Jeanine Pirro gives me Schadenfreude

Trump used Fox as a recruiting pool, and now one of his picks has had a problem with a different kind of pool and Trump is angry.  Trump appointed  former Fox “News” legal analyst Jeanine Pirro as federal prosecutor for D.C.  Yesterday she dropped the case against the man accused of vandalizing the reflecting pool.  The evidence was non-existent and the charge was ridiculous.  Pirro really had no choice.

Except that Trump hates–hates–to be contradicted.  Pirro might just be fired.  I hope so.  I love internal squabbles in the Administration.  

Hey, whatever happened to Kristi Noem? 

Blissfully ignorant

The owner of the Four Winds Craft Guild, an upscale artisan craft and antique shop on Nantucket, put up a sign that said “No Influencers,” and his friend posted it on Instagram.  An “influencer” named Paige Paul, who has over a million followers, said the sign was the same as a sign barring women.

When I read this, I realized I have never seen an “influencer.”  They don’t pop up on my emails, and you can’t get them on a landline, which is the only phone I own.  This is one of the reasons when Charlie Kirk was shot, my reaction was “Who?”

My second takeaway was: A MILLION FOLLOWERS!  Wow.  I usually get between 15 and 20 people reading these posts.  I once got a hundred.

My third takeaway was:  Why would anyone take the time to read people like Joseph Rogan or that asswipe who runs the Proud Boys?  Really?  Don’t people have anything better to do?  Get a library card.

Lastly, I thought:  I’ve got to figure out how to become an “influencer.”  This could be a whole new career.

Some info for this post is from an article by Madison Malone Kircher entitled “Two Words Cause Many on Nantucket to Weigh In” in today’s N.Y.T., p. 3st.

Presidential primaries in 2028

In many past elections the presidential nomination process began with caucuses in Iowa followed by a primary in New Hampshire.  Candidates with good organizations could win in both those states.  Both states had relatively small populations which lent themselves to personalized campaigning.

Unfortunately, neither Iowa nor New Hampshire are particularly representative of members of the Democratic Party in 2028.  Both states have mostly white voters, and neither state is a Democratic stronghold.  Since political parties can determine their own nominating process, the national Democratic organization decided the first six states will vote in this order:  South Carolina (in January) followed by Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan, and Virginia.  

That’s a nice cross-county mixture of urban and rural.  Black voters, Latino voters, union members, and big city residents are all represented.  It should be an interesting contest.

Wiping the phone with a duress passcode

When airline passenger Samuel Tunick from Atlanta was stopped at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the authorities seized his phone.  He was not a spy or anything like that, but he had made a reputation as an opponent of the plan to build a police and fire training center in an urban woodland in Atlanta.  

Anyway, the authorities wanted the passcode to get into Mr Tunick’s call history.  The code he gave them is called a “duress” passcode, and it wipes the entire contents of the phone.  How cool is that?

The Feds were not amused.  They have now charged him with a felony for destroying evidence.  What evidence?  He made phone calls.  And what were the grounds for seizing the phone in the first place?  They didn’t have a warrant.  No crime was suspected. 

I think Mr. Tunick will win this case.  Even if he doesn’t, that is one of the best weapons against technology I’ve heard.  If I ever get a cell phone, I’ve got to get one of those duress passcodes. 

American Concentration Camps

Let’s be honest about this.  That’s the accurate name for where we are keeping our ICE detainees.  Some of detention warehouses are run by private for-profit firms.  Those warehouses are not usually required to comply with the Freedom of Information Act.  That means if you have a parent or a child in one of them, you may not be able to obtain information.

Wormy food, lack of health care, brown water–all problems.  More than 65,000 people are in these concentration camps right now.  Now ICE wants to put people in county jails.  I don’t even know if my county is cooperating with ICE.  I will be attending a meeting of the County Commissioners to try to answer that question.

Is Congress doing anything about this?  Do pigs fly?

A Blunt Warning for Israel

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens is a Zionist.  He has also been a reliable defender of Israel in the past.  Today Mr . Stephens’ column was entitled “A Blunt Warning for Israel.”  Stephens said that anyone who cares about Israel’s well-being, and that would include me, needs to speak up and condemn the anti-Palestinian settler terrorism on the West Bank.  He noted that it was not only harmful to the Palestinians and an affront to Jewish ethics, but it was also a threat to Israel’s statehood.

Stephens quoted a letter sent to President Trump by Matan Vilnai, a retired deputy chief of staff of the IDF, representing a group that includes hundreds of retired senior IDF officers.  Vilnai wrote:

     Whereas our security agencies excel in dealing with Hamas and other West Bank Palestinian terror groups they are severely constrained when it comes to Jewish terrorists.  

     It is no secret that certain members of our current government orchestrate much of this chaos including by shielding their followers–who are armed and driven by messianic impulses–from the law and its enforcement.

Will this have an effect on Netanyahu?  Probably not.  He is depending on the settler extremist supporters to stay in power.

You can read the full column in today’s Times, page A23.

Living in the U.S.A.

That’s the title of a book I found in the shed tonight.  I probably mentioned this in an earlier post, but I am “deaccessioning” my library.  I’m finding books on the shelves I didn’t even know I owned.  Tonight I came across Living in the U.S.A. by  Alison R. Lanier, first published in 1973 and revised by Charles William Gay for an edition published in 1996.

It is a guide for immigrants, and it has chapter such as “Some Dominant American Attitudes,” “Doing Business in the United States,” and “Manners and Courtesies in Social Life.”  The book is completely useless.

Today I had a conversation with the mother of an immigration lawyer.  He told her there was no path to citizenship at the present time.  An attorney can’t even bring a client along to court; he or she might get arrested.  

I suppose Living in the U.S.A. might have some historical value, like a repair guide for a ’57 Chevy or an etiquette book for teenagers in the 1920s.  

Maybe I’ll keep it.