9-11 +18

First, this post will take you to others I've written about the aftereffects of 9-11. I think I've said what I needed to on that score.

As of tomorrow, a person who was born after the Twin Towers fell will be a legal adult and can sign up to go fight in the forever war that came about as a result. If there was ever a chance to "win" in Afghanistan, it was tossed away by Bush the Spendthrift on his way to fight a war of aggression against a nation that had nothing to do with the matter then at hand. But he and Dick the Torturer went out and lied through their teeth to justify it. Bush's Misbegotten War destabilized the region-- ISIS is a stepchild of the Iraq War.

As far as I know, senior members of the Bush Administration still cannot travel overseas for fear of being arrested for war crimes.

I Hired You People to Try to Get a Little Track Laid, Not to Jump Around Like a Bunch of Kansas City Faggots!

No problem, Boss!

Sharpiegate Continues

The Secretary of Commerce threatened to fire top employees at the federal scientific agency responsible for weather forecasts last Friday after the agency’s Birmingham office contradicted President Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian might hit Alabama, according to three people familiar with the discussion.

That threat led to an unusual, unsigned statement later that Friday by the agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, disavowing the National Weather Service’s position that Alabama was not at risk. The reversal caused widespread anger within the agency and drew accusations from the scientific community that the National Weather Service, which is part of NOAA, had been bent to political purposes.

NOAA’s statement on Friday is now being examined by the Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times, and employees have been asked to preserve their files. NOAA is a division of the Commerce Department.

The National Weather Service “must maintain standards of scientific integrity,” the inspector general, Peggy E. Gustafson, wrote in a message to NOAA staff members in which she requested documents related to Friday’s statement. The circumstances, she wrote, “call into question the NWS’s processes, scientific independence, and ability to communicate accurate and timely weather warnings and data to the nation in times of national emergency.”

Can anyone honestly believe, after this, that Trump is not mentally ill? We're now going to be treated to yet another investigation that basically calls into question Trump's fitness for office.

He's not. He's nuttier than a boxcar of almonds.

Trump is looking for his analog of Trofin Lysenko. Here's hoping that he never finds one.

Kickbacks: It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature,

Attorney General William P. Barr is planning a holiday treat for his boss.

Last month, Barr booked President Trump’s D.C. hotel for a 200-person holiday party in December that is likely to deliver Trump’s business more than $30,000 in revenue.

Barr signed a contract, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, for a “Family Holiday Party” in the hotel’s Presidential Ballroom Dec. 8. The party will feature a buffet and a four-hour open bar for about 200 people.

Oh sure, Buttmonkey Barr has reasons for holding his party there, but they're bullshit. No large hotel runs its reservations on 3x5 cards; double-booking a function room is implausible.

What this sounds like is the old days, when city workers were expected to kick back a portion of their pay to the party.

Corruption is a feature of the Trump presidency.

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

The first flight of the Boeing 367-80:

I don't know if the sound was added later. There's not a lot of footage of Dash 80 out there.

Remember When Republicans Complained That Clinton's Allies Were Rigging the 2016 Primaries?

It's now the Party of Trump:

Four states are poised to cancel their 2020 GOP presidential primaries and caucuses, a move that would cut off oxygen to Donald Trump’s long-shot primary challengers.

Republican parties in South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona and Kansas are expected to finalize the cancellations in meetings this weekend, according to three GOP officials who are familiar with the plans.

Trump claims to have a lock on the GOP. So what is he so afraid of? Are his bone spurs keeping him from competing in the primaries?

Or does Trump cheat in politics the way that he cheats in golf?

Caturday

Detente:

Can Anyone Mock Up a Historical Marker?

Here's the idea:

(A historical marker for Hurricane Dorian not hitting Alabama)

Please do a better one.

Sharpie-gate

Sure enough, it was Trump himself who took a Sharpie to the forecast map.

A White House official says it was President Trump himself who used the black Sharpie to doctor an official government map, which he then displayed during an Oval Office briefing, to falsely add Alabama into Hurricane Dorian’s potential pathway.

“No one else writes like that on a map with a black Sharpie,” the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, told my colleagues Toluse Olorunnipa and Josh Dawsey.

This all is further evidence of Trump's vastly inflated ego. He can never be wrong about anything, he knows everything about any subject that can be named. When he makes a mistake, he doubles and triples down on it. Trump then makes it worse and converts what should have been a simple error into yet another extended debate about Trump's mental health.

Either a simple tweet five days ago that "I was wrong about Alabama being in the path of Dorian" or even ignoring the mistake would have sufficed and both Trump and his people could have moved on.

But no.

You can hold your breath for a very long time waiting for any of Trump's supporters to admit that he's nuts. Or they'll fall back to their standard defense of "but, but, Hillary". She had a lot of baggage, she was a horrible candidate, but at least she's not start raving bonkers. Unlike Trump.

"I Said Something Stupid, But It's Your Fault For Calling Me Out On It!"

No, Gentle Reader, this time it's not about Trump.

Spiritual guru and self-help author Marianne Williamson on Wednesday posted and then deleted a tweet suggesting that the "power of the mind" helped turn Hurricane Dorian away from delivering a more dangerous blow to the United States.

“The Bahamas, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas...may all be in our prayers now,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in the original tweet, adding, “Millions of us seeing Dorian turn away from land is not a wacky idea; it is a creative use of the power of the mind. Two minutes of prayer, visualization, meditation for those in the way of the storm.”

So, after being called out on it, she started bleating that those who were commenting on it were engaging in snobbery and religious discrimination.

She also defended the power of prayer, asserting that the dismissive and mocking reactions to her tweet were examples of how the left lost ground with religious voters.

"Prayer is a power of the mind, and it is neither bizarre nor unintelligent," she wrote Wednesday afternoon. "People of faith belong in the Democratic Party, and will be necessary to the effort if we’re to win in 2020."

It's one thing to believe in the power of prayer. Faith may help some people through tough times. Maybe believing that the Almighty has an overarching plan may comfort someone whose child died as an infant. I'm not knocking that.

But to believe that "the power of the mind" had anything to do with steering Hurricane Dorian is just fucking nuts. Does Williamson believe that because people in the Bahamas were not praying hard enough is why Hurricane Dorian, as a cat 4/5, was parked over the Bahamas for two days?

Williamson is a nut job. We don't need successive narcissistic lunatics in the White House.