Yah, These ARE The Droids We Have Been Looking For And Fearing

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I did not always write about it so much here, but I got fairly deep into “Deflategate” analysis and law when it was going on. Because it was fascinating. I met so many lawyers, professors and others, it was bonkers. Have remained friends with many, if not most, of all of them. One is Alexandra J. Roberts, which is kind of funny because she was not necessarily one of the major players. Yet, she is one of the enduring benefits I have come to love from the bigger picture.

Today, Ms Roberts advises of some R2D2 like cop robots. I “might” have engaged in some frivolity in response. But, really, it is a pretty notable moment.

Police droids on the ground? Police drones in the air? You think Kyllo will protect you from a Supreme Court with Neil Gorsuch on it? Hell, you think Merrick Garland would not have done what he has done all of his life and sign off on ever greater law enforcement collection and oppression? Not a chance in hell. Neither Gorsuch, nor Garland, would ever have penned what Scalia did in Kyllo:

It would be foolish to contend that the degree of privacy secured to citizens by the Fourth Amendment has been entirely unaffected by the advance of technology. For example, as the cases discussed above make clear, the technology enabling human flight has exposed to public view (and hence, we have said, to official observation) uncovered portions of the house and its curtilage that once were private. See Ciraolo, supra, at 215. The question we confront today is what limits there are upon this power of technology to shrink the realm of guaranteed privacy.

So, with no further adieu, here, via the Bo Globe, is the deal:

There’s a new security officer in town. But this one runs on batteries, not Dunkin’ Donuts.

Next time you’re visiting the Prudential Center, don’t be alarmed if you bump into a large, rolling robot as it travels the corridors where shoppers pop in and out of stores.

No, it’s not an oversized Roomba on the loose. It’s the “Knightscope K5,” an egg-shaped autonomous machine equipped with real-time monitoring and detection technology that allows it to keep tabs on what’s happening nearby.

Marvelous! R2D2 is making us all safer!

Nope. Sorry. Safe streets, broken windows, and “cop on the beat” policing cannot be accomplished by a tin can.

Just Say No to this idiotic and lazy policing bullshit. The next thing you know, the tin can will be probable cause. And Neil Gorsuch will help further that craven “good faith” reliance opinion in a heartbeat.

Parting Shot: Holy hell, we have our first reference to hate crimes for anti-cop robot violence! See here.

Frankly, having been in the field for three decades, I think the thought that cops are proper “hate crime” victims is absurd. Honestly, all “hate crimes” laws are completely absurd as they create different and more, and less, valuable classes of human crime victims. This may sound lovely to you in the safety of your perch, where you want to lash out at the evil others.

But if the “all men are created equal” language in the Declaration of Independence is to be given the meaning that so many demagogues over American history assign to it, then the “hate crimes” segregation and preference of one set of human victims over others, is total unfathomable bullshit.

That is just as to humans. Let’s not even go to the “victim’s rights” of squeaky ass little R2D2 tin cans.

Tell The Truth: Who’s Been Bullying Who

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The internet is a strange, yet consummately wonderful place. It allows for a feed from thought leaders and journalists, and with a new age real time speed emphasis, with the ability of other, and different on a granular level, voices to respond. It is a wonderful, even if still difficult, medium of interaction. Twitter is the epitome of it all.

Some will say Facebook, but I think Twitter is a far better avatar, especially for those that really think about hard news, current events and some sort of equilibrium of differing political discourse. Is it a little rough, unfiltered and harsh because of the proverbial 140 character limit? Sure. Absolutely. You hope that the friends you make are equal to the knowledge you take, whether you agree or disagree at any given point in time.

And then comes a day where a small fish gets accused of “bullying” by far bigger fishes. As if simple political and moral distinctions and views are “bullying” or otherwise unconscionable among people that have been agreeing and disagreeing/parrying with and against one another for give or take a decade.

Instead, I was always taught to go into a forum, argue like hell for what you think you must and/or right, and then go have a cocktail with your adversary, or at least shake hands and walk off with the understanding there are two sides to any legitimate argument. And, I will be honest, the “fight like hell” part is always job one. Indeed, criminal defense attorneys are schooled to zealously do just that.

So, recently, I was accused of “bullying”. By a friend with a perch several exponents above mine. I tried to explain. I apologized. And I got nothing in response but for the initial intellectual scorn and accusation that I was “bullying” the big fish.

But for the sadness, both on a personal and interpersonal plane, and greater intellectual one, I might laugh instead of cry. But I cannot. I will not.

The times are severe. The moment is critical. Let us all rise above this type of impertinent interaction. You can still respect and admire people you occasionally have real and very hard differences with. And you can talk to them. Both sides will be all the better for that discourse.

Trying times, civil rights, equality of justice, and the American experiment itself, depend on all of us.

[If you didn’t know, that was not just Slow Clapton in the video but also the one and only Yvonne Elliman too. She is, and always has been, special.]

Three Things: Oracle’s 299, Flashback, Longreads and 4/20

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Day Zero — the day after federal income tax filings were due — came and went, with zero Trump tax returns disclosed to the public. While Trump’s positions on many issues flip-flop and confuse the world, on transparency, ethics, and his tax returns he has been utterly consistent: opaque and unethical.

Fortunately today is 4/20. Do with that what you will. Do you smell brownies?

Speaking of 4/20, did you know that states where marijuana legalization appeared on the 2016 ballot, those initiatives outperformed one or more of the two main presidential candidates? What a candidate or political party might do with that knowledge…anyhow, on with three things.

Unprophetic Oracle
There’s still some fallout after The Shadow Brokers (TSB) release last week of NSA Tailored Access Operations’ (TAO) toolkit. Software vendor Oracle announced a patch for 299 vulnerabilities revealed by the TSB.

Wrap your head around that: 299 fixes.

Bigger than the whopping 276 fixes Oracle issued last summer in one fell swoop.

Now wrap your head around the fact this mega-patch covers a range of corporate enterprise software used for nearly every aspect of business operations, from human resource management to service or manufacturing resource planning.

If the NSA isn’t conducting economic espionage Oracle seems like an odd target to saturate so wide and deeply.

Still haven’t decided what to think of Oracle’s ability to push out this many patches inside a week. Were they tipped off, or were these vulnerabilities so obvious they should have been fixed ages ago? Or maybe this is what happens when a business like Oracle takes its eyes off the ball and focuses on the wrong things like a protracted lawsuit against Google?

Memories, jogged
When I saw this table fragment on Twitter, listing a few exploits revealed by TSB, I had a flashback to the Bush administration.

Gee, I wonder how much of the NSA TAO-Equation Group toolkit could explain the White House’s missing emails post-Plame outing?

Longreads: Economics, Liberalism, Google’s first moonshot
These are worth your time yet this week or weekend.

The Liberal Order Is Rigged by Jeff D. Colgan and Robert O. Keohane in Foreign Affairs (registration required) — An examination of liberalism’s failure and how the failure led to anti-democratic populism. In my opinion, this assessment is good but simplistic; the knee-jerk reaction many will have to the word ‘liberalism’ alone indicates there is far more at work than liberalism failing to deliver on its merits. It’s still worth a read; we must begin to pick out and save the liberal from neoliberal if we are to save democracy. Must say I’m surprised at Foreign Affairs’ steady shift away from rigid conservatism as well as neoliberalism.

The moral burden on economists — Darryl Hamilton’s 2017 presidential address to the National Economic Association warns against treating economics as a morally neutral ‘science’. How much of the failure of liberalism is really due to immoral/non-neutral application of economics?

Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria by James Somers for The Atlantic — This tagline is quite the hook: “Somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them.” Heartbreaking to think there hasn’t been a middle ground to free these books to the public. In my opinion, Google is out the money on the scanning process. What would happen if they spun off this effort as a nonprofit digital Library of Alexandria? Could the funds from books approaching out-of-copyright date pay for the upkeep and digitization of new works?

Chaffetz out?
I don’t even know what to think of the rumors that Rep. Jason Chaffetz may leave Congress before his term ends December 2017. Some speculate his role in cutting funding directly related to security for diplomats plays a role; others speculate the decision is based on a more personal driver. I hope he can live with what he’s done and what he may yet choose to do. I’d hate to have to explain myself to my kids if I’d made some of his decisions to date.

There’s your three things and a lagniappe. À bientôt!

Three Things: Not-So-Neutral, Day 2 and Reading

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This house was occupied by outside forces this long holiday weekend, obstructing output. Hope your weekend was similarly occupied by loved ones. Here’s three things for today.

It’s Day 2, Donald
At least 150 Tax March rallies across the country on Saturday reflected the public’s opinion about Trump’s tax returns — he must disclose them. Predictable locations participated, like New York City, but when red state cities and towns like Florida’s West Palm Beach have marches it’s an indicator.

Where are your tax returns, Trump? And don’t give us the “under audit” excuse yet again like you did through Spicer this afternoon. All previous presidents have been automatically audited while in office and still disclosed their returns. Nor are we going to buy your administration’s trash talk about the Tax Marches; we know what’s up with organized white supremacist provokatsiya.

Projection, much?

Net-not-so-Neutral
The big guys in technology — Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter, more — are slowly stirring from their post-inauguration torpor on net neutrality and the threat to their businesses non-neutrality poses. Their industry group, the Internet Association, expressed their concerns last week to the Federal Communications Commission about the FCC Chair Ajit Pai’s intent to kill net neutrality regulations established under the Obama administration.

Kind of slow on the uptake, dudes. Could have seen this coming based on Pai’s anti-neutrality stance when he served as an FCC commissioner. Also could have easily predicted Pai’s position based on the current administration’s drive against regulations.

And Pai’s move to reduce FCC oversight of the internet by shifting it to the Federal Trade Commission is a blowjob gift for the telcos — in spite of the fact more communications travel over the internet, a move to the FTC reduces exposure of communications to existing communications regulations. This does not serve the public’s interest.

There’s an alternate tack members of the Internet Association could take, if a little pricey and radical: they could simply buy the telcos. Google could acquire AT&T which has been a major PITA obstructing competition from Google Fiber. Apple could just buy Verizon for iPhone service and Facebook could snap up CenturyLink. The Internet Association could take on a role as mediator addressing traffic issues between them.

And then let’s see what happens to reducing regulation and net neutrality. Of course this creates an entirely new set of challenges with regard to privacy, but I’d rather move toward regulations to address them under FCC. (And I’d really rather digital morons like Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) had nothing to do with the intersection of privacy and technology when he clearly doesn’t grasp the internet is telecommunications deserving the same privacy as landlines.)

Speaking of acquisitions, there’s speculation Apple could buy Disney which includes ABC and other content subsidiaries like ESPN. Looks like wishful thinking right now on part of analysts, but if FCC’s Pai continues shredding net neutrality, it makes more sense for Apple (and other internet companies) to snap up companies which make content, cutting out carriers or forcing them to pay for Apple’s content.

Longreads
Here’s a few things worth your time during a commute or lunch hour this week:

A look at the end of Gaullism as France approaches its election.

Essay: Friendship as a Civic Democratic Practice — that’s little d democratic here; Ivy Schweitzer asks if we can’t look to our friendships to fix our national political schism. (Me? On a limited basis; I can’t be friends with Nazis.)

Marc Ambinder on U.S. government continuity — worth a read, but I’ve long had a nasty feeling continuity plans were changed because of 9/11 and they’re in a classified executive order if I’m right.

Interesting look at impact of open-source citizen investigations on Russian disinformation — focal point of this analysis is the doomed 2014 Malaysian Air flight MH17.

Those should keep you busy. Day 1 ahead — last day to file income taxes without penalty or file for an extension. Time, tide, and taxes wait for no man, Trump.

Open Thread: Arcs and Sparks

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I’m writing most of this post nearly a week before this will actually publish. Since I first began blogging 15 years ago, I can’t think of a time when I couldn’t write a casual, evergreen piece without worrying what would happen between the time I first began typing and the post published. Now? I hope the Reichstag fire of our age has not been sparked by the time you read this and I finish clicking the Schedule Post button.

I guess if the Fire 2.0 has come, you’re probably too busy to read this anyhow. Why should I worry?

This week’s featured art is by Polish painter Jacek Malczewski. I had the privilege once of seeing some of his work during a trip to Europe. Words can’t convey the intensity, the palpable power of his painting. It feels as if it will fall out of the canvas at one’s feet in a fury of energy. This particular piece, Melancholia, is probably his most famous. It traces a narrative arc from left to right — how very western! — which nearly spills over the front bottom edge of the 4.5-foot by 8-foot canvas. The arc describes emergence of both the artist and Poland, from conception in the interior of an artist’s studio toward the open window and the sunlight beyond, from insurgency and exile to Young Poland of age and strife. The window’s sill forms a barrier, a limit beyond which death may exist, but whose limit, whose death? what an amazing amount of content crammed into this painting; I wish I could have found a better digital image to do it justice.

I asked in last Saturday’s open thread/art post for readers to consider this untitled piece by Zdzisław Beksiński. Beksiński may have been inspired by Malczewski’s Melancholia in his depiction of a surrealist gothic arc; this one is so dark, so tight that a narrative is nearly impossible to decipher. It, too, emerges from the left and transits to the right, but from a bright formless void to a bricked up exit. It is more melancholy than Malczewski’s work in its darkness. One of Beksiński’s more obvious nods to Malczewski’s Melancholia spells out ‘Melancolia’ without the frantic rush of history’s sweep — only death and decay.

You can find a nice selection of Malczewski’s work at this link, and a solid overview of his career as a Polish symbolist at Culture.pl.

Non-arts stuff (if it’s not mentioned here, bring your topic downstairs in comments):

PGA Tour — Okay, I admit it, maybe one of the pasty white guys in golf togs might have mixed it up and added a little excitement this week — by slapping an alligator. Youngster Cody Gribble chased the reptile into a pond and then finished his round; sadly, at six over after Day 2, Gribble isn’t expected to make the cut. The tour’s at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando this week. Kind of a shame I’m rooting for more gators on the course in the deep rough.

NCAA March Madness — Live bracket here. A bunch of whining about the NBA’s one-and-done rule here, possibly explaining away any boring matches which are complained about here. C’mon, these players are teenagers, well-trained but still like puppies. Stop expecting miracles.

And who knew that guys schedule their vasectomies in March so they can lie about and watch basketball while nursing their bruised ‘nads? But you can only use that excuse once, dudes. Next year you can schedule a hernia repair. Make plans now to lift something obscenely heavy in December or January.

NFL — The draft. Because somebody noticed I omitted it on first pass last week. ~shrug~ Must say NFL is a dreadful abuser of autoplay embedded video.

Football — No, the other football. UEFA Europa League competition starts soon, with quarter-final draw yesterday. Check the matches here. UEFA Champions League quarter-final draw also made with next games scheduled for April 11-12. Some drama in Europa League surrounding the win over Russia’s FC Rostov involving a banana. Sadly, not as exciting as a golfing alligator.

NASCAR — At Phoenix International Raceway this week for the XFINITY Series DC Solar 200 (first short track this year) on Saturday and the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Camping World 500 on Sunday.

NHL — I give up. Detroit Red Wings are still in the goddamn basement of the Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. You go and make up your own filler here after reading the current standings. And I am really sick of the girls rubbing Dallas Stars’ Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn photos in my face, going on and on about Tyler’s abs. This week’s win over Vancouver Canucks forced me to shut off my Twitter notifications because of the flood of photos.

NBA — I just don’t care. Although I must say I laughed out loud when I noticed the top story in my feed was this one. Oh yeah, that’ll change everything.

MLB — Same. And really, is there such a desperate need for content that writers are reduced to stories like this? Here’s a mid-spring training report, but holy wah, what a godawful layout on desktop displays. You’ve been warned.

If I missed something, bring it downstairs with you and share.

32 days until Tax Day deadline. Do you know where your deductions are?

Open Thread: Don’t Forget Poland!

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Recall the quaint mid-Oughts during the 2004 presidential debates, when Dubya corrected his opponent John Kerry with, “You forgot Poland!”

Ah, those were the days, when an illegal war and torture were our biggest concerns.

Unlike now when nearly everything liberal democracy represents is in flames and ashes.

Last month I looked at a couple of works by Norwegian artist Munch; his Angst and The Scream still speak to us about existential crises. This month I want to look at a few works by Polish artists who also seem relevant to our condition.

Like Zdzisław Beksiński’s The Trumpeter featured here; how fitting with its many-fingered creepy playing. It’s fairly contemporary, published in 1983, and used as cover art for metal band Artestor’s album, ‘Omen’. Beksiński characterized his art as baroque or gothic. Hard to argue against this description given the wealth of dark detail. Some of Beksiński’s work reminds me of Swiss artist H.R. Giger’s monstrous surrealism like that used in the film Alien.

Take note of this piece featured in a write-up about Beksinski in a favorite art magazine. I’ll make reference to it next weekend when I look at another Pole’s work.

Sadly, Beksiński was murdered in 2005 for refusing to loan a young man some money. He left behind a wealth of work which will stir our imaginations for years to come. You can find more of his work at Dmochowski Gallery online.

Non-artsy stuff:

— NCAA Basketball‘s March Madness begins on Tuesday. ESPN has key tournament dates. NCAA offers a bracket challenge to follow along.

— NHL Hockey regular season ends April 9. Come on, Red Wings, please don’t finish this season dead last. Only a month to claw over the bottom two. For crying out loud don’t roll over for the NY Rangers on Sunday or I’ll never hear the end of it from the girls. It’ll be all “Oh, that Mats Zuccarello this and that, he’s so cute…” Just, no.

— PGA Tour is at Innisbrook Resort for the Valspar Invitational this weekend. Thankfully for tourney players and attendees Innisbrook is in Palm Harbor, Florida — the opposite side of the state from Mar-a-Lago. I can’t get excited about the tour, though; these guys at the top of the leader board are like watching paste set up.

— NASCAR this week is in Las Vegas for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. So redundant, that line, but it is what it is. Not my thing, but I need to pay attention to this since my prospective son-in-law is a big NASCAR fan.

— UPDATE 2:32 PM EST — NFL Free Agency because somebody downstairs noticed I had ignored a professional sport about which I don’t care, now in post-season. You’ll notice I didn’t originally mention the NBA (one month left in regular season) or the MLB (three weeks before regular season opening day) or the MLS (regular season started a week ago) either.

Next thing you know somebody will ask, “What about horse racing?” Yeah. And what about Poland?

That’s a wrap. This is an open thread — bring your arts and sports and whatever here which doesn’t belong in topic threads.

International Women’s Day 2017: #DayWithoutAWoman

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It’s been 108 years since the first National Women’s Day was declared in the U.S.; in 1911 it became International Women’s Day.

It would be another nine years before American women’s right to vote was enshrined in the 19th Amendment, and another 68 years after IWD 1911 before women’s suffrage was deemed a fundamental human right by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

In spite of women’s enfranchisement, they are under-represented in elected office; they have not realized parity in employment or pay across most industries. Their work is devalued more often and more deeply if they are engaged in emotional labor. They are far more likely to be under paid if they are women of color.

And now they fight to change this continuing inequity in spite of a world leader whose words and actions further denigrate their innate value.

The International Women’s Day 2017 theme is Be Bold for Change — but after a couple lifetimes, more than slogans are called for. The Women’s March movement, bolstered by its January 21st event and in concert with the International Women’s Strike organization, called for A Day Without A Woman to emphasize the role of women in the economy as part of their

As part of A Day Without A Woman, women are on strike when they can afford to do so. If you see a woman on the job, consider how challenging it is to support a family making wages which have not only stalled over the last two decades, but are on average 20% less than men make in the same jobs. Depending on whose study one reads, it will take 60 to 170 years for women to reach parity. This is absolutely unacceptable.

Today, women are wearing red to show their solidarity with their striking sisters. If you see women not wearing red, consider how their individual right to free speech has been degraded by corporatism in spite of their enfranchisement.

Today, women are avoiding purchases. If you see women buying goods or services, consider how difficult it is for some women to buy what they need in advance because of pay inequity in spite of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Families are deeply impacted by economic precarity based in gender pay inequity.

Today, consider how women’s freedom to make decisions about their reproductive health; will they be forced to quit their job because of unexpected pregnancy or inability to obtain adequate health insurance?

Today, consider the importance of women — regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, cis-/trans-/straight-gay-bi-sexuality — to a healthy economy and a thriving country.

Open Thread: Angst

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It’s the last weekend in February; I think Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ did such a fine job last weekend I’ll enlist another of his works to close this month. This one is called ‘Anxiety’ in English. In Norway they call it ‘Angst’. I think the latter is far more fitting based on definition.

We haven’t yet sunk into madness — March Madness, that is. (Don’t forget to fill out your bracket if you’re into that collegiate basketball-induced insanity.)

But we are definitely suffering from a collective existential dread. How will we climb out of this hole and fix this mess?

In the mean time, dump your burden here. Make light while you can. Remember Tuesday is Mardi Gras, the last guilt-free celebration until Easter for those of who are Catholic or Catholic-by-heritage. Offload your angst in comments and celebrate while you can without a side-eye or shade.

Open Thread: The Scream

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Norwegian artist Edvard Munch‘s most famous work, The Scream, seems most appropriate this week. If you can’t think of something that made you want to scream this week, count yourself a lucky person.

With Superbowl done, pro football season is over; that’s enough to make some folks scream with frustration if not boredom. Cheer up — there’s other sportsing to be had.

NHL regular season doesn’t end until April 9, 2017. (Ugh, Red Wings, in the basement? Come the fuck on.)

NBA regular season doesn’t end until April 12, 2017. (Pistons smack in the middle of the Eastern Conference. Meh.)

NCAA regular season ends March 5th, beginning March Madness. Start working on your bracket now. (I got nothing. Maybe next year if my kid transfers to a Big 10 school.)

PGA golf tour continues its plodding way with the Genesis Open this week at Riviera Country Club in Palisades, CA. (Yawn.)

I’m sure bmaz will fill us in on critical racing news if there’s any this week. I don’t think Formula One starts until the last week of March, though.

Me? I’ll be watching for Amy Suskind’s weekly list of Not Normal events measuring our republic’s drift away from sanity into a fascist one-party state. Last week’s list was grim and included for the first time items we have now normalized. I can hardly wait to see what’s on Week 14’s list.

This thread is open. Scream away.

Show Us Where the Bad Men Touched You, Jason

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Show us on the doll where the bad men touched you, Jason.

You, too, Lindsey, and the rest of you GOP members of Congress who are skeptical about the incoming administration. Forget the weak-willed, soft-handed slack ones in your ranks for the moment.

Did they touch you in the heart, or in your head? Or did they touch in your wallet?

We know they rounded you up, herded you into a room, then told you your beliefs were a lie — you’re no longer a member of the party of Reagan, and everything you’ve believed and lived for the last 30-plus years is vaporware.

Reports say Club for Growth was the shock troop used to deliver this radical shift in ideology, telling you you’re now populists after CfG’s Stephen Moore allegedly took a tour around the Midwest and saw what had become of industrial states.

And now you’re supposed to completely overhaul your belief systems overnight and there’s no such thing as facts.

Except, Club for Growth and their anti-tax small government ideology has been *exactly* the problem with the Midwest. They razed it to the ground, Flint’s mass lead poisoning being just one of the most obvious examples of what happened after they ‘liberated’ people from taxes and ‘freed’ the public from excess government regulation. The loss of manufacturing jobs and the offshoring of wealth should have made clear to you more than a decade ago reducing taxes and regulation wasn’t working.

(One need only look at China’s air quality to see we offshored more than jobs, and that some of our “excess government regulations” have worked.)

Did the men who cornered you in that room make it clear that they fucked up? That they were the reason so many of the U.S. industrial areas withered up and died? Did they admit the wall against which they made you stand for the last several decades — the starving of federal investment in infrastructure, education, and health by reducing and eliminating taxes — was the reason why industry found it cheaper to go overseas? Or that wages for remaining jobs have remained stagnant?

Imagine workers so healthy that automakers didn’t incur $5000 per vehicle in health care and insurance expenses. Imagine a workforce so well educated they could out-produce an automated, cheaper workforce abroad. Imagine roads and rails humming with efficiency, improved with American know-how.

That’s what they insisted you deny, literally starving the arsenal of democracy by withholding investment and encouraging the insertion of undemocratic management a la municipal ’emergency managers’.

Do you really believe after all this time these formerly anti-tax shock troops suddenly know what they are doing? Have you ever listened to the people in your district instead and parsed what it was they truly needed instead of hearing through CfG’s filter, trying to hang on to your place against the wall?

Worse, you’re encouraged to believe that we, your constituents, no longer care about corruption. As if we wouldn’t notice the silent drag on both our economy and well-being caused by skimming off the top in the form of unfettered conflicts of interest. As if we wouldn’t miss our democracy bought from under us by regulatory capture and rampant corporate campaign donations, resulting in gross inequality and a government of, by, and for business (screw the citizens).

We noticed — that’s what the election should have told you.

Brainwashing, that’s what these men have done and are doing yet again to you. We the people damned well do care about fairness. It’s NOT fair to make millions and billions off our backs when elected officials are paid by us to represent us. It’s a form of taxation without representation. These former anti-tax advocates are suddenly blinded to this by their incredibly flexible ethics.

What else will these men demand of you while you’re still in shock, the ground beneath your feet still fluid? Will they tell you we’re no longer the country of democratic principles and the Constitution, too? Will  you simply fall in line and believe them?

Do you know what it looks like anymore, to have a spine and live the oath you’ve sworn to the people all the way to the end of your term and through the next? Do you know what a Republican is supposed to be anymore, besides a reed bending in the wind?

Or will you merely become another bad man corralling others into groupthink along the wall, clinging to the illusion you’re doing the right thing because ‘political party über alles’?

Next, you’ll insist Arbeit macht frei as they herd you into yet another room.

Investigate conflicts of interest. Look into foreign influence in our elections. Investigate rogue elements of government. Prosecute and/or deny access to power. Protect our democracy by assuring every citizen has a counted vote. Live your oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Don’t let the bad men continue to touch you, reach your loved ones, damage us all.

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