Foreign Affairs, Russia, Sanctions
Our New Partner
by JOHN ADAMS •
The Washington Post reports today on the the first fruits of Trump’s foreign policy direction:
The Kremlin says that Russian President Vladimir Putin and President-elect Donald Trump have agreed in a phone call to work to improve U.S.-Russian relations.
The Kremlin says that Putin expressed readiness to establish a “partner-like” dialogue with Trump’s administration….
The Kremlin says that Putin and Trump agreed that U.S.-Russian ties are “unsatisfactory” and spoke for joint efforts to normalize them and engage in a “constructive cooperation on a broad range of issues.”
Hopeful wall-builders must be disappointed that Trump’s call wasn’t to threaten Mexican officials (really, to make a mere show of it while America pays for whatever barrier he devises against free markets in capital, goods, and labor).
No, it was a telephone call to Putin, bomber of innocents in Syria, tormentor of Ukranians, and friend of anti-Anerican hackers, that Trump so obligingly took.
One can guess – without guessing – that “partner-like” discussions involve terms to lift sanctions against Russia for her violence in Ukraine.
It says all one need hear that even the United Nations Human Rights Council, with several dictatorial members, found Russian conduct so egregious that they rejected her continued membership.
No matter, from Putin’s perspective: why should Russia worry about the U.N. when she was Trump by her side?
History, Law, Liberty, Politics, Presidential race 2016, Trump
Kevin Drum on Trump and the End of Reconstruction
by JOHN ADAMS •
Blogging at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum – like many of us, of whatever politics – seems uncertain about the consequences of a Trump Administration. (In fairness, much has happened in a short time, and it’s hard to make sense of it all.)
Still, Drum’s thinking has shifted significantly over the last few days, in ways he no doubt sees. His 11.9 day-after post, Things We Can Count on In the Next Two Years belies his 11.10 post, The United States Is Not About to Spiral Into Fascism and Tryanny.
Two days after the election, Drum writes to reassure, contending that Trump will be no different, no worse, than
say, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio would be. Beyond that, though, he’s less conservative on the policy front. The reason Trump is uniquely bad is mostly symbolic: he’s willfully ignorant; he’s vindictive; he’s a demagogue willing to appeal loudly and proudly to racial animus; and he has the attention span of a small child. He’d be an embarrassment to any country, let alone the most powerful country in the world.
Isn’t that bad enough? There’s no need to pretend we’re about to spiral into a fascist nightmare or a financial collapse. We have not embraced tyranny. The United States is a very big battleship, even for Donald Trump.
One day earlier (that is, one day after the election), Drum sees a different prospect for America under Trump:
Since I have the Reconstruction era on my mind right now, it’s hard to avoid the obvious comparison. Reconstruction lasted about eight years, and then was dismantled almost completely. Barack Obama’s presidency lasted eight years and will now be dismantled almost completely. I will withhold my opinion for now on the obvious reason for this similarity.
There lies Drum’s – and our – problem. If a Trump era is anything like the end of Reconstruction was for millions of black Americans at that time, then there is every reason to be extremely concerned. Generations – indeed, during roughly a century of history – went by before millions received the rights the Constitution granted them.
There’s no need to belabor a point that Drum knows, and about which he is sympathetic. The problem for this country is that a politics like the end of Reconstruction was for blacks would be devastating for millions our fellow citizens. When one reaches the need for an analogy between our time and the decades after 1877, one has already arrived at a moment of crisis for huge numbers.
So, is Drum’s initial concern (by way analogy) on 11.9 justified, or is a Trump Administration likely to be little different from how a Cruz or Rubio Administration might have been (as Drum wrote on 11.10)?
Few during these last months thought that Trump, Cruz, and Rubio were much alike; there’s no reason to think they were. A populist politics of Trump’s kind will push as far as it can, making Drum’s initial concerns more probable than his subsequent reassurances.
Music
Monday Music: Armatrading, Kind Words and a Real Good Heart
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.14.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning,
In Whitewater, we’ll have a partly cloudy Monday with a high of fifty-nine. Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 4:31 PM, for 9h 44m 29s of daytime. The moon is full today.
On this day in 1851, Moby-Dick is first published. On this day in 1861, historian Frederick Jackson Turner is born in Portage, Wisconsin. On this day in 1891, Frederick Banting, a Nobel Laureate for his pioneering treatment of diabetes with insulin, is born.
Worth reading in full —
Andrew Sullivan sees Trump triumphant: “This is now Trump’s America. He controls everything from here on forward. He has won this campaign in such a decisive fashion that he owes no one anything. He has destroyed the GOP and remade it in his image. He has humiliated the elites and the elite media. He has embarrassed every pollster and naysayer. He has avenged Obama. And in the coming weeks, Trump will not likely be content to bask in vindication. He will seek unforgiving revenge on those who dared to oppose him. The party apparatus will be remade in his image. The House and Senate will fail to resist anything he proposes — and those who speak up will be primaried into oblivion. The Supreme Court may well be shifted to the far right for more than a generation to come — with this massive victory, he can pick a new Supreme Court justice who will make Antonin Scalia seem like a milquetoast. He will have a docile, fawning Congress for at least four years. We will not have an administration so much as a court….”
David Remnick sees normalization leading to restrictions on civil liberties: “In the coming days, commentators will attempt to normalize this event. They will try to soothe their readers and viewers with thoughts about the “innate wisdom” and “essential decency” of the American people. They will downplay the virulence of the nationalism displayed, the cruel decision to elevate a man who rides in a gold-plated airliner but who has staked his claim with the populist rhetoric of blood and soil. George Orwell, the most fearless of commentators, was right to point out that public opinion is no more innately wise than humans are innately kind. People can behave foolishly, recklessly, self-destructively in the aggregate just as they can individually. Sometimes all they require is a leader of cunning, a demagogue who reads the waves of resentment and rides them to a popular victory. “The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion,” Orwell wrote in his essay “Freedom of the Park.” “The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”….”
Kevin Drum urges his fellow progressives to calm down: “But he’s [Trump’s] not a cult leader beyond his own small base of superfans, and he’s not a king. Congress has its own ideas about what it wants to do, and they will do it. Trump will learn that repealing executive orders is harder than he thinks, and it’s unlikely he has the attention span to really keep at it. Hell, repealing Obamacare will be harder than Trump thinks. He’s not going to declare martial law or round up Muslims and throw them in internment camps. He will likely face a recession, but not a financial collapse. When it happens, the Fed will take the lead, and Republicans will throw money at it. That’s hypocritical, but also perfectly OK as a policy response….”
Masha Gessen offers rules for survival in an autocratic politics: “I have lived in autocracies most of my life, and have spent much of my career writing about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. I have learned a few rules for surviving in an autocracy and salvaging your sanity and self-respect. It might be worth considering them now:
Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization. This will happen often: humans seem to have evolved to practice denial when confronted publicly with the unacceptable. Back in the 1930s, The New York Times assured its readers that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was all posture. More recently, the same newspaper made a telling choice between two statements made by Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov following a police crackdown on protesters in Moscow: “The police acted mildly—I would have liked them to act more harshly” rather than those protesters’ “liver should have been spread all over the pavement.” Perhaps the journalists could not believe their ears. But they should—both in the Russian case, and in the American one….”
Animation, Cartoons & Comics
Sunday Animation: Krazy Kat – Bugologist
by JOHN ADAMS •
| Story, George Herriman. | Duration: 3:21 at 22 fps. | While in the woods studying bugs, Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse encounter a sleeping bee and an angry elephant. | Summary from M/B/RS shelflist card. | Based on George Herriman’s comic strip Krazy Kat.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.13.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of fifty-six. Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 4:32 PM, for 9h 46m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Sometimes squirrels simply go mad & bad, as the residents of the Sterling Court retirement home in Deltona, Fl. recently learned:
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.12.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in this small city will be sunny with a high of fifty-one. Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset 4:33 PM, for 9h 48m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
There’s a new international trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The film is scheduled for release on 12.16.2016. Lots of clues inside:
On this day in 1927, Joseph Stalin becomes unchecked ruler of the Soviet Union following Trotsky’s expulsion from the Communist Party. In 1942, Allied (principally American) naval forces engage the Japanese Imperial Navy at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, resulting in an Allied strategic victory on 11.15.1942.
Cats
Friday Catblogging: Lion’s Dental Surgery
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.11.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Here in town Veterans Day will be mostly sunny with a high of forty-eight. Sunrise is 6:43 AM and sunset 4:34 PM, for 9h 51m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 86.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
There will be an 11 AM ceremony marking the day on campus in the University Center’s Hamilton Room.
On this day in 1620, forty-one passengers on the Mayflower sign a political agreement while the ship is anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor. On this day in 1964, the Rolling Stones play at the Milwaukee Auditorium.
Here’s the JigZone puzzle for Friday:
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.10.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Thursday in town will be sunny and windy with a high of sixty-one. Sunrise is 6:42 AM and sunset 4:35 PM, for 9h 53m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 77.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald sinks in Lake Superior, with the loss of all twenty-nine on board:
SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew of 29. When launched on June 7, 1958, she was the largest ship on North America’s Great Lakes, and she remains the largest to have sunk there.
For 17 years Fitzgerald carried taconiteiron ore from mines near Duluth, Minnesota, to iron works in Detroit, Toledo, and other Great Lakes ports. As a “workhorse,” she set seasonal haul records six times, often breaking her own previous record.[5][6] Captain Peter Pulcer was known for piping music day or night over the ship’s intercom while passing through the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers (between Lakes Huron and Erie), and entertaining spectators at the Soo Locks (between Lakes Superior and Huron) with a running commentary about the ship.[5] Her size, record-breaking performance, and “DJ captain” endeared Fitzgerald to boat watchers.[7]
Carrying a full cargo of ore pellets with Captain Ernest M. McSorley in command, she embarked on her ill-fated voyage from Superior, Wisconsin, near Duluth, on the afternoon of November 9, 1975. En route to a steel mill near Detroit, Fitzgerald joined a second freighter, SS Arthur M. Anderson. By the next day, the two ships were caught in a severe storm on Lake Superior, with near hurricane-force winds and waves up to 35 feet (11 m) high. Shortly after 7:10 p.m., Fitzgerald suddenly sank in Canadian (Ontario) waters 530 feet (160 m) deep, about 17 miles (15 nautical miles; 27 kilometers) from Whitefish Bay near the twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario—a distance Fitzgerald could have covered in just over an hour at her top speed. Although Fitzgerald had reported being in difficulty earlier, no distress signals were sent before she sank; Captain McSorley’s last message to Anderson said, “We are holding our own.” Her crew of 29 perished, and no bodies were recovered.
Many books, studies, and expeditions have examined the cause of the sinking. Fitzgerald might have fallen victim to the high waves of the storm, suffered structural failure, been swamped with water entering through her cargo hatches or deck, experienced topside damage, or shoaled in a shallow part of Lake Superior. The sinking of Edmund Fitzgerald is one of the best-known disasters in the history of Great Lakes shipping. Gordon Lightfoot made it the subject of his 1976 hit song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” after reading an article, “The Cruelest Month”, in the November 24, 1975, issue of Newsweek. The sinking led to changes in Great Lakes shipping regulations and practices that included mandatory survival suits, depth finders, positioning systems, increased freeboard, and more frequent inspection of vessels.
On this day in 1862, a riot breaks out in Port Washington:
1862 – Draft Riot of 1862
On this date angry citizens protesting a War Department order for 300,000 additional troops, rioted in Port Washington, Ozaukee County. As county draft commissioner William A. Pors drew the first name, cannon fire resounded and a mob of over 1,000 angry citizens wielding clubs and bricks and carrying banners scrawled with the words “No Draft!” marched through the streets. The mob stormed the city destroying buildings, setting fires, and gutting the interior of homes and shops. Troops were brought in the next day to quell the violence. The Ozaukee rioters were captured and remained prisoners at Camp Randall for about a year before they were finally released. In all, more than a half-dozen homes were damaged and dozens of citizens were injured. [Source: Ozaukee Country Wisconsin]
JigZone‘s daily puzzle for Thursday is of macaroons:
Adventure, Faraway Places, Nature, Sports
Mountain Biking in Norway
by JOHN ADAMS •
Elections
Unexpected and Expected
by JOHN ADAMS •
Last night’s election results are both unexpected (nationally) and expected (locally), I’d say. Few thought that Trump would win the presidency, but many of the other results for Wisconsin or Whitewater were easier to predict.
Trump’s victory nationally will be the big topic for years, first about its cause and then about its effects. Because I believe that national shapes local (and that purely hyper-local assessments are short-sighted), Trump’s win (coupled with a Republican Congress and a conservative Supreme Court) will transform this city as it will much larger places.
The local results were unsurprising. There are no data like election data, and locally the results from Whitewater’s school construction referendum belie the notion that this was ever going to be a close vote. A favorable local turnout was almost certain to support the referendum, by a large majority. This was a (1) November general election (2) in a presidential year (3) where the last referendum won (4) even in a gubernatorial year.
Honest to goodness, there was no reason to pay for a survey company (School Perceptions) whose results were uncertain when anyone who has lived in this town for more than two hours, twenty-seven minutes, four seconds would have known as much. It tells a lot that the survey’s author, Bill Foster of School Perceptions, “felt the chances for a successful referendum were within the margin of error, adding that, of course, he could not guarantee success.”
One should be able to assess a probability in a small town without the need for an outside poll. (This, it seems, just isn’t a good year for polls in any event.)
Many local elections went as expected: nearby Elkhorn’s school referendum questions won, Milton’s school larger referendum question lost (the capital one with a huge asking price), and in the 43rd Assembly District Vruwink won. Not everything was unexpected: residents would have could have predicted these outcomes easily. (Updated paragraph to reflect split in Milton between capital and operational referenda.)
Finally, there will be residents variously worried or celebrating over the national results today.
And yet – and yet – here we are.
One awakes and begins each day whether favorable or unfavorable, whether bright or dark. There’s much to be said for a long view. Those of clear convictions are likely to weather the unexpected well, knowing that there are no permanent victories and no permanent defeats.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 11.9.16
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Wednesday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of fifty-seven. Sunrise is 6:40 AM and sunset is 4:36 PM, for 9h 55m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 67.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1938, the Night of Broken Glass sweeps Germany:
Kristallnacht (German pronunciation: … English: “Crystal Night”) or Reichskristallnacht …, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, Reichspogromnacht … or simply Pogromnacht …] ( listen), and Novemberpogrome … ( listen), was a pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany on 9–10 November 1938, carried out by SA paramilitary forces and German civilians. German authorities looked on without intervening.[1][2] The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues had their windows smashed.[3]
Estimates of the number of fatalities caused by the pogrom have varied. Early reporting estimated that 91 Jewish people were murdered during the attacks.[3] Modern analysis of German scholarly sources by historians such as Richard J. Evans puts the number much higher. When deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included, the death toll climbs into the hundreds. Additionally, 30,000 were arrested and incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps.[3]
Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers.[4] Over 1,000 synagogues were burned (95 in Vienna alone) and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged.[5][6] Martin Gilbert writes that no event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening, and the accounts from the foreign journalists working in Germany sent shock waves around the world.[4] The Times wrote at the time: “No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenseless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday.”[7]
On this day in 1968, an earthquake shakes Wisconsin:
On this date one of the strongest earthquakes in the central United States occurred in south-central Illinois. Measured at a magnitude of 5.3, press reports from LaCrosse, Milwaukee, Port Washington, Portage, Prairie Du Chien, and Sheboygan indicated that the shock was felt in these cities. [Source: United States Geological Survey]
JigZone‘s puzzle for Wednesday is of trees by a lake: