Wondering on Wednesday 7/13/22

 

Ready... Set... Wonder!

So, we had another January 6th Committee hearing this week. I'd love to know if folks are still watching, or if everyone's over it by now? 

I'm not over it yet - not by a long shot, although I was multi-tasking a bit yesterday and missed the part about the "unhinged" meeting with Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, Mike "The Traitor" Flynn, and Patrick Byrne, the Overstock.com guy -who, according to something I read today, 'overstocked' on meatballs at the meeting. 

After watching replays today, I can't help wondering how much worse things would have been on January 6th if there hadn't have been any adults in the room on December 18th. 

Another thing I can't stop wondering about is if the Committee's going to do anything about the comments from Rep. Debbie Lasko (R- I Didn't Mean to Say I'd Kill My Grandkids). I don't think it was fully explained how the Committee got hold of the tape, but here's what Lasko said "on the eve of January 6th." 

I also asked leadership to come up with a safety plan for members. I'm actually very concerned about this because we have who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people coming here. We have Antifa. We also have, quite honestly, Trump supporters who actually believe that we are going to overturn the election. And when that doesn't happen, most likely will not happen, they are going to go nuts.

First, I'm wondering who Lasko spoke to. If I had to guess, I'd think it was Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Steve Scalise, and/or  Rep. Elise Stefanik - they're the top three Republican 'leaders' in the House; but what if it was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or anyone on her leadership team? 

Second, I'm wondering what response she got from whomever she spoke with, and whether the Committee's spoken with anyone involved in those conversations. 

And finally, I'm definitely wondering about her saying "most likely will not happen." Did she actually think there was a chance all of this nonsense would work??

Much of my wondering is centered on the horrific story about the ten-year-old Ohio girl who had to travel to Indiana to have an abortion because she was a few days too pregnant to get one at home; this was a hot topic  in last week's Sunday School. 

Since the story first hit the headlines, many have suggested it was a fake, something someone made up to get people all riled up for the primaries and the mid-term elections, or just riled up in general. Among the folks saying it was a made-up story? The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.

Here's a tweet with more information from the editorial. 

Reporters at the National Review questioned it. The Washington Post tried to fact-check it, and failed. 

And none other than Ohio's own Rep. Jim Jordan, who also controls the House Judiciary GOP Twitter account, determined it to be fake. Jordan's comment is below. 

I wonder how shocking it must have been for them to find out that, this morning, a man was charged for raping the little girl? And I wonder, too, what would have happened if the media had identified the girl or found our where she lived? Would they have staked out her home? Attacked any males in the house as potential rapists?  Would they have followed her to Indiana? 

I also find myself wondering if we've become so jaded by things like the Jussie Smollett case, and fake Go Fund Me accounts and all the rest, that the first thought when something horrible is reported is that it's not true? 

And if that's the case, I wonder how we recover from that level of distrust?

What are you wondering about tonight?

Sunday School 6/6/21: Extra Credit

Let's dive in to the Extra Credit with Chuck Todd and his interviews with Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) on Meet the Press. Warner was first, and was asked about cybersecurity. To a large degree, he echoed the thoughts of Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who was featured in yesterday's Sunday School. And so did Blunt - there wasn't a lot new there. 

The conversation around Blunt's opposition to a January 6th commission was interesting. He said he was never in the "I'll support it if it's bipartisan" crowd; rather, he felt that "we know what we need to do here" and that a commission would slow that effort down. There's a two-committee bipartisan report coming out next week, and, "we, I think, are going to be happy - I think you're going to be really pleased with the report you see." 

Blunt is "concerned we're losing faith in the election system" and "it's important to have a bipartisan belief that the election system does what it's supposed to do," and he was "pleased to see" that Sen. Joe Manchin (??-WV) also thinks "we need to move forward on election reforms."

Blunt said he "really can't analyze" whether Former Guy believes the nonsense he spews, but says that he had the right to take it to court. The courts didn't buy the argument, 

and so, we moved forward, and we continue to move forward. I do think President Trump is an incredibly popular figure in our party, certainly a political figure in my state. I'd like to see him get focused on the 2022 elections. There are plenty of things for Republicans to be talking about besides the election process itself...

Boy, if this is how the Rs define moving forward, we're in a boatload of trouble if they regain the majorities in the midterms.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on Face the Nation with John Dickerson; cybersecurity came up there as well. She sees the international community pulling together to address the issue, including asking countries like Russia to provide intelligence and law enforcement support. It's a test, she says, to see how involved the governments might be with the criminals perpetrating the attacks.

On the insurrection and a commission, she says we "somehow need to look into" what happened, that "it was a terrible stain on our democracy," and that our "really terrific system...was tested on that day."

... And so, we have a tradition of these citizens, these elders, if you will, of the country to help us through times like this. The problem right now is there isn't enough trust in Washington to get this done in a way that everybody will- will trust the process. We do need to know what happened on January 6.

Dickerson pushed back, pointing out that the Rs blocked the commission. Rice said the problem is, there's not enough trust in Congress,

because we have constant discussions about how am I going to simply push you aside and do what I want to do. So let's just recognize that we are not in 2004 when the 9/11 Commission was constituted and worked and try to find a way to get to a set of answers about what happened on- on January 6th. I would prefer that this were not the case, but maybe we have to think about ways to do this outside of our electoral bodies.

And on how we teach American history, including the Tulsa Massacre, and the things that led to the civil rights movement, and yes, also American exceptionalism, Rice started her answer with this:

American history was in part shaped at its very beginning by this birth defect of slavery. Do I wish that the anti-slave forces had won out? Absolutely. But they didn't. And then we had after the Emancipation, we had a Reconstruction which gave way to Jim Crow.

She said she was eight before her family could go to a restaurant or to the movies, and she was 12 before she ever had a white classmate. 

So, yes, I know America's troubled past and that troubled past continues to have an impact going forward on how we see each other. When I hear the talk about structural racism, it really gives me pause and it gives me pause because it doesn't tell me what to do.

She's talking about things like medical outcomes for people of color vs. whites, which she said "clearly are still disproportionate." And how our education system "is really serving poor kids and minority kids very badly." And how minorities and the poor don't have the choice to move to a better district, with a better house, or go to private schools like people of means can.

I want kids to know about Tulsa. I also want them to know what that Black community did to overcome that horrible massacre. I want them to know about '63 in Birmingham, but I want them to know that the mayor of Birmingham today is a Black man who grew up in a poor community. So I want them to see the forward progress of America as well on these issues. And I want us as a country to do it together because I don't want this to be black against white, my weaponization of my identity against yours.  

Dickerson asked for clarification on structural racism, asking if it's "not that it doesn't exist, but that the term itself doesn't get you as far as you would like?" She said she's stopped using the term "because I don't know what it means anymore," and that it's become a barrier.

Do I think that there are impacts of race that are clear in American life? Absolutely. But, you know, the other problem with it is it sounds so big and impenetrable, as if we have to jettison the system somehow. And with all of its problems, having been all over the world and having seen how people deal with difference, I will tell you that America deals with difference better than any country I've ever visited. 

And that's at least the third time in a past couple of weeks that I've seen someone say that we're better than the rest of the world when it comes to this kind of stuff. And yet, I can't imagine Condi Rice saying that 'being better than some really awful people' is good enough for America - can you? 

See you around campus. And, by the way, I hope you're vaccinated.

Sunday School 6/6/21

And, we're back at it, plodding our way through the Sunday Shows. 

Let's start with John Dickerson and his chat with Sen. Joe Manchin (D, kinda - WV) on Face the Nation. Dickerson wasted no time, starting out by saying Dems, including President Biden, think Manchin is "standing in the way" of their agenda. Manchin disagreed, noting that everyone knows he's "always tried to work in a bipartisan way" and he said "Let's unite this country. We don't need to be divided any further."

To that end, he doesn't want Dems to go it alone, even if others in his party think Manchin is "basically putting all the negotiating leverage in the hands of" the ten Rs Biden needs to get past the filibuster. Rather, he says, they must "work within the framework," adding

There's been seven brave Republicans that have spoken out. They have voted, whether it be impeachment or the wrongdoings of the president, whether it be for a commission. We have to continue to keep striving to make sure that we can get to that ten. And that's why we're called the deliberate body. We keep working towards that goal. 

In the business world, we had 'analysis paralysis' getting in the way, and in the Manchin world, we have 'prohibitive deliberative' thinking getting in the way. Take voting rights.

Manchin said the For the People Act is way too big and has too much stuff in it that the Rs will never go along with. On the other hand, he said it's appropriate to work on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which he thinks "truly does protect the voting rights." It's good, but needs to be more bipartisan, and with Rs like Alaska's Sen. Lisa Murkowski on board, deliberating will make it better and something the Rs can vote for, too. 

Dickerson wondered, as do all the rest of us, why on earth the Rs would go along with anything that endangers the successes they've had at the state level implementing restrictive voting bills. 

Well, because, you see, it's like this.

John, they achieved what they've achieved before they won - thinking they had to make changes. Why in the world would they want to make changes that basically subvert- because I can tell you what goes around, comes around. It could be more damaging to them too. The bottom line is the fundamental purpose of- of our democracy is the freedom of our elections. If we can't come to an agreement on that, God help us, John. And someone's got to fight for this. And we've got to say, listen, the divided country that we're in today, the insurrection that we saw on January the 6th, if we don't try to heal that, if we don't make every effort and go beyond the call of duty, then what are we and who are we? We've been known to go around the world and promote democracy and observe other elections. What kind of credibility do you think we have in doing that today? So, I'm going to fight for this and I think the Republicans will fight for this and understand we must come together on a voting rights bill in a bipartisan way. You can't divide our country further by thinking you've given leeway to one or the other. 

Is it me, or is Manchin the Senate's Nero, fiddling around the margins of bipartisanship, while watching the "fundamental purpose of our democracy" go up in flames?

Down the hall in the CNN State of the Union classroom, Jake Tapper talked with Maine Senator Angus King, who's an Independent but maybe more a Dem than Manchin. King is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and he's also co-chair of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.

King thinks "we have been a cheap date" over the past decade or two, because we haven't really responded strongly to cyber attacks. Our adversaries need to know that "they will pay a price, there will be a cost" for attacking the US or our infrastructure, but "thus far, they haven't really felt that." And, he cautioned, "We keep getting wakeup calls, and we keep not waking up." The problem? Most of the risk - "85% or 90% of the target space," is in the private sector.

...  If one person at one desktop in the operations center of a pipeline system bites on a phishing e-mail or opens an attachment they shouldn't, then we're sunk. So, it's -- this is a -- it's a cliché to say all of government, but this is all of everybody has got to be in on this.

There may be a need for legislation to move things along. He says "we need essentially an entirely new relationship" between the feds and the private sector, even as he admits that talking about "the 'relationship between private sector and federal government' is an is kind of an oxymoron." Somehow, we must build trust.

Speaking of trust, King understands Biden's desire to have a "decent" relationship with Putin and Russia. That said, he's pretty sure they'll talk about cyber when they get together in ten days. And, we need them to crack down on bad guys within their borders, just as we would if "we had an international bank robbery outfit in Richmond, Virginia, that was robbing banks in Europe..." we'd be all over that, and he's right.

This interview, too, steered toward voting rights. King's been working on the For the People Act; it's in the Rules Committee, where he's a member. Tapper mentioned Sen. Manchin's lack of support, as well concerns of other Dems, both in the Senate and at the state level, that the bill goes too far. King agrees; he's made Schumer and Sen. Amy Klobuchar aware that there "are clearly some things" he thinks need to be negotiated.

 -- but the guts of it, Jake, is voting rights. It has a lot of other pieces. It has -- for example, it has public financing of elections. It has a lot of other pieces in it. But the important part for me is protecting voting rights. And I think that's becoming more urgent by the day, based upon what's going on around in the states.

King realizes, even if other people aren't talking about it as much, that changes that would allow a state legislature to "essentially overturn the results of an election" are extremely important. 

Remember, Raffensperger stood up in Georgia and said, no, we have certified these elections, the governor certified them. We're worried that -- or I'm worried that they're going to turn that over and say, OK, a Republican legislature can say, we think there was fraud in Fulton County, and, therefore, we're going to certify a different set of electors. That's really dangerous. 

Finally, Tapper asked him whether he believes the Republicans "negotiate in good faith or are just obstructionists. What are they doing today? Are they negotiating in good faith? Do you support eliminating the filibuster?" I love his answer:  "Well, it's kind of schizophrenic."

He pointed to some things that are being done in a bipartisan manner, such as a bill designed to "help us compete with China." He said those negotiations have been completely bipartisan, and while it stalled before the Memorial Day break, he's hopeful they can get it finalized.

But I was thinking about that bill... If the bill had had Joe Biden's name on it, we wouldn't even be talking about it, I don't think. I mean, it's -- that's sort of where we have gotten this.

The bill he's working on started with a conversation between Schumer and Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), and is working "through regular order" with committees and amendments and whatnot.

But then, on other areas, it's been -- as you say, it's been pretty well stalled. I think the infrastructure bill is a good test, because, listen, there's not a lot of policy there. This is just numbers. It's helping the country. And we ought to be able to find a resolution on that. If we can't, that spells trouble. 

And is King ready to scrap the filibuster? 

Not in general. I'm very reluctant about it. But if it comes down to voting rights and the rights of Americans to go to the -- go to the polls and select their leaders vs. the filibuster, I will choose democracy.

That's where we're going to leave it. I'll have Condi Rice and maybe a couple more senators in tomorrow's Extra Credit. 

See you around campus. 

TGIF? Not Tonight

I had ideas for tonight's TGIF post -- thoughts I had scribbled yesterday, last night, this morning. And then, of course, the news came of yet another mass shooting, more people murdered at a school, by  someone known to those who died, or at least known to the school community.

The shooter is alive, his supposed dreams of shooting up the school and then committing suicide, dashed. Whether it was a lack of courage, or strong convincing by law enforcement or pure luck, he's alive, and ten others are dead.

And we add another name to the list, we add the name Santa Fe High School to the list, just above or just below the name Marjory Stoneman Douglas, depending on how you track these horrific incidents - chronological order? Most recent to longest ago? Updating the list, again, already, less than 100 days after the last name was added. 

I'm not going to argue guns, or mental health, or how many doors a school should have, or whether a law enforcement officer doing his or her job is a hero, or whether a bully made him do it.

I'm not going to worry about whether he wore a trench coat when it was 90 degrees out, or whether he really thought he was Born to Kill like the t-shirt he posted on social media.

Do we want to understand why people do this? Sure, I guess. Maybe the insight will be helpful.

Do we want to know if anyone missed any red flags? Sure, I guess. Maybe it will make people feel better to blame someone for not stopping it, like they blamed everyone and their brother for not finding the shooter, for not reading the signs, for not entering the building, for for for whatever was or wasn't done in Parkland to prevent that one from happening.

Do we want to know how he got hold of the guns, his father's legally purchased guns?  Sure, I guess that would be helpful too, and maybe we'd learn something about... something (treading lightly here, about parents and kids and stuff).

Do we want to know what it feels like to be a student or teacher or school employee at Santa Fe, or to be the parent of one of the above? No, not really - not that I'm unfeeling or uncaring, but that the last thing I want for them is the media in their face, in their anguish, in their sorrow, in the grief, and yes, in their quiet joy if they are among the fortunate ones, loved ones still whole, still hugs to give and get, still I love yous to be spoken, to be heard.

We grieve for the terrible loss of life, and send our support and love to everyone affected by this horrible attack in Texas. To the students, families and personnel at Santa Fe High School - we are with you in this tragic hour, and we will be with you forever.

Four hours later the Griever in Chief had moved on to America being a nation of redemption and believing in second chances and that the best is yet to come (ironic for this town, this school, these families), and then to Making the United Nations Great Again (I kid you not), yet another insult to our friends, allies, the world - but then it was California's governor and 250 years of clean coal and energy dominance and we are officially -  just like that - very far removed from grieving or thoughts and prayers. The flags are at half staff already.  Did that, moving on.

Forever seems like such a short time, doesn't it?

Fighting Back Against a Hack Attack

Another day, another announcement that some major US institution of the retail, insurance, entertainment or governmental variety has been hacked.

Usually, by the time we hear about it, the security breach is over and the perpetrators are not resting on their laurels but instead, deep into planning their next foray into everything we hold sacred: our social security numbers, birth dates, naked selfies, financial information, emails, and, at least in my case, the fact that I love Chocolate Silk (that's coffee, not a lingerie preference or anything like that).

The latest one, an attack on the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that apparently happened last December and was only discovered this April, is said to have been initiated by China, and comes on the heels of Russia sticking its official nose into emails at the State Department and the White House. (We haven't heard of any emails on Hillary Clinton's personal server being compromised; I wonder who handles her data security?)

As I've noted in the past, I've been hit in at least two of these things. Somehow I seem to have missed out on the Home Depot breach which is surprising given how often we shopped there, and the rest of my transactions seem to have been fairly well protected. As far as I know, anyway.

While our government and other targets have been quick to identify who the perps are, and confidently point to Russia, China and of course North Korea on the infamous SONY breach, we don't seem to be even half as adept at preventing the darn things from happening in the first place.

And of course, we have no idea how the information that's been compromised will be used, or even if it will ever be used.

Cyber attacks, like any other kind of terrorism, are successful even if the information never sees the light of day, because what's compromised for all who get caught up in this is our feeling of security, of safety, and the fact that, no matter what, some troll in a basement, dormitory, or sweatshop hack factory in a foreign land can nose around in our electronic underwear drawer almost at will and we, sitting in the greatest country in the world, are helpless to prevent it.

But then, are we realty helpless?  Really helpless?  Or, are we merely convinced we're helpless because we are portrayed as such by friend and foe alike?

What if we, as consumers and employees and dammit as Americans just stepped away from our laptops and notebooks, our smart phones and app-laden watches, our microchips and hi-tech glasses, and coerced our driverless cars to take to the shoulder, and we all pulled a 'Network'?

I mean, if we all went Peter Finch on every website we do business with, and we demanded our employers took better care of our data, and we required our insurance companies and financial institutions to prove they cared about us and our personal information as much as they say they do, could it make a difference?

Or, if that won't work, what if we stopped doing business electronically, and decided our financial security, our personal security, the names and birth dates of our pets and children, the make and model of our first car or our elementary school best friend's name, or any special phone number we remember from childhood were actually important to us?

What if we decided that it was worth it to carry cash and actually pay for stuff the old fashioned way, where you all had to know to protect yourself from getting ripped off was how to count change?  

What if we conscientiously made the choice that instead of shopping at big retailers, we would search out and patronize local stores and yes, paid more for the privilege of becoming known to the shop owners? If they know that I'm me because I shop there all the time, there's not much chance that you're going to pull off a switcheroo, even if you're a rat bastard and physically have my credit card in your hand.

Or, finally, here's perhaps an only slightly more ridiculous idea: from now on, I'm only doing business with folks who encrypt their data in a random, ever-changing combination of baby talk, late 70's jive, and Navajo.

Are you with me?

My Middle-Aged White Lady Perspective: Victim Blaming

I'm going to step into another fray, I'm sure, but that's OK.  Tonight, instead of politics, let's talk about political correctness. Specifically the kind that relates to bad things that most often happen to young women, and what we are or are not allowed to say about those bad things to young women.

Date rape and sexual assault, with or without intentional ingestion of alcohol or drugs. Sexting. Revenge porn.  Nude photos shared without permission. There are probably more but these are the most frequent situations that I see where what was once known as sage advice has now become victim blaming.

• Example: suggesting to young women that the biggest thing they can do to protect themselves is to not get drunk at a party, or certainly that they not get so drunk as to not know what's going on.
• Example: suggesting to young women - even tweens -- that they should not take sexually explicit pictures of themselves. And they should not send any such pictures, should they fail to listen to the first part. To anyone. Even friends. Even the cute kid in study hall. Never to the cute kid in study hall. 
• Example: suggesting that, if you're old enough to make your own decisions (or if you have no advisers helping you make good decisions, or if you have bad advisers helping you), you shouldn't put nude or semi-nude or explicit pictures into photo-storing websites, even ones run by reputable companies.
• Example: suggesting that you don't walk home alone at night, or take shortcuts down dark alleys, or do any of the other things we know are stupid when we see them on scary movies. 

I'm not sure how we got to the point where this kind of advice, the kind that caring parents readily gave their daughters, from an early age, is now considered to be victim-blaming.  From my middle-aged white lady perspective, it would be neglectful at the very least if parents - mom and dad, two moms, two dads, doesn't matter - didn't have these heartfelt conversations with their daughters, regularly.

I heard my generation's version of this, in elementary school and high school, the message increasing in specificity as I got older. I heard it at college, where we were all given rape whistles as part of our welcome kits. I heard it at work, about not walking to the parking lot alone. I heard it from friends when we were out, about not ditching the group and leaving with someone. I heard it from my older brothers, about not being stupid. And when I didn't listen and was stupid, my friends got on my case, as I got on theirs when they were stupid. Because we knew that we were our own best defense, and we weren't afraid to remind each other of that.  

In the modern world, when date rape, sexual assault, sexting gone wrong, revenge porn, or hacking of personal photos happen, and perpetrators are identified, they go through the system and are punished if found guilty. The victims, they are punished no matter what. 

In an ideal world, though, these things wouldn't happen at all, because personal privacy and boundaries would be respected, and no one would think it was reasonable to forcibly take things that did not belong to them, or things that were not offered freely and clearly without chemical interference, and so on. And there wouldn't be a need to remind young women to protect themselves, to be their own best defense. 

But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a world where these kinds of acts are all too common, and where real victim-blaming occurs in the name of finding justice. Where paparazzi are ever more boldy going where no man has gone before to snap the 'gotcha' shot of a lifetime. Where careers are built on leaked sex tapes. 

Where men, feeling guilty about looking at stolen pictures of breasts, buttocks and vaginas, assuage their guilt by trying to donate money to a prostate cancer charity (always being true to their school, if you will), and where we learned today, stars and wannabe stars under the age of 18 have had nude photos stolen, potentially subjecting countless voyeurs to child pornography charges.  (The charity rejected the money, by the way; and there are lots of scared boys and men out there trying to delete the pictures they downloaded before they get in real trouble).

Protect yourself. The best thing you can do is control your own destiny as much as possible, because no one else is going to do that for you. 

That's not blaming. That's good advice.