Rep. Doug Collins, riding shotgun for AG Barr at NPR All Things Considered (5/2/19)

The following is a closer look at GOP's Congressman Doug Collins words during his interview with NPR's Audie Cornish May 2nd.  His performance was such an example of the sort of dishonest evasion that the GOP has honed into a deadly political weapon that Democrat simply must learn to dissect along with directly, successfully confronting it's , or we're going keep losing the important battles!

GOP Rep. Doug Collins Says AG Barr Was Right Not To Attend Thursday's Hearing

Heard on All Things Considered   May 2, 2019   |   5:51 PM ET  (5:51min)

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/02/719737174/gop-rep-doug-collins-says-ag-barr-was-right-not-to-attend-thursdays-hearing

NPR's Audie Cornish talks with Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, about Attorney General William Barr not showing up for his scheduled hearing.  The transcript:

GOP’s Rep. Collins:     It's good to be here.

NPR’s Cornish:     So you support the attorney general's decision not to testify. Why?

00:45 - GOP’s Rep. Collins:      I do because I think he made it very clear; he was voluntarily willing to come. And just over the past weekend, the chairman made a decision that he wanted to have staff involved in the questioning.

NPR’s Cornish:   And not just staff - lawyers, right?

GOP’s Rep. Collins:     Oh, yeah, the staff lawyers, yes. And I think the interesting thing is, this is 206 years of breaking precedent in the House Judiciary Committee. 

The GOP’s hypocrisy is astounding, ironically there’s no holding back the GOP’s breaking precedent of decency and fair play, after precedent.  Such as having a prosecutor do the questioning during Kavanaugh’s Judiciary hearing, and McConnell’s outrageous behaviour.

Trump Gets Revenge on the ‘Most Liberal Court,’ Helped by McConnell’s Dirty Tricks

The GOP changed the rules to polarize the federal bench, but that will come back to haunt Republicans.

Jay Michaelson  |  March, 14, 2019

      

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-gets-revenge-on-ninth-circuit-with-mcconnells-dirty-tricks

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Mitch McConnell has done grave damage to all three branches of government

By Paul Begala  |  October 10, 2018

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/09/opinions/mitch-mcconnell-has-damaged-all-three-branches-of-government-begala/index.html

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Mitch McConnell Again Proves He’ll Stop at Nothing for a Conservative Court

McConnell said the Senate will “plow right through” Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault accusation and confirm Brett Kavanaugh

RYAN BORT  |  SEPTEMBER 21, 2018 

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mconnell-kavanaugh-supreme-court-727651/

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Mitch McConnell Assaulted the Constitution (and Got Away With It)

The senator refused to perform his duty in rejecting any consideration of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.

By William Greider  |  December 21, 2016

https://www.thenation.com/article/mitch-mcconnell-assaulted-the-constitution-and-got-away-with-it/

We see an evasive stonewalling Attorney General who’s actions and words show every indication of extreme partisanship, to the point of putting himself under suspicion of obstruction of justice.  That is extreme.  

That is a constitutional crisis and the Democrats must exert every pressure they can to get Barr to testify “on the record”.  

Mueller Objected to Barr’s Description of Russia Investigation’s Findings on Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/us/politics/mueller-barr.html

WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, wrote a letter in late March to Attorney General William P. Barr objecting to his early description of the Russia investigation’s conclusions that appeared to clear President Trump on possible obstruction of justice, …

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Cracks show in Bill Barr's legal-walrus facade: Mueller letters make for a bad day on Capitol Hill

AMANDA MARCOTTE  |  May 1, 2019

https://www.salon.com/2019/05/01/cracks-show-in-bill-barrs-legal-walrus-facade-mueller-letters-make-for-a-bad-day-on-capitol-hill/

Adam Schiff Responds to Trump's Senate Sycophants

I often share my disappointment with the limp Democratic Party and how easily they wither in the face of GOP's ruthless macho bullying.  Still, once in awhile I get impressed and realize there is some hope left.  Now if only these few courageous politicians can start getting more of We The People to better support them by actively getting behind these individuals and letting our representatives know we expect them to follow through on their efforts.  

Act as if our democracy depends on it, because it does!  A healthy democracy requires an informed and engaged electorate!

Yeah, yeah, an imperfect democracy is better than this ME FIRST theocracy the oligarch owned GOP is pushing our country towards.

https://www.house.gov/representatives

https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff fired back at Republicans on his committee, including disgraced former chair Devin Nunes, calling for his resignation during a hearing about Russia interference in the 2016 election. Lawrence: "You're going to want to see every word of the controlled, targeted, and building anger of the honorable Adam Schiff.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qKd9fDLku8
MSNBC | Published on Mar 28, 2019

2:42   Honorable Adam Schiff Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee:    

       “My colleagues may think it's okay that the Russians offered dirt on a Democratic candidate for president as part of what was described as the Russian government's effort to help the Trump campaign.  You might think that's okay.  (transcript continues)

Specter of Trump Fascism.

Seems to me this was a pretty decent summary of today's situation.

I got nothing to add.

Specter of Fascism: Cohen Says Trump Won’t Leave Peacefully in 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY7fEDpgO9o

The Real News Network

Published on Feb 27, 2019

Hearings reveal deepening systemic corruption, further degeneration of GOP, progressive members standout in questioning - Jacqueline Lukman, Henry Giroux and Carmen Russell-Sluchansky join Paul Jay 

Visit https://therealnews.com for more stories and help support our work by donating at https://therealnews.com/donate.

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Elijah Cummings' stunning closing remarks at Cohen hearing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72gy-LZ4UN0

CNN  |  Published on Feb 27, 2019

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) concluded the House Oversight Committee's questioning of President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen by delivering a call to "keep democracy in tact" and a return to normalcy in the political arena.

How Shakespeare Explains Trump - Stephen Greenblatt

I missed this when it first came out, ran across it the other day and it so perfectly summarizes our treacherous political situation and the man at the helm with his enablers and sycophants.  Want to understand the underlying reality of today's craziness here's a good place to start. Thus, I can't resist adding it to my little collection.

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Shakespeare Explains the 2016 Election

By Stephen Greenblatt  |  October 8, 2016

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opinion/sunday/shakespeare-explains-the-2016-election.html

In the early 1590s, Shakespeare sat down to write a play that addressed a problem: How could a great country wind up being governed by a sociopath? 

The problem was not England’s, where a woman of exceptional intelligence and stamina had been on the throne for more than 30 years, but it had long preoccupied thoughtful people. Why, the Bible brooded, was the kingdom of Judah governed by a succession of disastrous kings? How could the greatest empire in the world, ancient Roman historians asked themselves, have fallen into the hands of a Caligula? 

For his theatrical test case, Shakespeare chose an example closer to home: the brief, unhappy reign in 15th-century England of King Richard III. Richard, as Shakespeare conceived him, was inwardly tormented by insecurity and rage, the consequences of a miserable, unloved childhood and a twisted spine that made people recoil at the sight of him. Haunted by self-loathing and a sense of his own ugliness — he is repeatedly likened to a boar or rooting hog — he found refuge in a feeling of entitlement, blustering overconfidence, misogyny and a merciless penchant for bullying. 

From this psychopathology, the play suggests, emerged the character’s weird, obsessive determination to reach a goal that looked impossibly far off, a position for which he had no reasonable expectation, no proper qualification and absolutely no aptitude. ...

Keep reading at:  https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/opinion/sunday/shakespeare-explains-the-2016-election.html

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You may be wondering, who is Stephen Greenblatt PhD and what does he know?  Here are some informative links:

The John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities

https://english.fas.harvard.edu/people/stephen-greenblatt

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stephen-Greenblatt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Greenblatt

http://stephengreenblatt.com

A forensic engineer’s evaluation of Trump’s Border Wall’s fatal flaws. Amy Patrick

Nothing to add, the following tells it all.

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A forensic engineer’s evaluation of Trump’s Border Wall’s fatal flaws.

AMY PATRICK, M.S., P.E.   |   January 8 at 7:52 PM  

To recap: I’m a licensed structural and civil engineer with a MS in structural engineering from the top program in the nation and over a decade of experience on high-performance projects, and particularly of cleaning up design disasters where the factors weren’t properly accounted for, and I’m an adjunct professor of structural analysis and design at UH-Downtown. I have previously been deposed as an expert witness in matters regarding proper construction of walls and the various factors associated therein, and my testimony has passed Daubert.

Am I a wall expert? 

I am. I am literally a court-accepted expert on walls.

Structurally and civil engineering-wise, the border wall is not a feasible project. Trump did not hire engineers to design the thing. He solicited bids from contractors, not engineers. This means it’s not been designed by professionals. It’s a disaster of numerous types waiting to happen.

What disasters?

Off the top of my head...

1) It will mess with our ability to drain land in flash flooding. Anything impeding the ability of water to get where it needs to go (doesn’t matter if there are holes in the wall or whatever) is going to dramatically increase the risk of flooding.

2) Messes with all kind of stuff ecologically. For all other projects, we have to do an Environmental Site Assessment, which is arduous. They’re either planning to circumvent all this, or they haven’t accounted for it yet, because that’s part of the design process, and this thing hasn’t been designed.

3) The prototypes they came up with are nearly impossible to build or don’t actually do the job. This article explains more:

https://www.google.com/…/mobile.engineering.…/amp/17599.html

And so on.

The estimates provided for the cost are arrived at unreasonably. You can look for yourself at the two-year-old estimate that you see everyone citing.

http://fronterasdesk.org/…/Bernstein-%20The%20Trump%20Wall.…

It does not account for rework, complexities beyond the prototype design, factors to prevent flood and environmental hazard creation, engineering redesign... It’s going to be higher than $50bn. The contractors will hit the government with near CONSTANT change orders. “Cost overrun” will be the name of the game. It will not be completed in Trump’s lifetime.

I’m a structural forensicist, which means I’m called in when things go wrong. This is a project that WILL go wrong. When projects go wrong, the original estimates are just *obliterated*. And when that happens, good luck getting it fixed, because there aren’t that many forensicists out there to right the ship, particularly not that are willing to work on a border wall project— a large quotient of us are immigrants, and besides, we can’t afford to bid on jobs that are this political. We’re small firms, and we’re already busy, and we don’t gamble our reputations on political footballs. So you’d end up with a revolving door of contractors making a giant, uncoordinated muddle of things, and it’d generally be a mess. Good money after bad. The GAO agrees with me.

And it won’t be effective. I could, right now, purchase a 32 foot extension ladder and weld a cheap custom saddle for the top of the proposed wall so that I can get over it. I don’t know who they talked to about the wall design and its efficacy, but it sure as heck wasn’t anybody with any engineering imagination.

Another thing: we are not far from the day where inexpensive drones will be able to pick up and carry someone. This will happen in the next ten years, and it’s folly to think that the coyotes who ferry people over the border won’t purchase or create them. They’re low enough, quiet enough, and small enough to quickly zip people over any wall we could build undetected with our current monitoring setup.

Let’s have border security, by all means, but let’s be smart about it. This is not smart. It’s not effective. It’s NOT cheap. The returns will be diminishing as technology advances, too. This is a ridiculous idea that will never be successfully executed and, as such, would be a monumental waste of money. 

This is set to public. Have a blast sharing it.

AMY PATRICK, M.S., P.E.

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Why the Wall Won’t Work

By David Bier

This article appeared in the May 2017 issue of Reason.

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-wall-wont-work

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Trump's Border Wall Would Be a Disaster for Wildlife

Chris Clarke,  July 20, 2016

https://www.kcet.org/redefine/trumps-border-wall-would-be-a-disaster-for-wildlife

California's border with Baja California is a complex region with unique environmental issues. Our Borderlands series takes a deeper look at this region unified by shared landscapes and friendship, and divided by international politics.

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Trump's Wall Could Cause Serious Environmental Damage

By Erika Bolstad, E&E News on January 26, 2017

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trumps-wall-could-cause-serious-environmental-damage/

The effects of building a massive concrete wall range from increased emissions to blocked wildlife migration routes

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Trump’s wall: The inside story of how the president crafts immigration policy

By Ashley Parker ,David Nakamura and Philip Rucker | July 19, 2017

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-wall-the-inside-story-of-how-the-president-crafts-immigration-policy/2017/07/19/b11b8b94-68da-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html

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Beto explains the overlooked reason why Trump’s border wall makes no sense

You can't put a wall right next a major river like the Rio Grande.

JOE ROMM - DEC 29, 2018

https://thinkprogress.org/beto-viral-video-overlooked-debunk-trump-border-wall-government-shutdown-1b24b49edac6/

But that means the border would, as O’Rourke points out:

• “Block access to the Rio Grande River, the 4th longest river in North America”
• “Seize land from Americans through eminent domain”
• “Exile hundreds of thousands of acres of the U.S. to a no mans land between the river and the wall”
• “Seal off critical wildlife corridors” and
• “Destroy YOUR public lands.”

The problem is that the vast majority of the U.S.-Mexico border that does not already have a wall runs straight down the middle of 1,254 snaking miles of the Rio Grande River. So, as ThinkProgress reported in April 2017, ever-worsening, climate change-fueled floods greatly complicate any plausible design.

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President Trump Border Security Briefing

JANUARY 10, 2019 - C-SPAN

https://www.c-span.org/video/?456866-1/president-trump-tours-border-mcallen-texas

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Democrats' Response To President Trump's Oval Office Address | TIME

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAZhnn_bPPg

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offered a sharp rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s Oval Office address on the border wall Tuesday night.

Flashback, April 2018 stab at our dysfunctional dialogue, Colorado Democratic Assembly.

This is side two of the flier I handed out at the 2018 Colorado Democratic Assembly/Convention (side one).  I notice I've improved a bit in subsequent writings, but will leave this version as it was. (Oh and it looked nicer formatted in two columns, but its the substance that matters so hope this will do.)

A few thoughts regarding Climate Science and our dysfunctional public dialogue

I’ve spent a couple decades attempting to debate climate science contrarians.  This has given me insights into the faith-based mind in action and the games they employ to derail discussions. I’ve distilled my experiences into the following list of observations regarding our dysfunctional public dialogue.  It’s incomplete and improvable.  Still I hope it’s a useful effort, food for thought if nothing else. 

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Uncertainties vs. known Physical Certainties

Is it a disservice to constantly allow trivial uncertainties to become the focal point of the public discussion, to the exclusion of facing the known certainties.

In real life when we get overwhelmed and mired in increasingly complex problem, we stop.  Back off a little, get reoriented with the big picture and what we do know with reasonable certainty, then move forward again.  

I’m not saying ignore uncertainties!  But keep reminding all of the overriding fundamental certainties!   Thus putting those trivial pursuits into real world perspective.

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Map vs. Territory Problem

Scientists are Cartographers mapping out the geophysical realities of our planet, the Territory if you will.  They do the best they can with the data they have available.

Too often we assume that until our scientists can define all aspects with statistical certainty, we should assume it doesn’t exist.  That’s getting lost in the Map and forgetting we actually exist within the Territory and had better beware, (which incidentally, doesn’t care if we get it or not.) 

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Sloppy usage of “Natural Variability”

Intellectually Confronting Faith-Based thinking and Dogma Driven Tribalism.

I simply want to say hello and let folks know I'm still around.  A bit battered but knowing I gave it a pretty good shot.  Could have been better, but not stranded within this party of one, it is what it is.  Nowadays, besides being crowded by work and obligations, I'm drained by the enduring general apathy, not just towards what I've written, worse towards our Democratic principles of pluralism, enlightened self-interest, and rational constructive dialogue over demagogic  hate mongering and fantasy thinking.  

Watching our inept Senators at the Kavanaugh's hearing knocked me off my pins (as Stephen Schneider would have said).  I can't fathom their failure to seize the moment - then October 25th.  Hello, this stuff has lasting consequences!  The election campaigns seemed like the same tired old shit, with the same tire money pitches and nothing to really motivate, even Obama seemed more promise than substance.  

For now, I'm going to take a stroll down memory lane and collect what, for me, were important efforts to enunciate my position, starting with side one of the pamphlet I passed out at the 2018 Colorado Democratic Assembly and Convention. 

==============================================

(Originally posted April 13, 2018)

I'm at my fourth Colorado Democratic Assembly and I've always been a pamphleteer.  Not the easiest for a private shy sort of guy.  So I've been rather passive, offering my pages and ready for dialogue but not stepping forward to engage people.  Time passes, we learn more with every day and this year I've promised myself to step it up a little and reach out to people to introduce the topic and establish an interest before offering my flier. 

Had a little practice during the short district assembly this evening.  At first looking at the 350+ District 3 delegates it seemed the crowd of the usual old folks, and not that many young faces.  But, then I started spotting them.  Not in the numbers I had hoped.  Then I heard a couple powerful speeches by young speakers.  Followed by a few good conversations,
as in 'yippy, they get it.'  I realized their small number way under-represented the energy and substance and power they possess.

It was fun.  I'm feeling a little better already and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  Here's side one, a lifetime's distillation.  I'll share side two tomorrow, now I'm going to bed, it's late and tomorrow will be a long busy day.

The Memes Courier

    Colorado Democratic Assembly -  April 13, 2018  

      

Intellectually Confronting Faith-Based thinking and Dogma Driven Tribalism.

The opposing sides: Children of the Intellectual Enlightenment vs Faith-based dogmatism spearheaded by the evangelical movement (driven by wannabe oligarchs).  Winning at the polls is only half our challenge when well over a third of our country fully supports this amoral president and his white supremest bullying and his attacks upon our government and democratic institutions.  

Beyond winning in the 2018 elections, we need to nurture a massive grassroots movement of informed and engaged voters who are willing to confront faith-based delusional thinking on an individual level, while also standing behind those we elect to make sure they get their jobs done.

Faith-based thinking demands a rejection of serious science along with hostility towards learning from down to Earth evidence.  This attitude is enabled and reinforced by a constant flow of contrived high pitched fear-mongering and paranoid machinations towards “the other” be it different people or ideas.

Why have we allowed their religion and God a free pass?