GOP Support for Donald is Dropping

In the most current SurveyMonkey poll, less than half (49%) of self-identified Republicans strongly approve of Donald's performance, down from a peak of 67%. His total approval rate among Republicans is down to 85% from a high of 92% in the first week following Donald's inauguration.

The focus on Republicans who strongly support Donald is a means of tracking GOP enthusiasm in a period of time where party loyalty is highly valued. In other words, they will, without question, support the GOP, but might not be willing to take the time to go to the polling booth or volunteer to get out the vote.

Separately, Rasmussen's daily tracking poll is the first major poll to show Donald's disapproval rate at 61%. If a Republican-leaning pollster says the number is 61%, the real number might be higher.

Heatwave in the Northwest

I don't watch the news much -- shock! -- so when I saw this in my Weather Underground forecast, I was taken aback. Four days in the 100s, with another five in the 90s?!?

Heatwave, bruh!

I feel hot already. We need some appropriate music from the best decade for music -- the 80s.



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and finally

5 Thoughts for July 30, 2017

1. CSRs and Risk Corridor: Distilling the most critical problems of the ACA comes down to the funding of these two programs. Both were written into the ACA, but neither had explicit funding requirements. Republicans blocked risk corridor funding and both Republicans are Donald are threatening to cut off CSR funds. You don't really need to understand either program to understand the effects of GOP actions to block them. The real life consequences of blocking these two programs are observable through Tennessee and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee. Following three years of an underfunded risk corridor, BCBST lost $400M. They decided to pull back their geographic coverage following year 3 of the risk corridor program, in order to recover their reserves. For 2018, BCBST is raising rates 21% on average across Tennessee, 14% of which is directly attributable to the uncertainty of being reimbursed for CSRs. Just so you know who to blame and why.
2. Gender: Imagine if you will, a law that stated that marriage was between one man and one woman. Now, imagine a male-female couple getting married but the male was, in fact, a postoperative female and the female was, in fact, a postoperative male. That's perfectly acceptable, right? Or? What? A biological violation? The marriage is perfectly acceptable biologically. Nothing prevents this couple from marrying. What happens if science allows people get to reset the gender of a child at the post-embryonic stage? What if that child grows up to reselect the choice of his/her parents? The point of all this is, we're way too concerned about gender, rather than individual lives; we would rather dispute the gender of someone than to accept their life as intrinsically valuable.
3. Vote Hacking: It is pure fantasy to believe that elections cannot be hacked or that voter rolls are secure. Ohio's voter rolls are not secured; they're obscured but readily accessible to anyone on the internet without zero hacking. You can find full lists of people, their addresses, which elections they voted in, their party registration, age, etc. It is no surprise that they're being sold on the dark web. Last year, they didn't even obscure their voter rolls -- but obscurity is not security. This year's DefCon included a vote-hacking village featuring a variety of voting and voter registration machines. This video breaks down what happened and it's rather sad. But the worst part about all this is the paradox that requires people to leave visible trails of vote hacking before anyone takes the threat seriously, meaning, so long as you do it quietly and without leaving tracks behind, you're free to hack elections in the US all you want.
4. Pussy Riot: Huh. I think they're more popular in the US than in her native Russia, and isn't it just a tad weird how Nadya is giving us advice on how to deal with Donald? But what's even worse is that she's spot on! We need more humans like her on this planet.
   
   
   
   
5. Plastic Bag Ban: This screengrab from the livestream of a monk seal and pup just outside of Waikiki shows why we need to spread the ban on grocery plastic bags. How would you feel if that was your grocery plastic bag in the ocean and it ended up choking this pup to death?
   
   
   

5 Thoughts for July 29, 2017

1. Pokemon Legendaries IRL: In real life, there's just no way people will grab the Legendary Pokemon from a raid. The number of people needed to beat a Legendary is impractical for most cities, even in urban centers. Two classes of players benefit IRL from the release of Legendary Pokemon -- those who attended the Chicago festival and cheaters who spoof their location. As most people have come to realize, Niantic isn't exactly responsive to reports of cheaters.
2. Speaking of Niantic: Some of those folks who attended the Pokemon Festival in Chicago are suing Niantic to recover flight and hotel costs after experiencing massive problems playing Pokemon Go during the festival. I understand their frustration and anger -- there is a reason why I don't do raids and it has to do with connectivity issues and random shutdowns owing to overheating from excessive CPU use. But they got their entrance fees refunded and $100 in Pokecoins, plus, they were basically given free Legendary Pokemons.
3. Football Season and CTE: Football season is rapidly approaching, but just as fall practice began, researchers released a study showing how CTE is a serious problem for football players, especially NFL players. Head-banging, it seems, is not a good thing. Yet, when I was in elementary school, I whacked my head so hard on the jungle gym, it left a permanent bump. See? I'm living proof that hitting your head dsadut afgrhIrti t eoyja ad. But seriously, as the football season starts up, I'm having trouble resolving my cognitive dissonance between my love of the sport and the inherent dangers of the sport. I have no answers other than to continue to beg and plea that refs take the issue seriously and flag every player who hits another player's head or uses their head to tackle another. The intellectually honest resolution is to ditch the sport but I can't bring myself to that point just yet.
4. Electric Cars: If I owned a house, such that I could install a fast-charge outlet, I would buy a used electric car, specifically, the Chevy Spark EV. Except for Teslas, all other electric vehicles lose half of their value (in large part because of the large federal tax credit) after a couple of years, which is a great deal for used buyers. While the range of the Spark EV is just over 80 miles on a charge, that's more than I drive in a week. With the recent release of the Chevy Bolt, I'm hopeful that in a couple of years used Bolts will be available for roughly $15~16K.
5. Solar Eclipse Viewers: In the past 30 years, they're made from mylar. Before then, people used B/W film negatives that were fully exposed to light and then processed, leaving a uniform coating of silver particles on it. People don't understand how ridiculously overpriced those "solar eclipse glasses" are. All you need is an emergency mylar blanket (which can be cut up into smaller pieces), some glue, and some scrap cardboard. Okay, I know, you don't believe me. So here's a 20-year-old post from NASA, describing these two methods.

This Chart Explains Life.

It turns out, this chart also represents how American parents think about bullying:

• 72% say that bullies are bad;
• 17% insist that other kids ought to toughen up and quit whining;
• 11% believe their kids couldn't possibly bully others.

/S

Donald's Descent.

Donald's administration is failing, badly. I can't tell you how or when he'll be removed, but there's no way he makes it to the midterms.

• Donald continues to lose cred and leverage. 
• His generals are signaling their displeasure with him.
• Republican senators are in open defiance.
• His staff continues to leak in full resistance to his demands and threats.
• His staff doesn't stick around for very long.
• The more he demands loyalty, the less he gets.
• Everything he touches dies.

Hell, he doesn't even know what he's doing half the time. A journalist -- NYT's Maggie Haberman -- admonished people who think that Donald doesn't have a plan. That's not really the issue, though. The lemon juice bandit had a plan, too, after all.

I always rail on Rasmussen for leaning heavily Republican in its polls. Even Rasmussen is showing really bad numbers for Donald. On January 26, his approval number peaked at 59%. On July 27, his disapproval number hit a new record, 59%.

We move one step closer every day to Donald's removal, folks.

49 - 51 Skinny is Dead

After much drama, the final option left on the table --  the McConnell Skinny Bill -- was defeated, 49 - 51.

McCain joined Collins and Murkowski, along with every Democrat, to vote down McConnell's last-gasp plan to pass a purely partisan plan.

McConnell immediately signaled defeat by moving to new business, killing this weird process to rush a health insurance reform bill through reconciliation.

Now, Democrats have real leverage to create a bipartisan plan. That's weird, right? They should have had the leverage the moment nearly every medical-related industry group came out against the GOP efforts. Nevertheless, Republicans persisted. And failed.

5 Thoughts for July 26, 2017

1. Autonomous Driving: If an unoccupied vehicle can drive itself to an assigned address at a designated time, most households would only need, at most, one vehicle. Realistically, most people could ditch personal vehicles and join a cooperative. In this scenario, you'd simply plug your reservation into a calendar and a fleet vehicle would arrive just prior to your desired time. You wouldn't park, either. You'd drop yourself off at the front entrance then the vehicle would drive itself to the next appointment.
2. Pokemon Go Festival Aftermath: From what I've read, the Pokemon Go Festival in Chicago had huge problems with access to the game as a result of -- shock -- connectivity and server issues. One result has been that Niantic decided to extend, the worldwide celebration, twice, to Thursday. During this time, players have been able to earn 2X XP, stardust, and candies; eggs are hatching at an accelerated rate as are earning candies from walking; Pokemon are sprouting up everywhere at somewhere between 2x and 3x the frequency. Just about everyone I see in gyms have jumped a level as a result. I'm doing well, but I'm not going crazy.
3. NK: It seems like we, Americans, are constantly worried about North Korean missiles reaching the US. It's kind of a moot issue. Even as NK has caused trouble and mayhem over the decades since the cease fire, they haven't launched even so much as a small-scale attack. Our fears are what drives military confrontations and accidental wars. Having a Dummy in Chief makes it all the more disconcerting that we're about to go to war with NK will casualties in the millions.
4. Donald, Tweeter: There's been a huge shift in the White House that has gone unnoticed. Since last  Friday, Donald's been averaging over 9 tweets a day; he's never done this before. They're no longer limited to early morning hours, either; he's now tweeting at all times of the day. Does he actually do any work between his tweeting and golfing?
5. Donald the Idiot Investor: Back on August 2, 2016, Donald claimed to have sold all of his stocks in June -- a weird coincidence (or evidence of complicity) with Don Jr.'s meeting with the Russians, don't you think? At the time, he claimed that it was good timing. It wasn't. Between the end of June and August 2, the DJI had gained an additional 2%. Had he held his stocks until inauguration day, he would have gained 13.9%. Had he handed over his stocks to a blind trust, he would have gained 24.7% up to today's closing price.

5 Thoughts on Motion to Proceed on Debate.

1. John McCain's Do as I Say, Not as I Do: In his speech to the Senate, he implored that they return to regular order and bipartisanship. Minutes later, he voted along party lines to proceed with reconciliation which is not regular order. Go figure.
2. Senate Parliamentarian's Rule: The Senate Parliamentarian just added more woes to Republican plans to avoid regular order and 60 votes, by ruling that the portion allowing insurers to charge older people 5x more than younger people will be disallowed (under the Byrd Rule). She also ruled that the plan to allow small businesses to create associations and provide insurance across state lines will be disallowed.
3. Repeal & Replace is Dead, Long Live Skinny Order?: As a result of the Senate Parliamentarian's rulings, Repeal & Replace is dead. Thus, Mitch McConnell hatched the idea to start from scratch with a barebones bill and allow amendments to be debated and voted on. The result will most likely resemble a Repeal & Replace bill sans those portions disallowed by the parliamentarian.
4. Best Democratic Play: The standard playbook is to offer up hundreds of amendments to slow down the process, requiring either McConnell to cut short debate, put off recess, or go to recess without a vote. I think there's a better tactic. Republicans hate Planned Parenthood, birth control, and Medicaid. By opening up debate on amendments on the Senate floor, Democrats and moderate Republicans will be able to introduce explicit protections of Medicaid and birth control, and implied protections for Planned Parenthood. With all Democrats and the handful of moderate Republicans on board, they could get these provisions passed. These are poison pills. Conservative Republicans will not vote for a Skinny Order that explicitly protect Medicaid and birth control, and implied protections of Planned Parenthood.
5. It's a Mistake!: As I mentioned previously, attempting to appease their base is not the smart move. This is a deeply unpopular idea (Repeal & Replace) -- much more unpopular than the AHCA/ACA, back in 2009 and 2010 when Democrats pushed forward -- even with their own voters. Oh well, let them step on their own toes.

Best Pancake Recipe

I don't really do recipes so much as I eyeball stuff while figuring things out.

My dog loves pancakes but wheat flour seems to disagree with him. The choice is, either he gets a tiny amount of wheat flour pancakes or I end up cleaning up what I refer to as liquid nightmares. I don't know the science behind his body's rejection of wheat flour, but it definitely exists.

So then, I found a couple of viable substitutes: pea flour (chickpea) and sweet rice flour (mochiko).

Roughly speaking, this is the eyeball recipe.

Mixed together
1 egg
1/4 cup of half-n-half
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

Add as much sweet rice flour to thicken to the consistency needed.

That's it.

I even use this same recipe for muffins, with the exception of slightly more sugar and the addition of some melted butter.

Totally awesome.

One More Thing About 2018

If you didn't watch Rachel Maddow on Monday night, this one graphic explains everything you need to know about 2018.

Republicans really don't get it. They're still under the false impression that all they need to do is maintain their base. That's not even remotely true at the moment.

Of the 30 states which Donald won, 11 of them currently have a net negative view (total approval minus total disapproval) of him, according to Gallup. Six months in and he's already lost 1/3rd of the states he'd won!

Donald's Approval Numbers are Worse Than You Think

Okay, you've heard this story over a hundred times -- nearly every day -- that Donald's approval numbers are bad, but this map of Gallup's January - June daily approval tracking numbers shows that not a single state holds an approval number higher than 60%. We're talking the reddest of red states.

That's astonishing, but you need something to compare it to, to make sense of all this, right? Back in 2009, President Obama had a 60%+ approval rating in 13 states plus DC. Obama's worst disapproval rating was 46%, Idaho. In 2017, there are 33 states with a 46% or higher disapproval rating of Donald.

That's pretty bad, but I can show you, in starker terms, two charts that illustrate just how disparate Obama in 2009 is from Trump in 2017.

In 2009 Obama was underwater in just two states -- Idaho and Wyoming. In 2017, Trump is undewater in 31 states.

It is absolutely true that Donald could make a comeback and soar in popularity.












Just kidding.

He can't stop being who he is. The majority of Americans who voted in 2016 did not support him in the first place and he hasn't ever pivoted (nor can he in the first place).

Donald's destroying the GOP nationally and neither he nor the GOP has truly understood how deep in trouble they are. They think that they merely need to keep their base support. Untrue.

More Musings on Self-Pardons

Until it is tested and reviewed by SCOTUS, there really is no definitive answer to whether or not POTUS can self-pardon. The primary argument that he may have the right to self-pardon lies in the absence of explicit instructions in the US Constitution.

Article II, Section 2
The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

Vox covers the range of expert opinions on the matter, while Lawrence Tribe, Richard Painter and Norm Eisen expand on some of the issues.

In general, there are two concepts why POTUS cannot self-pardon:

1. Justice is a concept that holds a fundamental understanding that a person cannot be the judge in his own case. Self-pardoning, firstly, is a determinative statement of a criminal violation, for which, secondly, one is absolved from.
2. Additionally, Justice also denotes the fundamental belief that no one is above the law. Without a means to a court trial, a self-pardon would place one above the law in absolute terms.

Almost all arguments against self-pardoning can be filtered down into those two concepts. There are other issues that should be considered.

• Simply invoking a self-pardon does not flip a switch. People must be willing to recognize that power and abide by it. 
• Invoking a self-pardon could trigger an immediate response to impeach. Upon removal from office, POTUS could be prosecuted at the state level for state crimes -- things that cannot be pardoned at the federal level.
• Were POTUS to temporarily transfer power to VPOTUS, VPOTUS could, as Executive, pardon POTUS, then transfer power back. Upon doing so, POTUS would then pardon VPOTUS for potential Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice. That would surely result in the co-impeachment of POTUS and VPOTUS, but impeachment is a political process and one that Republicans cannot be counted on supporting against two of their own.

For some people, this might be a scary time. To me, this is a fascinating time to be alive and to witness historically important events that will shape the future of this country for a very long time. Also, there is no escaping the inevitability of infamy attached to the name, Trump. I'm loving it.

Repeal & Replace is Dead

Today, the Senate parliamentarian issued a ruling on portions of Repeal & Replace that would require 60 votes to pass, else stricken from the bill. These provisions include all of the popular items conservatives wanted:

• Defunding Planned Parenthood.
• Abortion Restrictions for Tax Credits.
• Sunset of Essential Health Benefits Requirement for Medicaid.
• Funding for Cost-Sharing Subsidies.
• Stabilizing the Individual Insurance Markets ("Six Month Lock Out")

Effectively, this kills (really) Repeal & Replace while leaving the GOP with three choices:

1. Reinstate their lawsuit against the CSRs. Doing so will create chaos across all of the healthcare industry, especially if their lawsuit succeeds. Similarly, Donald could carry through with his threat to actively kill the ACA by attrition. Both have dire political consequences, just in time for the 2018 midterms.
2. Repeal and Wait. This will also incur dire political consequences, but it could be the opening Democrats need to create a single-payer (or similar) system. 
3. Seek bipartisanship. Ha! Even if Establishment GOP and moderates wanted bipartisanship, Donald's veto means no bill can pass without at least 19 Senate Republicans joining Democrats. Without those 19 identified ahead of time, Republicans won't even bother taking a vote that would place those members in jeopardy of being primaried.

5 Thoughts for July 21, 2017

1. Fool Me Twice Shame on the News: I can't get it out of my head that a majority of Donald's supporters are blaming the news media for the bad news tracking Donald's lies. People who are honest with themselves and who lack egos, can identify their own blame in being fooled the second time around, but these folks are deep in denial. It's so bad, when Don Jr published his own emails and changed his story, these people pointed the finger at the news media and called it fake news.
2. The Shakeup is Here: In less than 24 hours, Mark Corallo, Sean Spicer, and Marc Kasowitz quit. Jeff Sessions has so far resisted despite the very public dressing down via Donald's interview with the NYT. That Sessions has resisted is fascinating, given that he had offered to resign months ago when Donald initially lambasted him for recusing himself from all Russian related investigations. I think Donald will stew on Sessions for a few more days before he finally loses it and fires Sessions. One big reason why Sessions has to go is that once Sessions is removed, Donald can then direct the acting AG to fire either/or Rosenstein and Mueller -- searching for the Robert Bork in the current line of succession in the DOJ. Priebus will be out, too, one suspects. Maybe even Bannon?
3. Pardons: Read this first. Let's say Donald issues blanket pardons to everyone under investigation. An irate Congress would likely compel these people to testify under oath, who, no longer requiring the protection against self-incrimination, can be held in contempt by Congress for refusing to testify or answer questions. Once held in contempt, Donald would issue new pardons for these new offenses. Ad infinitum. But in the meantime, this madness corrodes the White House and destroys Democracy along with it. Republicans are in a very tough situation, yet, most of them still can't see the threat Donald poses. It's a terrible, mind-blowing situation we're about to enter. It would be a comedic tragedy for Republicans if their delayed efforts at impeachment brought about President Bernie Sanders and the single-payer system in 2021.
4. HOA Board: Shit y'all. I just caught my HOA board in a lie. Well, I suspect that they may misunderstand a report that was prepared for them, then applied that misunderstanding to create a terrible rule. Nevertheless, what really annoyed me was that they asserted poorly-informed opinion over the facts that I presented to them yesterday. Lay people telling me about construction and materials, imagine that; worse, they already know my qualifications. Now, it turns out that the report they cited as the basis for their opinion, in fact, explicitly supports my posit of the facts. We all make mistakes, but not all of us can admit when we've made them.
5. Manchurian Candidate: The remake with Denzel Washington is available for streaming on Netflix. I watched it earlier this week. Just saying, it's available and it might make for a fun thing to watch on a Friday night in the middle of the summer of 2017. Friday nights are, politically, not for the faint at heart these days.

5 Thoughts for July 20, 2017

1. Too Many Ideas: A Senate Republican floated the idea the other day that the reason why the GOP hasn't been able to pass healthcare legislation is that they have too many ideas. That's not true. They have a very limited set of ideas -- their dogma -- whereas they have varying agendas in conflict with their dogma. The GOP has always stood for limited government, except when their state may greatly benefit from enlarged deficits. It's a question of whether you have fidelity to your ideas or to your constituency's welfare. For some -- particularly Tea Party members -- fidelity to ideas are more important than the welfare of their constituency.
2. Memorial for the 115th: The current congressional 2-year term is the 115th. Six months in, I'm here to memorialize it. They did nothing of serious consequence. They assumed they would do big things, but quickly realized that each member had a different agenda that was in conflict with their greater dogma. In spite of a loaded action list of to-do items, they mostly sat around and argued about party loyalty, hypocritically, as they remained loyal to the party by keeping their leader, Donald, in office as long as they could manage. We remember them not for their failures but for their success in unifying the nation against them.
3. Nudged: Yesterday, an establishment labeled "fake news" by Donald, published a lengthy interview with Donald -- funny how that works, that he knocks down the very establishment he seeks to use to spread his fake news, but that's a different issue altogether. As always, he offered up a laughable list of assertions, but this particular excerpt caught my eye:
   Asked if Mr. Mueller’s investigation would cross a red line if it expanded to look at his family’s finances beyond any relationship to Russia, Mr. Trump said, “I would say yes.” He would not say what he would do about it. “I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia.”
   In essence, the NYT interviewers nudged Donald and he obliged by committing his simple mind to set a red line and firing Mueller in the near-future. That's just way too easy.
4. Don't Lie: You're not good enough at being a liar. A lie isn't just one false statement; it's a commitment to a false narrative requiring additional lies. For instance, in that NYT interview, Peter Baker asks Donald, "But did that email concern you, that the Russian government was trying something to compromise --", Donald responds, "You know, Peter, I didn’t look into it very closely, to be honest with you... I just heard there was an email requesting a meeting or something — yeah, requesting a meeting. That they have information on Hillary Clinton, and I said — I mean, this was standard political stuff." Now, Donald is caught between perpetuating his initial lie of not knowing anything about the meeting and knowing something about the meeting.
5. Bad Poll Numbers for Donald: For the sake of argument, let's assume that Rasmussen is the most accurate pollster out there. No matter how you spin it, Rasmussen's polling shows a steady decline in support for Donald. Alternatively, aggregated polls isolating Republicans show that their support for Donald has dramatically decreased, from a net +75 pp margin (approval - disapproval) to a net +61 pp margin. The week before the 2010 midterms, President Obama had a net +63 pp margin with Democrats. What I'm suggesting here, is that Donald is already on track to deliver an overwhelming tsunami of a wave election in 2018, and it'll only get worse the longer the GOP Congress remains firmly attached to Donald's hip.

HHS' BS Report on the Cruz Amendment

The Washington Examiner posted the preliminary draft of an HHS report reviewing the Cruz Amendment's impact, this morning. It's pure bullshit not worth the time reading. Really.

Here are two of the line charts in the report. Can you spot all of the flaws? I'll give you three (there are more).

1. The starting points for the current law and the proposed amendment should be matching, since the amendment (and the bill it is attached to) does not affect 2017 enrollment (which has been long closed). Assuming they're taking into account people who drop their plans because the penalty is removed, Donald already instructed the IRS to not carry out the penalty question (a don't ask/don't tell for healthcare), so the starting points should be the same.
2. We already know 2017 enrollment numbers as the enrollment period closed and HHS published those numbers. There should not be a high/low split in 2017.
3. The 2017 enrollment numbers are counted in two ways: (1) Total of Medicaid + ACA qualified health plan signups and (2) Just the ACA qualified health plan signups. This means that, on net, either 20M or 12M people benefitted from the current law. Neither number is used in the charts.

It's not just 99% bullshit, but 100% pure bullshit. I'm just guessing here, but it seems like they outsourced the "analysis" to Stephen Moore.

---

UPDATE: I hit the 'publish' button too soon. The CBO just released its updated review of the Senate's [Repeal and Delay] bill (without the CRruz Amendment) and the bill's effects are even worse than the original.

Instead of 22M more uninsured Americans (compared to the ACA) in 2026, the updated [Repeal and Delay] bill would increase that to 32M more uninsured. By 2026, some 59M Americans would be uninsured. Compare that to the 41~42M uninsured in 2013 prior to the implementation of the ACA, we're talking about ~17M more Americans uninsured compared to the year prior to the ACA.

5 Thoughts for July 15, 2017

1. The Eclipse Is Coming: And I haven't bothered to plan ahead. If I stay right here, I'll still experience a 98% solar eclipse. If I drive south-ish to McMinnville, I can experience 100%. I haven't decided yet. I don't even know if I'll be free to go down there. Seems like it would be a driving nightmare if everyone decided to drive down and back on I-5 -- anyone driving back up from Eugene after a football game knows just how bad it is. NASA's got maps and shape files to plan ahead.
2. Pokemon Go: I've made it to level 32 and it took me 23 days to do it. It's going to take 750K points to make the next level but I've got a pretty good plan I think. I think I'll be able to do it in roughly 30 days or so. After that, however, I don't know how much longer I'll be motivated -- you either have to start spending money or take forever to move up to the next level and I'm all about the rapid ascent. Also, there are a lot of people cheating. Even with spending $$$, there are very few people who have the time to go around and collect Pokemon, so the vast majority of people above me, I suspect, are cheaters. By the time Niantic responded, it was too late. Those folks were already at or near level 40. Oh, and damn, the bugs; it took me 2x longer to defeat a gym because I had to force close the app multiple times.
3. Republican Healthcare Strategy: Ignore the current bills for this topic. In 2009/2010 when the ACA was being debated, the biggest problem with public opinion was that the Republican Party was lying about the effects of the ACA. In the years since its implementation, it experienced a lot of turbulence because of the GOP's attempts to undercut the ACA by blocking the cost-sharing funds and the risk-corridor programs. By doing so, they pushed many co-ops out of business and raised premiums. Without a doubt, Democrats have failed Americans by not making this message clear. Even this year, the ambiguous commitment to the cost-sharing subsidies has forced more insurers to abandon certain regions. They wrought instability and now wish to capitalize on that instability, only to realize that they have no real concept of what they want to do. "The Party of No" may be a great opposition formula but it is not a good basis for governance.
4. GOP Support for Donald: It is not entirely accurate to say that Republicans remain committed to Donald. HuffPo's tracker shows that the GOP support has eroded from an aggregate of 85% down to 80% while Donald's disapproval has shot up from an aggregate of 9% to 17.3%. Essentially, a number of Republicans who were ambivalent have been slapped in the face and woken up to Donald. Of course, people continue to believe that he can turn it around and "become presidential". It is a ridiculous notion based on normal human nature. Donald is not normal. While others express frustration, anger, and exasperation at his antics, I just laugh. You could see this disaster coming from the start and it's only going to get worse. Anyone thinking it'll get better hasn't a clue.
5. Current Listening to: Elton John's Greatest Hits, 1970 - 2002. I grabbed it at the library yesterday and it's blowing me away at how many hits he's had that I'd forgotten about. I'm going to have to do a top-10 list of his songs. If I were to pick my favorite Elton John song it would either be Rocket Man or Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Californication included Rocket Man multiple times including the series ending episode closing with the sun setting over the Pacific and Hank's Porsche abandoned. Rocket Man was also used in the season 2 finale of The Blacklist. Both are so extremely bittersweet, they're perfect.

Don Jr Took the Folder

This morning, NBC News reported that there was another person in that meeting with Don Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort. The news media has been caught up this morning with the fact that this man once worked for the old Soviet Union in counterintelligence. 

That's not the big story.

This is the big story:

This man, Rinat Akhmetshin, was interviewed by the AP and stated that Natalia Veselnitskaya handed Don Jr a folder and suggested that the info could be useful against Hillary.

During the meeting, Akhmetshin said Veselnitskaya brought with her a plastic folder with printed-out documents that detailed what she believed was the flow of illicit funds to the Democratic National Committee. Veselnitskaya presented the contents of the documents to the Trump associates and suggested that making the information public could help the Trump campaign, he said. 

“This could be a good issue to expose how the DNC is accepting bad money,” Akhmetshin recalled her saying.

He took the folder -- there is no excuse left. His ex post facto explanation that the meeting was over the Magnitsky Act is shredded.

He willingly agreed to meet with someone he expected to be a Russian government representative offering classified documents from Russia. She handed him a folder and told him that it could be useful for his father's campaign.

HE TOOK THE FOLDER.

Pup Seal Nursing

I'm checking into the live stream channel every once in a while to see how the monk seal pup is doing. This morning, I caught him/her nursing on mom. She/he is growing quickly!

By the way, this is the pup's favorite sleeping spot.

Why I Distrust Evangelical Preachers

This one image explains my deep distrust of Evangelical preachers.

Care to guess how much money the jewelry is in this photo is worth? Tens of thousands of dollars. That's a ladies Rolex, a 10 carat emerald ring, and a diamond encrusted gold mens signet ring.

Those are Evangelical preachers with their hands on Donald, praying. (Either that or Donald has been transformed into the Orb.)

You can probably guess who that female hand belongs to. If not, just search "corrupt evangelical female pastor" or "Donald's corrupt Evangelical pastor". She's just a wee bit infamous for driving her own church into bankruptcy among other things.

5 Thoughts for July 12, 2017 (The Don Jr. Edition)

1. Don Jr Defense: Right now, Don Jr's allies are testing out four defenses and one offense.
1. No Harm, No Foul: One theory is, if nothing consequential came out of the meeting, then there was no violation of laws. This is not exactly true. For example: "This is a robbery! Show me your wallets! Wait, there's nothing valuable here. Nevermind people, no harm no foul!"
2. Just Testing the Waters: Similar to the no harm no foul theory, it's also been suggested that Don Jr was merely testing the waters, so to speak, to see what Russia had to offer. As you might expect, that theory does not fly with law enforcement with a would-be terrorist: "But I was just testing the waters to see what they did!"
3. Everyone Does It: According to this notion, everyone else is cheating the system by using foreigners to grab opposition research. That only makes it worse; you're now implying an acknowledgment that you've broken the rules and that the only reason why you shouldn't be prosecuted is that no one else had been previously caught. The other problem is that the premise is incorrectly framed. By enjoining the Russian state in oppo research, Don Jr has committed Treason, plain and simple. If it were British citizens, you might have a case of illegal foreign donations. Treason is 100x worse than getting caught with soliciting a foreign donation; after all, Treason carries the jeopardy of punishment by death.
4. He's a Good Kid Who Loves America: It's the 'right intentions, wrong actions' defense, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In this case, ignorance of one's actions is not a defense. There are no validating requirements of "knowingly" or "intentionally" or "corruptly" involved with the crimes most likely to be filed against Don Jr. 
5. Attack the Messengers: In an attempt to discredit the reporting, Donald's allies are reportedly looking for dirt on reporters. This is absolutely insane. First, it signals that they've gotten under Donald's skin and are very close to his nerve center. Second, this tactic presumes journalists have no backbone to respond by continuing to dig deeper. Third, guess what happens when the press digs into the personal histories of Donald's allies. At best, it's a Pyrrhic victory; at worst, you encourage everyone else to take the gloves off and come at you even harder. Besides, it was Don Jr who willingly published the evidence that will convict him and those leaks are obviously coming from inside the White House.
2. I Love You, But Not That Much: This morning, one of Donald's lawyers, Jay Sekulow, said on the Today Show, "The president was not aware and did not attend this meeting." First off, it's hard to believe that Donald knew nothing, especially since the first correspondence indicated that the intention was to directly contact Don through his personal assistant, Rhona. This is clearly an attempt to cut off the upstream flow of sewage. We're not too far away from Michael kissing Fredo on the forehead.
3. Collusion: Yes, collusion is a crime, but collusion is a colloquial term for Conspiracy. Conspiracy is a federal catch-all crime for anyone involved in a criminal act. In this case, the criminal acts are concerning foreign contributions and treason.
4. Dumb and Dumber: This could be the official tag of the Trump family. Don Jr is so dumb, he apparently took the advice of Julian Assange -- a person who decidedly carries his own agenda -- and published his emails for everyone to read. Like father like son, right? Ignore the advice of your lawyer and find yourself in deeper trouble. Wait for it, though, because Dumb and Dumber will end up blaming their lawyers and firing them.
5. Burned Bridges and Lies: There are multiple life lessons to be learned here, simply by watching this White House. We have people who, under the false understanding of their rank in the hierarchy of everything, have burned bridges through backstabbing and frontal assaults. Slowly, you see fewer allies left and people (like Mike Pence) are saying, "Don't stand so close to me." Secondly, once you start on a lie, you will easily end up creating more lies to cover for that first lie.

Monk Seal and Pup Live Cam

I don't know how long this live stream will be up and active, but currently, a monk seal and her pup have been enjoying Kaimana Beach, just east of Waikiki. It's a nice break from everything going on right now.

Uninstall Your Kaspersky Software Now

Earlier this year in a public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Marco Rubio offered an odd, out of the ballpark, question on whether or not the heads of the different intelligence and law enforcement agencies used Kaspersky Labs' products. At the time, it wasn't clear whether this was an unfounded implication that the Russian government was directly involved with Kaspersky Labs or based on an undeveloped suspicion.

We now have an answer. Per Bloomberg Businessweek:

"While the U.S. government hasn’t disclosed any evidence of the ties, internal company emails obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek show that Kaspersky Lab has maintained a much closer working relationship with Russia’s main intelligence agency, the FSB, than it has publicly admitted. It has developed security technology at the spy agency’s behest and worked on joint projects the CEO knew would be embarrassing if made public."

 I didn't think Kaspersky would make such a poor business decision, but it appears I was wrong. With zero doubt, I urge you to uninstall all of your Kaspersky products. There are many others out there, equal or better, including Bitdefender.

It is not just that they're working with the FSB but that by doing so they've been compromised, such that they can be blackmailed into doing anything the FSB wants.

Donald Jr Provides The Gun, Smoking and All (UPDATED)

This morning Donald Jr tweeted out the email chain¹ of his interactions with Russians looking to help get his father elected. It is the smoking gun.

"This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." 

"Emin asked that I schedule a meeting with you and The Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow for this Thursday."

Donald Jr believes that he is meeting with a Russian government attorney who will be providing high-level information as part of Russia's support for his father. The only question remaining is, which criminal charges to file? You can possibly try him on Treason², Conspiracy³, Accepting Foreign Donations⁴, and Misprision⁵.

That's not including the fact that Donald Jr. involved Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner. In his email chain, it is indicated that he'd forwarded his email chain⁶ to both Manafort and Kushner -- note how the White House previously tried to play down Manafort's role in the campaign⁷, yet, here is Don Jr. directly involving Manafort.

Having involved Manafort and Kushner, those two are also at legal risk for all of the same criminal charges.

It's a real stretch, even for Donald, to distance himself from his own flesh and blood and his daughter's husband. At the heart of his campaign, we now have Flynn, Manafort, Kushner and Don Jr. all involved in attempting to garner the help of Russia. Colloquially speaking, we're talking about collusion; formally, this means Conspiracy.

The most forgiving interpretation of Don Jr's actions is that he hasn't a clue as to the laws of this nation. Mind you, ignorance of the law is not a defense against conviction. There are more than a few chuckles around the world, in response to the sheer stupidity of Don Jr, in effect taking down his father.

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UPDATE:
This just keeps getting worse for Don Jr.

Julian Assange has come out on Twitter saying that he made "contact" with Don Jr to encourage him to publish his emails, two hours before Don Jr released them on Twitter. Thus, contrary to denials, Assange has an active relationship with the Trumps and Don Jr is exceedingly stupid that he would rather listen to a man with his own agenda over his own lawyer whose primary job is to look after Don Jr's best interests.

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1 -- It is not the full chain; the chain has obviously been curated as there are gaps in the conversation.
2 -- 18 U.S. Code § 2381 - Treason: Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
3 -- 18 U.S. Code § 371 - Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States: If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
4 -- 52 U.S. Code § 30121 - Contributions and donations by foreign nationals: (a)(2) [It shall be unlawful for] a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national. (In this case, the reference is to donations of "other thing of value".
5 -- 18 U.S. Code § 2382 - Misprision of treason: Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both.
6 -- In the final portion of his email chain, the subject line of the email reads: "FW: Russia - Clinton - private and confidential" and the recipients listed are Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.
7 -- Sean Spicer stated that Manafort "played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time" and Devin Nunes suggested that Manafort merely worked "for a short time worked on the convention." See: https://goo.gl/X2DgIH

So Lonely.

At the G20 summit, we had a Mr. Lonely.

Happy Birthday to America.