cities Index, a survey that drew from statistics and social media mentions to determine which cities rank highest in a variety of distinctive, fun categories. Columbia’s inclusion stems from being one of the “Best Groomed” and “Meatiest” destinations.

“At Traveler we’re passionate about tales of urban renewal, about communities that have collaborated to improve their main streets, about smart cities that have pursued development policies that produce happiness. In this article, we report on authentic small cities that each embody a surprising superlative,” says George Stone, National Geographic Traveler editor in chief. “Happy places for locals are also rewarding places for travelers. Our index of small cities on the rise is based on unconventional metrics that we think produce happiness: green spaces, coffee shops, breweries, music venues, Instagrammable moments and puppies!”

Columbia joins fellow South Carolina cities Charleston and Greenville in this list as well as destinations like Honolulu and New Orleans.

You can get a copy of the February/March 2018 issue, available now on newsstands and online at www.natgeo.com/bestsmallcities.

Meatiest? As in “Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy?”

Meaty

White House shocker: Trump passes cognitive test!

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crazy

Reading this, I couldn’t help think of a recurring joke from “The Big Bang Theory.” The character Sheldon Cooper defends himself by saying, “I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested.”

Here’s what I refer to:

President Trump’s official doctor, Navy Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson, told reporters Tuesday that the president’s “overall health is excellent.”

Jackson said Trump, 71, requested a cognitive test and did well on it. Jackson said he would not have administered a cognitive test if Trump had not asked for one, saying he interacts with the president daily and saw no reason for such an exam.

The test includes asking a patient to name several animals, draw a clock with the hands at a certain time, copy a cube and recall a short list of words, among others.

Jackson said Trump is 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighs 239 pounds. The doctor said he recommended the president lose weight and commit to a regular exercise routine. A realistic goal for Trump, according to Jackson, is to lose 10 to 15 pounds over the next year…

Of course, that’s not quite the same as being a “very stable genius.” And the finding doesn’t seem entirely consistent with a patient who calls himself that…

Graham should be more specific about what he heard

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You were there, Senator. So what did the president say, and how did he say it?

You were there, Senator. So what did the president say, and how did he say it?

Since some Republicans, after a day or two of thinking about it, started claiming Trump didn’t really say “s___hole” (hilariously, one of the lines of defense has been to claim he really said “s___house“) it’s refreshing that Lindsey Graham has stuck to his original version of the story, as Andy Shain reports:

Trouble is, his original story remains vague and indirect. He seems to want to have his cake and eat it, too — to call the president out for his racist assertions without quite, you know, calling him out.

We know from colleague Tim Scott that Graham told him the media reports of what Trump said were “basically correct.”

And Graham has made sure that we know that he gave Trump a piece of his mind in response to, you know, whatever he said:

When Trump made the incendiary remark, Graham spoke up, telling the president that “America is an idea, not a race.”

“I tried to make it very clear to the president that when you say ‘I’m an American,’ what does that mean?” Graham said. “It doesn’t mean that they’re black or white, rich or poor. It means that you buy into an ideal of self-representation, compassion, tolerance, the ability to practice one’s religion without interference and the acceptance of those who are different.

“So at the end of the day, an American is a person who believes in ideals that have stood the test of time,” Graham added. “It’s not where you come from that matters, it’s what you’re willing to do once you get here.”…

Agreed, senator. But since people are standing up and saying Trump didn’t say what he said, it would be helpful if you’d be the truthteller and give us a precise account of what you heard.

As the late Howard Baker might have said, What did the president say, and how did he say it?

Racist signs at USC: Was it a Bernie Bro?

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Racist signs found at USC.

Racist signs found at USC./Photo from Twitter feed of @KingShady__.

Students returned to USC for the spring semester today to find racist messages taped up in several university buildings, including one on a display case outside the African-American Studies department in Gambrell Hall.

The precise nature of the messages was interesting. As the Charleston paper quoted:

“We’ve endured a YEAR of Blumpf instead of enjoying one of Bernie because your DUMB BLACK A**** just pull the lever for whomever the party (illegible),” one sign says in Williams’ photo.

“All this bull**** about a ‘King’ when you (illegible) simpletons can’t even pick a candidate properly,” a second sign says. “You stupid monkeys handed Trump the White House the minute you handed Hillary the nomination!”

So… is this the work of a Bernie Bro? Or someone trying to deflect blame and pin it on a Sanders enthusiast?

Whoever did it, it’s pretty disgusting.

(I got the image above from this Tweet.)

Remembering a better time, just 10 years ago

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That's me interviewing Obama on MLK Day 2008 -- taking notes with my right hand, shooting video with my left. With my Initech mug: "Is This Good for the COMPANY?"

That’s me interviewing Obama on MLK Day 2008 — taking notes with my right hand, shooting video with my left. With my Initech mug: “Is This Good for the COMPANY?”

I retweeted this today…

I passed it on not because it was particularly profound or unique or even one of our former president’s better Tweets, but because it reminded me of a better time for our country.

As it happens, I met Barack Obama 10 years ago, on MLK Day.

That was such a better time for our country.

McCain in the same seat, not long before.

McCain in the same seat, not long before.

A week before, we had endorsed John McCain in the SC Republican Primary, and he had won. We knew, when Barack Obama came in, that we liked him for the Democratic Primary in a few days. But this interview, at 8 a.m. on that holiday, cinched it. We were all very impressed. And since Hillary Clinton declined even to come in for an endorsement interview (I would learn why sometime later) and Joe Biden had dropped out much earlier, that was pretty much it.

We endorsed Obama, and he won the primary a few days later.

As a result, I’ve never felt better about a presidential election than I did about that one — my last in newspaper journalism, although I didn’t know it at the time.

From the time McCain and Obama won their respective nominations, I referred to it as the win-win election. Whichever one won, I felt good about our countries future.

We endorsed McCain in the fall — I’d wanted him to be president since long before I’d heard of Barack Obama, and I was concerned about the Democrat’s lack of experience. But it was OK by me when the latter won. It was the win-win election.

Fast-forward eight years, and we find the Democrat we rejected then running against the worst candidate ever to capture a major-party nomination in our nation’s history — and as if that weren’t bad enough, the worst man won. And we are reminded of that daily, as he goes from outrage to outrage.

So it’s good, if only for a day, to look back and remember a time, not so long ago, when all our prospects seemed good.

Burl’s 1st-hand account of the Great Missile Alert of 2018

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Your truly with our correspondent Burl in Hawaii on a less-panicky Saturday in 2015. Note the rainbow.

Your truly with our correspondent Burl in Hawaii on a less-panicky Saturday in 2015. Note the rainbow.

You’ve no doubt heard about the false alarm in Hawaii today:

For 38 harrowing minutes, residents and tourists in Hawaii were left to believe that missiles were streaming across the sky toward the Pacific island chain after an erroneous alert Saturday morning by the state’s emergency management agency.

“Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii,” warned an 8:07 a.m. message transmitted across the state’s cellphone networks. “Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”

Only after an inexplicable delay by the state agency — during which residents scrambled to seek shelter and contact relatives — was a subsequent message sent describing the missile warning as a “false alarm.”

Not satisfied with mainland newspaper accounts, I turned to our intrepid correspondent on the scene, veteran newspaperman-turned-historian Burl Burlingame, to tell us what it was like.

Initially he responded with a text that said:

We’re OK but the neighbors have resorted to cannibalism.

Journalists are conditioned to react to incipient annihilation with gallows humor, and protocol required that I respond in kind, so I said, “Perfectly understandable, under the circumstances.” Then, with patience born of decades as an editor waiting for reporters to get off their a__es and file the actual story, I waited.

Eventually, he filed his report via Facebook Messenger. It follows:

In Hawaii, at 11:45 a.m. on the first working day of every month, sirens go off all over the state. You can hear them almost everywhere. Civil defense has them to warn of incoming missiles, but mainly because we’re a seacoast state with a low land mass that can easily be hit with a tidal wave or earthquake from almost any direction. Such natural disasters aren’t iffy; it’s just a matter of when …

So we take such alerts seriously.

The alarm clock on my phone was set for 8:10 a.m. this morning, so when it made noise I dimly perceived it as my wake-up call. Was it ever! It took a few moments to focus on incoming alerts and the top one said that missiles were incoming and it was not a drill.

Huh?

For a while, we’ve been getting practice alerts that are worded similarly — thanks, Trump! — although this one was most clear. But there were no sirens, no ancillary information being broadcast. Being an ex-journalist, I was pretty suspicious of a single phone alert with no backup.

I woke up the wife and told her to prepare to fight in Thunderdome after the imminent nuclear annihilation. She said OK and went back to sleep. Since she’s the night editor at the paper, I suspect she’s pretty busy this evening dealing with “I was there” stories.

There was some commotion in my neighborhood as folks were packing their cars. To go where?

I had an appointment at 10 a.m. to deliver a lecture and people were expecting me there, so I went. The electronic highway signs were already flashing MISSILE ATTACK WARNING IS AN ERROR / THERE IS NO THREAT and I mentally filed away the revelation that they are tied in with Civil Defense.

Many people were caught away from home and family. People dashed home or to churches. Tourists were rounded up off the beaches and sequestered in hotel lobbies. I expect there might be casualties from the panic.

No info yet on how this happened. It’s possible it was an online troll attack. People here are blaming Trump, but we’re expecting him to blame Hillary.

Good report. Short and to the point. And he didn’t speculate about anything he wasn’t sure about.

Gov. David Ige has now attributed the mess to a state employee’s errant push of a button. Yeah… I think the good folk of Hawaii are going to want a more complete answer than that…

The USS Arizona memorial stands as grim reminder that attacks from the air DO happen, even in paradise.

The USS Arizona memorial stands as grim reminder that sudden attacks from the air DO happen, even in paradise.

Yes, Trump violated this blog’s standards today

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Yesterday, Trump welcomed the prime minister of Norway which, as he explained today, is NOT a "s__thole country." I'll bet she's relieved to know that.

Yesterday, Trump welcomed the prime minister of Norway which, as he explained today, is NOT a “s__thole country.” I’ll bet she’s relieved to know that.

I’ve been so busy today doing actual work, I didn’t know what Bryan was talking about when he texted, “Would the president’s comment today violate your blog’s civility standard? Assume he was posting under his own name.”

So I went and looked, and the answer is “yes,” of course it would. It also poses a problem to newspapers across the country that normally don’t allow such language to foul their pages. The Gray Lady, The New York Times, refused to use it in a headline. The breaking bulletin on their site said ” Using vulgar language, President Trump said the U.S. should welcome immigrants from Norway, not places like Haiti or Africa.” And the headline after you get to the story said “Trump Alarms Lawmakers With Disparaging Words for Haiti and Africa.”

But the president of the United States said it, and it’s a newspaper’s job to report, so they held their noses and quoted him directly in the body of the story:

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday balked at an immigration deal that would include protections for people from Haiti and African countries, demanding to know at a White House meeting why he should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” rather than people from places like Norway, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation.

Mr. Trump’s remarks left members of Congress attending the meeting in the Cabinet Room alarmed and mystified. They were there discussing an emerging bipartisan deal to give legal status to immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity without authorization to discuss the explosive proceedings of the private meeting.

When Mr. Trump heard that Haitians were among those who would benefit, he asked if they could be left out of the plan, according to the people familiar with the conversation, asking, “Why do we want people from Haiti here?”…

So I just violated my own policy, which is not to allow words that are unsuitable in a family newspaper. I didn’t like doing it. But then, I don’t like having this crude ignoramus as president of the United States, and stuff like this is one of the reasons why.

Being less prim, The Washington Post went ahead and used the word in their headline, since the word itself was half the story. That’s defensible, perhaps even laudable in these crass times in which we live.

The Guardian used it in the headline, but the Brits are less puritanical about words than we are.

The State used it in the headline, but good luck finding the story on the website — it’s not on the home page. (The Post and The Guardian are both leading with the story.)