Daffynitions

   "This is all about putting a Dem activist on the bench." So said Tucker Carlson on the Fox TV network about President Biden's nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
   Compare that to stalling Democrat Barack Obama's one SCOTUS nomination so his successor Donald Trump could seat three Republicans on the nation's highest court.

Economics and Politics

    Poll numbers, even from the best of the tabulators, can easily be rephrased to fit a political message.
   One reading of a poll by the Marist folk, done for NPR and PBS, says President Joe Biden's first year in office was "a failure," with 56 percent of the respondents saying that, compared to 39 percent who called it a success.
   But looking a bit further shows that 80 percent of Democrats call it a success, compared to just 7 percent of Republicans asked the same question in the same poll. Some 66 percent of Independents called the first year in office a failure, and 28 percent labeled it a success, according to the poll.
   The Marist pollsters are widely regarded as neutral, as are the broadcast outlets NPR and PBS, so it's important to look at the political leanings of those polled, and consider that some will be negative about a government of the opposite party no matter the question.
   Nevertheless, it can be useful to look at the surrounding world circumstances at the time of the survey and to compare it to past behaviors and results.

Shambling

    GOP candidates will have a hard time convincing voters that the economy is in a shambles, and the only way out would be to elect Republicans to high office.
   The American economy jumped by 7 percent as the year ended, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, following an increase of 2.3 percent in the third quarter of 2021.
   The jump was prompted by an upturn in exports as well as more consumer spending and inventory output, the agency said.
   Separately, the Census Bureau said home sales faded by 4.5 percent in January of this year, following a jump of 12 percent in December.
   More recently, prices overall are said to be rising sharply, with providers blaming the tension in Ukraine, which broke out into military action today. And the stock market plunged, as some observers cited the same reason.
   What all that has to do with everyday prices of groceries and gasoline, which take months to reach local marketplaces, is another question.

Subpoena Does Not Mean Please

    Ivanka Trump reportedly has agreed to talk about the terms and conditions under which she will testify to a Congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 uprising.
   Subpoena means "under penalty." It does not mean come testify if you feel like it, and if you don't, that's okay.
  

Dream Thoughts

    If it's only a dream, why do people keep trying to make it real?
   Many books in a town library try to deal with that question, not only in the psychology section, but also in the philosophy shelf as well as volumes dealing with government and politics.
   One problem seems to be that there are as many different answers as there are questions, since each person has a different notion of what a dream should be, or which dream is best suited to be worked into the real world or winked at as "only a dream."
   A realist might say this is what leads to trouble in the world. People decide that if a certain dream works well for them, it therefore must be perfect for everyone else.
   They become so convinced that their dream is the perfect solution to all the world's woes that they try to persuade all others to subscribe to that one dream. In political or governmental dreams, this can easily lead to conflict with others who are equally certain of their own beliefs and dreams.
   Or in spiritual issues, one set of beliefs.
   Dreams and ideals are wonderful things, and it is good that people try their best to make their dreams come true.
   But to impose their dreams or beliefs on others, regardless of how well they work for you or how much others may disagree with your dreams, can often lead to opposition so strong as to cause violence.
   It is good to have dreams and to pass them on to others for them to consider.
   But to force others to adopt your dreams is wrong.

History and Reality

   It has long been said that history repeats itself.
   But history is only a story of what people have done, so it is more accurate to say that people repeat themselves.
   Along the way, people write their own stories as a way to propagate their legacy.
   Hence the word propaganda.
   When will they ever learn.

Free Will

    The legacy of free will lives on, despite centuries of warnings that destiny is predetermined by a Higher Power.
   But if a Creator already knows which of us will join Him in the Afterworld, why should we avoid sin if our destiny is already determined?
   Or what of those who are well behaved and have never sinned but are going to damnation anyway, no matter their behavior? Why should they bother doing well?
   That was the rationale centuries ago, and for some True Believers that is still their faith and fate. Nevertheless, they insist that you behave yourself, so even if you are condemned, your punishment won't be quite so long.
   Both theories ignore current behavior issues, unless you accept the notion that people are basically evil and most will be condemned no matter what they do.
   Preachers try to persuade listeners they are doomed to eternal perdition if they refuse to follow the Great Truth as spoken by the preacher.
   But there may be more than one path to a spiritual afterlife, and to insist on only one is contrary to the variety of social behavior and human beliefs.
   We are all climbing the same mountain, Druids are fond of saying, and how we see the top depends on where we come from.
   There are as many perceptions of the Otherworld as there are human cultures.

Moonrise Madness

    Physicians didn't know what to call the illness when it first infected some people in Italy long ago, so they blamed it on the moon and called it influenza della luna, which means "influence of the moon."
   That phrase was later shortened to the first word and cut again to the first syllable and is now widely referred to as the flu.
   For a long time, people blamed the moon for many things they didn't fully understand, and that included behavior. That's why we have the word "lunatic" to describe those whose behavior is so unusual that it is somehow caused by the moon.
   There are still many people who insist that a full moon causes odd behavior, and that includes police officers and journalists as well as health care workers -- nurses and staff, especially at emergency departments and attendants at long-term care facilities.
   Young people also get more romantic when there's a full moon.
   So is all this true, or just another social legend?
   You decide.

Numbering Daze

    Tuesday, the second day of this week in this the second month of the year is numbered as the twenty-second day of the month.
   Or to phrase it numerically, the date is 2/22/22.
   So does this have any mystical significance, or is it just a coincidence of numbering the days?
   Numerals are one of the greatest contributions by the Arab world to the rest of us. Otherwise, we would be using Roman numerals for the date, which would be written as II/XXII/XXII.
  The scientific world  would not be what it is today without Arabic numerals or algebra, which is an Arabic word.
   That, of course, is by the way, and has nothing to do with politics, government or international affairs. But does the deuce sequence have any mystical significance?
   Other numbers do, and that raises the question of coincidence or a serious connection.
   Seven and eleven are considered lucky. Thirteen is not. The number twelve appears so often in societies around the world as to provide strong evidence that it is indeed significant.
  Thirteen has long been labeled unlucky, and many tall buildings in large cities do not use those digits when labeling floors. Rather, they go direct from twelve to fourteen.
   Also offered as evidence is the calamity of the American lunar voyage named Apollo 13. The space ship was launched shortly past 2 p.m. Eastern time, but Mission Control headquarters in Houston, in the Midwest time zone one hour behind Florida, used a 24-hour standard, which meant launch time was 1313 hours.
   Apollo 13 was launched on a Monday, the eleventh day of the month. Two days later, on Wednesday the 13th, the space ship suffered a major operational issue, and the crew was  lucky to get home safely.
   So why are some numbers considered lucky, and some not? What part does culture play in labeling some numbers lucky and others not? Or is the phenomenon independent of culture?
   Numerous writers have documented how often the number 12 appears in societies around the world, and there are too many examples of all these appearances to be passed off as coincidental.
   Here are just a few examples: 12 months to the year, 12 inches to a foot, 12 hours in the morning and 12 in the afternoon, 12 steps to sobriety, 12 tribes in ancient Israel and 12 apostles in the modern religion, as well as 12 years in the traditional Chinese calendar.
   Now we see a gathering of the number two in the calendar this year. Were other gatherings also significant?
   Past examples would include 1/1/11; 3/3/33; 4/4/44; 5/5/55; and 6/6/66. And what happened some 100 years ago, on the date 2/22/22?
   Does history repeat itself?
   We'll know tomorrow.

First Amendment Facade

    Years ago, a lawsuit against the Ku Klux Klan found the haven for bigots guilty of promoting violence.

   The court ordered the Klan to pay victims of their violence many millions of dollars. So many that the Klan was unable to raise the money and so it went bankrupt and disbanded.

  This year, a lawsuit against the Remington firearms company found the gun maker liable for the deaths of children at a school in Connecticut, and the court ordered the firm to compensate the families with millions of dollars.

 The gun lobby had been successful for decades in fending off lawsuits on the ground that manufacturers were not responsible for the actions of gun buyers, and besides, the Constitution guarantees "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." This ignores the first phrase of the Second Amendment, which cites "a well organized militia" as a basis for gun ownership.

  The shooter in Connecticut was not a member of a militia, well organized or otherwise, and there was some question as to whether his gun ownership was legal.

  Current news media report dozens of people shot and killed in American cities every day, yet little is said about strengthening gun laws, especially in major cities, to prevent the many thousands of people on the fringes of society from acquiring -- often illegally -- military style weapons that result in multiple killings.

   Defenders insist they need these weapons in case of foreign invasion. Apparently they don't trust the U.S. military, or police in major cities like Philadelphia.

  But now that a court has found a gun maker liable when its product is used in a mass killing of children, it may well mean that particular firm will be unable to pay the fine and it will go out of business, just as the KKK became defunct after it was found responsible for racially motivated killings in the South.

   Certainly there are flaws in American society, and in the laws that its representative enact.

  The answer is to fix the flaws, not cover them up in the name of preserving unity.

  But.

  Unity for all or just a dominant-hungry few?

Follow the Leader

    Life is a series of if-then statements.

   To children, it's a game.

   To adults, it's politics.

   When adults follow their leader regardless of where he or she goes, and especially if that direction is clearly toward disaster, then an entire nation may be in serious trouble.

   America now has a leader who may not be the most competent president in the nation's history, but he is not consumed by whatever will best serve his personal finances.

  His opponent in the last election, however, remains consumed by the shock of losing. His ardent followers have also succumbed to the notion that the election was "rigged," and they cling to the notion that a second insurrection may be necessary to return their leader to White House power.

   Will another rebellion happen? We don't know, but there are some who hope and plan for it. Already, they are inserting themselves into other domestic and civil issues as a way of inflaming society so a firm government hand will be essential to restore public order.

   That, however, raises the question of the reality of public disorder. The tension caused by covid-19 is being exacerbated as certain malcontents encourage rebellion over vaccinations, despite the strong evidence that it works.

  For many decades, Americans have willingly and conscientiously accepted vaccines against polio, malaria, yearly variants of influenza and many other diseases to maintain health for themselves, their families and for society.

  So why now the sudden disbelief that this particular vaccination will help save lives? Could it be another attempt by a takeover group to sow the seeds of discontent and foster rebellion in America?

  The future is not fully foreseeable, but there are symptoms that dissent is being fostered wherever an opportunity arises for the dissenters.

  Here's a possible example:

  Truckers in Canada are supposedly behind the blockage of access to the U.S., alleging they are being forced against their will by U.S. policy to get vaccines against covid.

  But.

  Some 90 percent of Canadian truckers already are vaccinated, following a policy set by the Canadian government. So if they are now vaccinated, why are they protesting against something they already have?

  Answer: They're not.

  The blockage is perpetrated by others, masquerading as truckers.

   Who are they really working for, if not the Canadian trucking industry?

   It's time to take off their masques.

Liable Libel

   The standard defense against a libel suit is that the information is true, provably true, and printed without malice. Even if something is not true, a newspaper can show it was written by mistake and done without malice, so it is therefore not libelous.

   This issue came up as Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and vice presidential candidate, sued the New York Times for linking her comments with a shooting in Arizona that wounded Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

   The problem was that there was no connection between the more recent shooting and the other incident that happened six years earlier. The Times quickly withdrew the opinion piece and printed a correction.

   This, however, did not satisfy Palin, so she sued.

   Will she win? Here are a few things to consider. In 1964, the Supreme Court ruled that a such a libel suit must show malice or a "reckless disregard" for the truth. And in the 18th Century, the governor of New York sued a newspaper for printing a story about the governor and his mistress, alleging a "false libel." The defense attorney at the time said the story was true, the governor did indeed have a mistress and many people knew about it, so therefore the story was not libelous.

   And in 1964, the Supreme Court said a libel suit must show malice in printing a story, along with a "reckless disregard" for whether it was true. The incident concerned an ad in the New York Times by a Southern civil rights group criticizing an opponent as being racist.

   The opponent sued the Times, including the editorial department, for libel. Observers suggest he sued the newspaper partly because the group that took out the ad did not have much money, but the NYT did. The defense maintained also that the editorial department had nothing to do with the advertising department, so therefore it was not liable. As for whether the allegations against the Southern anti-civil rights opponent were true, that issue was not dealt with directly, since the news department was not involved in determining its truth or falsehood or anything in the ad.

   As for the current dispute between Palin and the NYT, the newspaper acknowledged the alleged connection was erroneous, and quickly spiked the relevant paragraph and ran a correction, indicating there was no malicious intent.

   That apparently did not satisfy the former candidate, and her lawsuit is now winding its way through the court system.

   The problem with that, as lawyers point out, is that this gives the story new life, and rather than be quickly forgotten by the general public, continuing encounters are covered by the media, reminding the public of the incident of years before.

   Moral: Unless it's really serious, let it go and the public will soon forget it. Otherwise, you give the news media reason to continue running the story.

   Post script: The jury unanimously rejected Palin's claim.

Politicians Lie

    Government is the art of getting something done.

   Politics is the art of winning.

   Too many candidates either don't know the difference or they deliberately confuse the two, believing they can persuade voters that their way is the best way.

   Just what that way is, however, is seldom explained, on the assumption that voters would not understand, so why bother.

   But if they really are as intelligent as they claim to be, why can't they explain it?

   Two possible answers: Either they are not as intelligent as they claim to be, or they lie.

   Fancy that. Politicians lie. Who knew?

   Some candidates defend themselves by saying they believe voters are just as intelligent as they are.

   More's the pity.

Talk, Rudy

   Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani reportedly has agreed to testify to the House committee investigating the former president's actions before and after Election Day 2020.

  It's either that or be subpoenaed.

  Many of Trump's associates insist they have immunity because of the former president's position. But the counter argument is no one is above the law.

Move On, Don

   Republican leaders are warning the ex-president to talk about other things if he really wants to run for office again.

   Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) called on Donald Trump to move away from complaining about alleged election fraud -- of which there has been little evidence -- and focus on real issues.

   Otherwise, Graham suggested, that misdirected focus may bring about the end of the Republican Party

   An alternative would be the formation of a third party, as happened when Theodore Roosevelt left the GOP and started the Progressive Party. This split meant that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the presidency in 1912.

Trash Talk

    Evidence is piling up that Donald Trump tore up, flushed down the White House toilet or took with him to Mar-A-Lago when he left office many batches of top-secret documents that should remain in government control.

  This has brought a fresh barrage of comments from observers and politicians that such behavior is unconstitutional and illegal, along with questions about why the current attorney general is not filing charges against the ex-president.

  Let's give the AG a break and suppose he is building a bigger and more powerful barrage of evidence about the ex-president's behavior and likely criminal actions until he has a case that even the most devout conservative Republican supporter can ignore.

Litigious

   Lawyers argue the meaning of words, insisting that words don't mean what you think they mean and you can't know what they really mean until a lawyer explains what they mean, regardless of how well you know the language or how well educated you are in linguistics, language usage or any other subject.

   In the litigious profession, whoever is most skillful at arguing the meanings of a word wins the argument.

   Fairness and accuracy don't enter into it.

   Or as Humpty Dumpty put it, "My words mean what I say they mean, neither more nor less." Put another way, you can't know what a word means until the litigator tells you what it means.

   That from the thin-shelled advisor sitting on a wall, groundless on any firm position.

   Currently, politicians are arguing over whether the Constitution applies to candidates for office.

   The 14th Amendment says no person can hold any government office if that person has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the United States, "or given aid or comfort" to anyone who has.

   But the argument now is that this does not apply to those who participated in the Jan. 6 episode, or gave aid and comfort to those who did, until after the Constitutional provision has been litigated and a court decides whether it really does apply.

   Litigious lawyers will argue the meanings of these words and whoever wins the argument establishes the meaning.

   But while that may apply to the specific case under argument, it is not appropriate to generalize. Logic 101, basic for law school attendees, teaches that a principle that is true in one case is not necessarily true for all cases. You need several examples to establish a pattern.

   The argument now is that the Jan. 6 episode was, in their perception, a peaceful demonstration, and therefore the Constitutional provision that would prohibit any participant or supporter of the participants from holding any political or governmental office at any level in the United States does not apply.

   Here's a Humpty Dumpty description of what the rest of the world saw as a riot. To his followers, that was a "legitimate political discourse."

   Or as the thin shelled egg man would put it, "You can't know what the Constitution means until I explain to you what it means."

   As if only those who went to the Humpty Dumpty School of Law can understand what words mean. Any others, be they  native speakers of the language, or have college degrees in Linguistics, Journalism, English, history, medicine or any other subject, cannot possibly understand the meanings of words until and unless a litigious litigator explains it in words of one syllable ten times.

Civility at Odds

   A major political question in America is whether the Republican Party will survive as  some of its more radical leaders and members persist in their tactics of attempting to reverse the will of the people and re-install their beloved leader. 

   Donald Trump, the supreme denier, refuses to accept the reality that he lost the popular vote in two (count 'em, both) presidential elections. He took the White House seat despite losing the popular vote in 2016 but somehow collected (manipulated?) the electoral votes in enough states to "win" the presidency. Four years later, he lost both the popular vote and the electoral vote, yet he still refuses to accept the results.

   The consequence of this is that America is struggling to regain its composure.

   Will it survive?

Word Play

    If thousands of rioters, hundreds of arrests and dozens of police injuries, as well as members of Congress seeking shelter from a mob is "legitimate political discourse," as Republicans would now have us believe, then I have a special sales price for the Brooklyn Bridge.

   Unless the Republican Party soon claims that all the video segments shown publicly on January 6 and since were really pre-recorded by thousands of actors paid by who-knows-who. Perhaps the Democratic Party or even Moscow.

   But the protests were shown live on national television at the time. And that was neither rational behavior nor reasonable.

   So who you gonna believe, the GOP or your own eyes?

Poll Vault

   The secret of launching a successful poll of voters is to be neutral in how the questions are phrased, as well as to maintain a wide enough array of respondents so the results are meaningful.

   That is, unless the poll takers are working for a political party and they want the results to be favorable to the organization's goals.

   More important is the tactic of keeping the results locked up until enough responses can be tabulated and the conclusions will be meaningful.

   There are plenty of responsible polling firms that follow these guidelines to reinforce their reputation for neutrality and responsibility.

   Others, however, especially those affiliated with political parties, frame their questions so the possible answers will be favorable to the electioneering goals.

   In effect, they are little more than propaganda efforts. They mine voter lists to get addresses of thousands of people, and make no effort get a neutral result. Rather, they want results that will reflect the political goals of the party.

   Good polling firms phrase their questions so responses will accurately reflect the opinions of the people interviewed. Others phrase their questions so the only possible response will be favorable to the sponsoring political party's position.

   In effect, therefore, they are little more than advertising sheets seeking to build support for predetermined conclusions.

   And that's why many people refuse to take part in any polling interviews at all.