Comment

Comment by Loren Miller on November 26, 2016 at 10:45am

Good stuff, Bertold, which should surprise no one.  I mean, when your belief system has no basis in fact, the entirety of its structure can and does become the target of questions and doubts.

Comment by Bertold Brautigan on November 26, 2016 at 10:29am

A bit of perspective - Valerie Tarico explains Christianity's War on Christmas.

Comment by Joan Denoo on November 23, 2016 at 2:29pm

Spud, that tape on robot calls, it is funny, accurate and outrageous. I like the responses. 

My goodness, the Trump University lawsuits should get his attention. I wonder if he will begin to think as a mentally healthy, mature, adult. 

"In 2013, my office sued Donald Trump for swindling thousands of innocent Americans out of ​millions of dollars through a scheme known as Trump University. Donald Trump fought us every step of the way, filing baseless charges and fruitless appeals and refusing to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phony university. Today, that all changes. Today's $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university."

~ New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

Comment by Joan Denoo on November 23, 2016 at 2:13pm

Milt Priggee's Trump gives thanks. 

Comment by Idaho Spud on November 23, 2016 at 1:06pm

House passes anti-spoofing bill

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted 382-5 to pass the Anti-Spoofing Act of 2016 (H.R. 2669), which would: 

• Amend the Communications Act of 1934 to expand the prohibition of using a caller identification service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value to persons outside the United States if the recipient is within the United States.
• Revise the definitions of "caller identification information" and "caller identification service" to include text messages sent using a text messaging service.
• Require the Federal Communication Commission and FTC to develop more educational materials to help consumers guard against robocall scams.
• Require the U.S. Comptroller General to examine trends in the types of scams that use misleading caller ID information and recommend further actions that the FTC and Congress can take.

This bill may have passed too late to get Senate concurrence in this legislative session. It also fails to address the fact that many land-line phone companies have refused to implement blocking technologies that are now available. However, it is a step in the right direction, and the 382-5 vote suggests that combating robocall scams has bipartisan political support. People interested in decreasing robocalls should register their int....

Comment by Idaho Spud on November 23, 2016 at 1:01pm

Trump University lawsuits settled

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has announced that Donald J. Trump has agreed to pay $25 million to settle three lawsuits which charged that he had misrepresented the nature and value of real estate courses offered by Trump University. The settlement includes payment of $21 million to settle two California class-action suits and $4 million to New York State to be used to (a) reimburse former students who were not parties to the class-action suits and (b) if funds remain, to pay up to $1 million for costs and/or penalties for Trump University's failure to obtain a license from the New York's Education Department. Trump admitted no liability, but Schneiderman’s press release minced no words: 

In 2013, my office sued Donald Trump for swindling thousands of innocent Americans out of ​millions of dollars through a scheme known as Trump University. Donald Trump fought us every step of the way, filing baseless charges and fruitless appeals and refusing to settle for even modest amounts of compensation for the victims of his phony university. Today, that all changes. Today's $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university. 

Credential Watch has additional details and links to the documents ....

Comment by Daniel W on November 21, 2016 at 10:07pm

The 2016 Presidential election felt to me more like psychological warfare by two factions, each of whom wanted power over the US for their own purposes.  From the definition for psychological warfare, "any action which is practiced mainly by psychological methods with the aim of evoking a planned psychological reaction in other people."^[2] Various techniques are used, and are aimed at influencing a target audience's value system, belief system, emotions, motives, reasoning, or behavior." One side made better use of social media, the big lie(s),gas-lighting, and I think, psy-war tactics by Russians, the FBI, and Julian Assange / Wikileaks.  The other side tried to use divisive identity politics while claiming to be inclusive, but demonized the majority electorate in the majority of states as "a basket of deplorables".  What we need now for the Democrats is to get rid of old dynasties and not create new ones - that includes Chelsea Clinton - as well as multi-generation Kennedys, and let people run on their records, not just who can politic the best.  I would say the same about the Republicans, but they won and will not be inclined dismantle dynasties until they sink under the weight of their own excess and fuel another rebellion.

Comment by tom sarbeck on November 21, 2016 at 7:41pm

The election was about culture, Bert?

For some, yes; for others, no. EVERY argument has two sides, and to claim otherwise is to invite violence.

I will spare you my opinion on pretending opinions are humble.

Comment by Donald L. Engel on November 21, 2016 at 12:01pm

I wish these two articles would have been printed well before the election. 

Comment by Daniel W on November 21, 2016 at 12:00pm

Don and all, Im of 2 minds with the essay on rural America. I grew up there, in an area that referred to itself as Forgotonia. It was the redist if the red states. I was immersed in reactionary John Bircher, antisemitic, anticommunist, antiblack, antifeminist, antigay - viciously with violence, scapegoating, and rumors of murder - Baptist Church subculture.  During my teenage years, and beyond, the few factories reduced or closed, the factory and farm economy worsened, and the young who escaped were a brain drain and a cultural drain. 

On retrospect, this wasnt an all-white town.  But there was kind of an iron curtain, with respect to race.  There was only one high school, and looking in the yearbook, there were black students, but not other races like Asian or Hispanic.

The whole life was kind of depressing.  I left not because of the rural white culture, because it's like being a fish and not seeing the water  I needed an education, and needed to make a living and have a purpose.  I wound up enlisting in the Army.

I was sent to boot camp in Louisiana.  Suddenly, in that time and place and that military unit, I was often the sole white pebble on a beach covered with brown and black pebbles.  The men supervising me, and around me, were almost all black with a few hispanic.  How did that effect me?  I was so clueless about other races, I just felt like "this is interesting", everyone was just normal, nice, obnoxious, good, bad, talented, dull, honest, dishonest, friendly, standoffish - and all in it together.

Probably as a result of military life in formative years, most of my adult relationships have been open across artificial racial lines.  That openness  enriched my life in innumerable ways.  No regrets.

Later, I went to Purdue University in Indiana.  I experienced bigotry there that opened my eyes to how "nice" white people think and behave.  When I graduated and left there, moving 2000 miles to a place I had never seen, this time it was a rejection of the bigoted, thick-minded culture that I experienced daily.  Interesting, my most durable friendships have been with people I met there - good, solid, thinking, caring, not bigoted in the least.

Which is a long way around to saying, I know whereof the writer writes.

But there is another side.  Trump also won counties and state that previously went to Obama.  Trump did better than expected among women, hispanics, and there was a smattering of black voters who voted for Trump or did not vote at all.  Why?  To me it's a question of leadership.  You dont denigrate people then expect their vote.  At best, you inspire, give people the opportunity  to be better.  You listen to their very real losses, fears, rejections.  You show them that you are worthy of their trust.  You lead.

Which to me was the democratic failure.  There is such a denigration of the rural and working class people, especially but not exclusively white men, that who in their right mind would expect a vote from them? 

It's true there is a frightening reactionary culture.  We are a divide nation, culturally and politically.  We need leadership to bring out the best in people, even if those people, or their culture, has oppressed and excluded others.  Not all can be reached.  Obama did it.  Clinton did not,

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