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n2doc's JournalThe Whole Fish Is Rotten, Not Just Rob Porter
John Kelly should follow him out the door.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
FEB 8, 2018
It’s quite clear at this point that the government of the United States is infinitely better off without the services of Rob Porter. It also is quite clear that the government of the United States would be infinitely better off without the services of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who’s had quite a week for himself. First, he ran his gob about immigrants "who were too lazy to get off their asses" and sign up for DACA protections. Then he pretty much gave away the game on the whole memo business, saying that it’s not clear when—or if—the president* might release the memo produced by the Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee.
And, finally, when the story about Porter’s allegedly beating up both his wives broke, Kelly’s first response, according to CNN, was altogether awful.
White House chief of staff John Kelly called Porter "a man of true integrity and honor and I can't say enough good things about him." "He is a friend, a confidante and a trusted professional. I am proud to serve alongside him," Kelly said in a statement.
Eventually, more rational heads prevailed. (I know, I know. Everything’s relative.) Kelly came up with a second statement about how he thinks knocking your spouse around is very, very bad. But, by then, almost all the damage had been done. It was revealed that the people running Camp Runamuck knew for months about the charges leveled against Porter, because those charges were the reason that Porter couldn’t get a security clearance. Not that it stopped him from sitting in on briefings where classified information was discussed.
more
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16761377/the-whole-fish-is-rotten-not-just-rob-porter/
Charles P Pierce - If the Russians Got into Voting Machines, I Fear for the Republic
Closer and closer and…
From NBC News:
In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, said she couldn't talk about classified information publicly, but in 2016, "We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated." Jeh Johnson, who was DHS secretary during the Russian intrusions, said, "2016 was a wake-up call and now it's incumbent upon states and the Feds to do something about it before our democracy is attacked again."
We are inching ever closer to the revelation that the actual vote totals were hacked—some very smart people are already there, by the way—and, once that happens, I don’t know where we go from there. The Republican Party already has shown it will tolerate all manner of jacking around with the franchise in pursuit of power and its benefits for the Republican donor class. But, simply, I don’t know if either party truly has the sand to face up to the possibility that a president* was installed under those circumstances.
Talk about a story nobody wants to hear. Imagine if the margin of victory in, say, Wisconsin, was a result of votes “cast” in some cubicle farm in Minsk.
more
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16758812/russia-hack-voting-machines-2016/
In Democrats' strategic strike against gerrymandering, Holder leads the charge
Linda Feldmann
FEBRUARY 7, 2018 WASHINGTON—There’s no doubt that Democrats are energized for this November’s midterm elections. But there’s more at stake than just the partisan control of state and federal offices for the next few years.
Democrats are laying plans for a political reset – and, they hope, a more level playing field – with an impact that would reach all the way to 2031.
Leading the charge is a perhaps-unlikely figure: Eric Holder, attorney general under former President Barack Obama. With Mr. Obama’s help, he’s tackling the seemingly dry issue of redistricting, the drawing of boundaries for state and federal legislative districts.
In fact, it’s a hot topic, with the 2020 Census coming soon, followed by redistricting in 2021, and three cases at the Supreme Court. And in Mr. Holder’s view, the fair formation of voting districts – and fighting partisan gerrymandering – goes to the very heart of representative democracy.
more
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/monitor_breakfast/2018/0207/In-Democrats-strategic-strike-against-gerrymandering-Holder-leads-the-charge
That dinosaur-killing asteroid also triggered massive magma releases beneath the ocean, study finds
The asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago appears to have caused huge amounts of magma to spew out of the bottom of the ocean, a new study of seafloor data finds.
The discovery, described in the journal Science Advances, adds to the portrait of an extinction event that was as complex as it was deadly.
For decades, researchers have pointed to a cataclysmic asteroid smashing into the planet as the reason the dinosaurs, and many other species of life on Earth, were wiped out during what's formally known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event (named for the periods that came before and followed after it). That impact, which scientists think left the roughly 110-mile-wide Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico, would have vaporized living things nearby and sent choking clouds of debris into the air, obscuring the sun.
But scientists have also pointed to another culprit: the Deccan Traps in present-day India, one of the largest volcanic provinces in the world, which just happened to be going gangbusters at the time of the extinction event. The ash and noxious gases from the Deccan Traps are really what killed the dinosaurs, some scientists say, downplaying the asteroid's role.
more
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-magma-dinosaur-extinction-20180207-story.html
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