Who Failed Tamir Rice?

The family, the culture that was not there to properly supervise a "little boy" playing with toy guns.  Someone, like a father, ought to have taught the boy NEVER EVER to point a realistic looking gun at another person.  Not to wave it around it a park, not to remove the consumer safety mandated toy gun tip.

Also the dispatcher who failed to relay that the caller expressed concern about the APPEARANCE of a threat, based on an unsupervised potential child playing with a potential toy gun, who did not have anyone close to him take the realistic-looking weapon out of his hand, and give him something else to play with.

(It's too bad the caller was not courageous enough to holler out to the person she saw waving the gun around that if it was a toy, he ought to put it away in public because someone could get the wrong idea and call the cops on him as a potential threat.  I thought families and communities raised kids, not cops.)

I blame the officer who pulled up close, and gave his partner no chance to assess the situation.

But I sure don't blame the guy who fired at someone pulling a gun out of his waistband when the cop car pulled up.  Sad that the kid didn't know better, and nobody apparently loved him enough to take the toy out of his hand and paint it yellow, say, before returning it to him to "play" with...

Maybe we ought to mandate a gun safety class in every classroom in America, so the children are properly educated on how to protect themselves?

The fundamental NRA rules for safe gun handling are:

• ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction. This is the primary rule of gun safety. ...
• ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot. ...
• ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

Just like we need to prepare children how to protect themselves if they are going to be having sex at an early age, we ought to do the same if we are raising them in a gun culture.  

Nevermind Ramadi.

I'd like to see us retake the South and West Sides of Chicago.

Doesn't it make more sense to fight our gang wars here at home, rather than sticking our nose into other people's ethnic civil wars?

I mean, it's not our business, and the more we spend to allegedly democratize the Middle East to protect our ally, the more China invests in its future.

Consider:  if we went to war now, which country has the greater capacity to churn out the weapons of war that helped us win WWII?  We no longer have the factories here to convert.  China does.

The more we continue assassinating other people's leaders and families with drones, the more we risk having that done to our own leaders, when other stronger countries think they are helping to remove our leaders from power who are overseeing the deaths of hundreds of their own people annually.

As much as I might dislike Rahm Emanuel and think him unsuited for the job, I would not want to see him and his family taken out at night by a drone hit on his personal residence.  Do unto others and all.

(If you've seen the move FailSafe, you understand how things might look different if the shoe is on the other foot.  America is not going to be the world's strongest military power for much longer at the rate we're investing in our people domestically -- we don't have the wherewithal nor the physical health/strength and our money is rapidly being spent out in the Middle East... you'd think we'd be setting better examples now of how we expected the Big Guys to treat the little guys, once we realize we can't artificially dominate the world forever.)

Sunrise, Sunset ... Sunrise...

#ChristmasCrackers
-----------------------------------------
#OurFirstSelfieStickChristmas...

Thought for the Day.

"You've got to stand up straight,
carry your own weight,
'cause these tears are going nowhere,
baby..."
------------


ADDED: "On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me: 4 Calling Birds 3 French Hens 2 Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree..."

Remember folks,
it's not over yet...
Those gifts keep on a-coming!

How 'bout that Teddy Bridgewater?

Bridgewater... now there's a name!

Part of the process for Bridgewater has been learning how assertive he can be about what he prefers to run in a game plan. Coach Mike Zimmer said this week he has told Bridgewater throughout the season that it's fine to speak up about his preferences, but the cordial quarterback is still finding the right balance of what he can say.

"I tell him all the time, 'It's OK to do this.' And sometimes, he'll go tell me, and I'll go tell Norv [Turner, the offensive coordinator]," Zimmer said. "It's not like he's afraid to tell Norv. The thing about it is, he never wants anybody to say, 'Well, he didn't like that play,' because he likes all the plays. But there are some plays he likes better than others."

Maybe... like this one? Beauty! (Talk about precision targeting in finding your mark... The young man has fine eyesight.)*

[I]n the past two games, against Arizona and Chicago, the Vikings have hit on a steady diet of quick passes, getting Bridgewater away from defenders on rollouts and bootlegs and giving him options to unload quickly.

"[Norv Turner and quarterbacks coach Scott Turner and I] talk all the time," Bridgewater said. "I’m a guy who likes to be on the move and I’m all about rhythm, getting going early. You put the tape on, you know, [here] were naked [bootlegs] and things like that getting the ball out quick, and it’s been helping us."

If that sounds something like a thesis for how Bridgewater likes to run an offense, it's probably not an accident. The quarterback said after the Arizona game that the Vikings had found a formula that could work for them the rest of the way, while adding that the game's fateful final play -- a strip-sack from Dwight Freeney that halted the Vikings' comeback bid -- required him to hold the ball on a long-developing crossing route. If he's become more willing to speak his mind in public, it stands to reason he's getting a little more comfortable doing so during the week.

"I think it comes with experience and comes with age, and a little bit of the demeanor of the person, as well," Zimmer said. "He's a guy that wants to please all the time. He never wants to ruffle any feathers or anything like that. But he'll continue to get better at that."

"It's surprising, because we actually just had a conversation with his college coach when he was a freshman and sophomore. He was kind of the same way, and he started getting a little bit more assertive. He's a really respectful kid. He probably respects Norv's opinion as much -- it's the same with the defensive players. Not many guys have ever come up and said, 'Hey, I don't like that call, Coach,' to me, either. I think they understand. It's more about a respect kind of thing."

(That was written before last night's victory over New York.)

-------------------------


* "It's an unual throwing motion -- we've highlighted that -- but he keeps. getting. the job. done."

In Other News...

Rahm apparently chooses to remain vacationing in Cuba, rather than returning home to face the music following the latest "accidental" police killing.

That's not just showing poor leadership, it's bad p.r. too.

“There are serious questions about yesterday’s shootings that must be answered in full by the Independent Police Review Authority’s investigation,” Mr. Emanuel said in a statement issued by his office. “While their investigation is underway, we must also make real changes within our Police Department today, and it is clear changes are needed to how officers respond to mental health crises.” *

Yet the city released few details about the shooting. A spokesman for the Chicago police referred questions to the review authority, and a spokesman for the review authority declined on Sunday to provide an outline of what happened, say how many shots were fired or identify the race of the officer involved.

Autopsies conducted on Sunday concluded that Ms. Jones, who was black, died of a gunshot wound to her chest. Mr. LeGrier, who was also black, died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to a daily case ledger from the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Full autopsy reports were not yet available, however, so it was uncertain how many times each person was shot. Family members, though, said they had been told that Ms. Jones was shot four times and Mr. LeGrier seven times. The police declined to comment.

Who was it that said "never let a good crisis go to waste" ?

(Best cut the beach time short, Mr. Mayor. Come home and start making those needed "changes within our Police Department today". Start today, Monday morning, and don't plan any more family vacations until your job is done? That's why you get paid the big bucks, sir. The buck stops where exactly?)

ADDED: Family members at the crime scene are reporting that at least one bullet penetrated the downstairs tenant's doorway... No guns were found on either victim; the mentally ill young man appeared only to be armed with an aluminum bat.

“Why you’ve got to shoot first and ask questions later?” asked Jacqueline Walker, a longtime friend of Ms. Jones’s.

Ms. Jones, a mother of five, had been involved in community activism, including marches on behalf of better opportunities for youths, friends said. “It hurts my heart,” Ms. Walker said.

If they've learned anything from the McDonald killing, the city should start releasing details as soon as possible to curb even worse speculation from the masses assembling...

"Obviously something is wrong when a 55-year-old grandmother opens the door to let police in and she's the one who end up dead," said attorney Sam Adams, Jr.

It should not take a year to charge this cop with murder in the "accidental" death of Ms. Jones, nor should the family settle for a buyout of her life. (She was reportedly recovering from ovarian cancer.)

At the very least, the officer should be stripped of his gun and badge as he clearly does not have the skills nor the proper training to serve and protect the people of Chicago. His actions show that -- whether the officer is black or white, man or woman. (Hopefully the officer will be identified this week, as more information on the crime is gathered and becomes publicly available.)

Maybe other officers will learn, this time around, that unjust killings will no longer be hidden and tolerated, and that there are consequences for actions? Maybe that's how you clean up a corrupt police force in reality, other than just forming coalitions and issuing statements? (If you can't get results, step aside and let Chicago elect someone who will at least be here and try...)

Even in Chicago, I think the bad cops are on notice now: you're just not going to get away with killing innocents and having the taxpayers pay for your work... The gravy train ride is over.

#TruthMatters
#Scientific Evidence Will Out
#No Justice = No Peace

-----------------
*

Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush also released a statement in response Saturday's shootings.

"Why weren't tasers used in this incident?" the statement read. "Why were shots fired before other de-escalating tactics were employed? Why does shooting someone to death seem to be the default tactics of the city's police force? These questions and many others require immediate answers."

This is my Hometown.

The water started flowing in, in late November...
I could smell a slight trace of sewage as I drove Ridge Road, dividing the quarry lobes and cemetery, into town. (They closed Brown Derby Road, permanently, a few months back.)

Thornton Reservoir project to provide flood relief to S. Side
By Paul Meincke
Tuesday, September 01, 2015
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Flood relief became a reality Tuesday for residents on Chicago's South Side and more than a dozen southern suburbs with the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Thornton Reservoir project.

The Thornton Quarry, the baby Grand Canyon, when filled will hold eight billion gallons of storm water and sewer back-up. It's been in the works for decades.

Tuesday, the politicians came and the ribbon was cut.

Behind the ribbon, well within the tunnel are gates that will regulate the flow of storm water - flood-water, often laced with foul sewage, that sometimes winds up in south suburban basements after heavy rains. Filling the quarry is meant to lessen that misery.

"This is one component in what I see as a toolbox to help people combat flooding," said Mariyana Spyropoulos, MWRD president.

A lot of the water will not smell very nice. So the question is, how do you minimize the odor?

Here is one answer. There are seven floating aerators that will sit atop the water while sending oxygen in and trapping the bad gas underneath.

"When you come here you might smell a faint odor when you come to the perimeter you shouldn't be able to smell anything," said Kevin Fitzpatrick, MWRD Project engineer.

There will always be some water in the bottom of the quarry. Occasionally it may get filled close to the brim. The gates in the tunnel open for real business in a couple weeks.

Pictures.

If you're interested in engineering, this article will give you an idea of the scope of the work undertaken in the Deep Tunnel multi-billion dollar project.

Where is Rahm? *

Appears his police are at it again...
God have mercy.

The police arrived at a small beige residence in a neighborhood about six miles west of downtown after a relative reported that Quintonio LeGrier, 19, was behaving oddly and carrying a metal baseball bat around the second-floor apartment where his father lived. Mr. LeGrier, whose mother told reporters he was a college student who had been experiencing mental health issues, was fatally shot.

Bettie Jones, who was 55 and a first-floor tenant, was also fatally shot, apparently as she attempted to answer a shared front door for the arriving police officers and was standing between Mr. LeGrier and them as shots were fired, said her brother, Melvin Jones.

“None of this needed to happen,” Mr. Jones said as relatives gathered hours later in the house to mourn and pray. “And they say there will be an investigation into the shooting? I already know how that will turn out. We all know how that will turn out. When is this going to end?”

When is this going to end?
When the people stop settling for appearances over substance; When we stop rejecting the use of force, and start hiring police officers for their abilities to think and reason...

When they start killing unarmed innocents opening their doors, it's time to take the cops' guns away and see how effective are their policing skills armed only with their brains and billy clubs. I'm serious. No more military mentality in our police forces; we need justice born of reason. That's not exactly the skill set cops are hired for these days, obviously.

#BadBoysInBlueBullyToo!
---------------------


* In Cuba, of course. Playing full-time father. The mayoral job can wait; family first!

Meanwhile, back in Chicago: parents and children will be burying their loved ones, thanks to the ill-advised actions of the Chicago police... I wonder how many Taser stun guns the mayor could have donated to the city himself, had he saved the money he spent on his children's plane tickets to Cuba this holiday season. What a gift that might have been to them had they stayed home on vacation and worked for justice, instead?

"It’s something my parents did with me, because I think it’s not only great family time, but most importantly—and it’s a great family time because they don’t have to share me as a mayor but they get to have me totally, 100 percent as their father," he said. "But more importantly, they get to be exposed to other cultures, other parts of the world, and one of the things that we want is for our children to know that the world has people of different faiths, different backgrounds, with different ways of living and coping with similar situations. Our kids have seen other parts of the world."

Ah, but have the seen other parts of the city of Chicago? Do they understand what is happening in their hometown: do they know their Chicago history, Mayor?

I wonder if the black protesters are smart enough to demand a mayor who will put the long vacay plans on hold while he addresses an important part of his job: reforming the justice system in Chicago to protect innocents and get the unqualified officers off the streets.

Work first, play later.
If he's not up to the job, step aside and let someone lead who understands the mayor needs to be in Chicago after a revealing year like 2015. You want a Cuban junket? Run for national office, Rahm. This mayoral gig is a local thing, and hoo boy, there's work to be done...

Your lips apologize and agree that Black Lives Matter, but your actions are sending the message that black lives in Chicago matter less than exposing your children to the poor people of Cuba. Is this an issue that the mayor is going to devote his time and energy to, or just something to be put on the back burner while he takes his family time-out?

Say what you will about Mayor Richard J. Daley: he loved his city and understood he was the mayor 24/7, 365 or -66 days a year. He'd never disappear on vacation at times like this when the city needed strong leadership.

Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room...

The King of kings. The prince of Peace.
The most wonderful time of the year!
 ----------------
Let Earth Receive Her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room
and Heaven and Nature sing...
-----------------
May your coming days be merry and bright,
as we celebrate the reason for the season,
for the small and the tall...

Go tell it on the mountain:  Jesus Christ is born!

Minneapolis Madness.

"The mall was a decoy," said Black Lives Matter organizer Miski Noor, who protested at the airport. "I think it was really effective."

The protesters had  been promising to again shut down the Mall of America, which is a brief light-rail ride away from the airport -- both in Bloomington, technically.

The police officers were stationed at the Mall, enough people there demonstrated for storekeepers to close their doors as the protesters slowly filed out..

ON one of the busiest traffic days, the dummies shut down a terminal and snarled traffic leading to the airport.  To what effect, I wonder?

Multiple law enforcement agencies showed up in full force, ushering protesters off roadways to and from the airport terminals, patrolling light-rail stations and shutting down security checkpoints at Terminal 2 (Humphrey) in case protesters tried to access the secure area on the day before Christmas Eve. There were more than 100 officers at the Mall of America alone, mostly from the Bloomington Police Department.

"We accomplished exactly what we came here to accomplish -- we wanted to shut down the highway, shut down the airport and show solidarity with other Black Lives Matter groups," said Michelle Barnes of Minneapolis, one of the protest organizers.

In personal news, one of the 3 others I was working with today is a Hmong attorney, who left a few hours early as she was flying out tonight with her husband and two sons to Montreal, to visit his family.  I hope they made it out ok, and were not inconvenienced any more than necessary.

These protesters really are aiming at the wrong targets here and missing their marks badly, even when they seem effective in their evasion techniques and tricking the authorities.

What good can come of this, I wonder?

At the airport, some travelers may have missed flights due to the closed roads and extra traffic congestion. Samantha Herman, 16, of Madison, S.D., was hurrying to catch a flight to Detroit to visit her father for Christmas, but she said she was worried she would miss the flight even though it was delayed an hour.

"We waited for an hour just to get into the stupid airport," she said, adding that there was no other flight Wednesday to replace hers if she missed it.

...
The airport shut down security checkpoints at Terminal 2 for about 45 minutes, also preventing passengers from getting through.

Other protesters arrived at Terminal 1, stopping traffic and joining hands as they chanted, "Black lives, they matter here." The Hwy. 5 entrance to Terminal 1 was shut down for a short time before police arrested some protesters and dispersed the crowd. There were a couple of flights that were delayed out of the airport because of the protest, said Patrick Hogan, airport spokesman.

Protesters also shut down light-rail service to other stations by standing on the tracks, forcing Metro Transit to send buses to transfer commuters as evening rush hour traffic began.

In a statement, Black Lives Matter said the demonstration at the airport was to protest Islamophobia and anti-black racism, including discriminatory profiling practices against black people and anyone who is perceived to be Muslim.

 ...

In a statement, Black Lives Matter said the mall protest was a "decoy action," a planned diversion while they shut down the two airport terminals and light rail.

"We raised the bar," said Pastor Danny Givens of Above Every Name Church in St. Paul after protesting outside Terminal 1. "We let the nation and the world know that black lives matter."

Bathroom Creep...

It seems, more and more, this is a topic being worked into stories.

From Dan Zak's interview trailing Jerry Seinfeld as he awaited his "Comedians in Cars" episode with President Obama, filmed December 7.

Jerry Seinfeld adores comedy and cars -- he values the pursuit of precision and mechanical perfection -- — and a few years ago he combined them with his love of coffee and launched this series, which features short videos of wealthy funny people motoring around in classics that only they could afford. He picked up Ricky Gervais in an ice-blue 1967 Austin Healey 3000. He picked up Tina Fey in a candy-apple-red 1967 Volvo 1800S.

And in less than 24 hours he would pick up Barack Obama in the Stingray. He was nervous.

“You learn over the years how to handle yourself when you’re taken out of your box and put into a situation that has different stakes and different jeopardy,” Seinfeld said. But the anticipation of being with POTUS for 60 to 90 minutes was different.

“I don’t talk to anybody about tomorrow. I don’t wanna talk about it. I kind of like to pace around backstage a couple minutes before I go on, so I’ve been doing that for about five days now.”

The crew was also nervous, because the White House seemed nervous. The “Comedians in Cars” shoot was arranged over the summer, but now the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting was still fresh; while Seinfeld taped B-roll, the president was preparing for a prime-time address to the nation.

 ...

Seinfeld, who’s always looking for a novel camera angle, suggested attaching a GoPro to the Stingray’s windshield wiper.

“Oh my God, that’s genius,” he said after, watching the playback in a parking lot by the Capitol Reflecting Pool, his voice reaching that Seinfeldian pitch of hysteria. “Look at that shot! This is so funny. Look at that crazy angle!”

The gathering tourists started chanting “Jerr-y! Jerr-y!” as he opened the Stingray’s door to drive to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. He gave them a wave, his cuff links glinting in the setting sun.

“I haven’t been in here since I was a kid,” Seinfeld said, hot-footing through the museum, sunglasses on, so he could use the restroom.
...

The comedian was tired. The crew would get a twilight shot of the car at rest along the Potomac, but he headed back for room service at his hotel, where he would continue to pace and prepare. The conversation topics for the president would be quotidian. Seinfeld wanted to nab the normal in an abnormal life, the nothing in the everything.

“I want to know how far he can get in his underwear before it’s weird,” Seinfeld said from the passenger seat of the SUV. “And can you really get a good night’s sleep in this place? It’s like ‘Night at the Museum’ to me, sleeping in the White House. I just had another question: Are you ever talking to somebody and do you ever think, ‘This guy’s out of his mind’?”

Everything went as scheduled the following day. Obama drove the Stingray on the White House grounds. The pair chatted in a basement dining room, and Seinfeld asked about presidential bathroom routines...

Everybody be sure and tune in now.

Wednesday morning tunes.

It feels like a Friday, somewhat.
These subcontracting gigs are great when they go long, but not so reliable in the short term...

Here's a Wednesday morning work tune, for everybody heading in, doing double duties providing for the home and hearth.

Deliver your future...
It's in the hands of your friends.
(Be friendly.  Be friendly now...)

Blame Saddam Hussein for ISIS?

Nothing like pinning your troubles on a dead man. *
One we allegedly slew at great cost too.

WIRRAL, England — WHOM should we blame for the Islamic State? In the debate about its origins, many have concluded that it arose from the American-led coalition’s errors after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In fact, the groundwork for the emergence of the militant jihadist group was laid many years earlier by the government of Saddam Hussein.

...

“On the eve of the American invasion in 2003, Iraq was a new country,” writes Amatzia Baram in his book “Saddam Husayn and Islam, 1968-2003.” It was “no longer a moderately religious society with a large number of secular individuals and a modernizing secular ruling elite, but a country on the way to deep religiosity.”

Mr. Hussein did not hold down religious militancy and sectarianism, but incubated them and prepared the ground for an armed Salafist movement. The tribes, criminal networks, militias and distributed weapons stores that the regime used to secure support and head off a new revolt laid the material basis for a decentralized insurgency.

The Islamic State was not created by removing Saddam Hussein’s regime; it is the afterlife of that regime.

~Kyle W. Orton, a Middle East analyst, is an associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based foreign policy think tank.

(Say is this Kyle Orton the former backup QB for the Bears?  He should consider adding a middle initial, to distinguish himself.)
---------------------------------

* Saddam Hussein, one could argue, helped create ISIS.
But he didn't give those troubles to us.**  We went in there and embraced the situation, falsely thinking ourselves as prophets who would liberate the people and change their culture and religious practices overnight.  We failed, in our arrogance.  A lot of people paid, with their lives.  The wars helped tank our economy.  Until the country can maturely reflect and admit this, we will continue embracing chaos by thinking we can fix the world, on the cheap.  We're not Gods, why is that so hard to accept?  What's so horrible about being merely human, anyway?

How Saddam Hussein Gave Us ISIS

** We really need to put the geography back in geopolitics when considering America's national security interests in protecting ourselves (and the unrealistic demands of our regional allies)... look at your maps, American people!

 

 

Understanding Trump.

Isn't his "disgusting" to think about comment the idea that... um, unlike racehorse trainers who have their steeds empty before going into a race, Ms. Clinton's handlers made it look like she chose an inopportune time to take a poop?

I think that's how regular folk interpreted her need for a longer-than-expected bathroom break.  The "sorry" special treatment didn't go over well, but everybody poops.  Still, kinda disgusting to have to think about that -- where she was -- in the middle of a presidential debate.*

(I get him.  I really get him.)
----------------------------

* I don't buy this baloney that Mrs. Clinton had to walk farther than her fellow candidates, and thus mistimed her bathroom break.  I also don't buy the idea that someone else was in there, so she had to wait her turn...

I think -- sadly -- this might have been pre-planned.  To draw attention to herself.  And also to spin that idea that being a woman means there aren't enough bathrooms close by to go around, like there are with the men.   That might have worked in the early 70s perhaps...

No special treatment today for the ladies who walk in late.

ADDED:  NYT columnist Frank Bruni manages a full column on the glory of people who pee!   And his female counter part weighs in alongside him today with a ladies point of view...

THERE was, of course, the terrorism, and talk of immigration, and guns. But 2015 has emerged as the Year of the Toilet, when private business became part of a public debate about acceptance, inclusion, double standards and equality.

It began when transgender men and women stepped into the spotlight, and some conservatives tried to whip up potty panic, claiming, without a shred of evidence, that allowing transitioning men into the ladies’ room was an invitation to trouble....

Our nation’s toilet moment crested on Saturday at the latest Democratic debate when Hillary Clinton showed up late from a bathroom break. Turns out the ladies’ room was a minute-and-45-second walk from the podium, which leaves very little time to take care of business during a brief commercial break. Thus, for one awkward instance, the woman striving to lead the free world was merely a woman trying to find a free stall...

More than ever, I think the Clinton campaign planned her special entrance, to throw pundits like these off of talking about the substance of the debate, and again talking about "social" issues...

Tinkling into the trough leaves columnists forgetting to ask what trough the politicians will draw from to continue funding these wars to protect the world by assassinating foreign leaders and putting Americans on hook for the clean up, re-building projects.  What if... the answer to solving the Middle East's refugee problem is not to remove and resettle a select few, but to stop bombing and destroying from above?

I can see where they'd want to chat about golden showers, even scat, before we'd want to discuss those kinds of disgusting actions being undertaken by our military, in our name...

Everybody bleeds too, Mr. Bruni and Ms. Weiner.
Don't forget that body fluid in your important discussion of Sunday night's debate...

ADDED:
I wonder if debate moderators, like journalist David Muir who kept trying to grab control by forgetting that his role was to let the political candidates speak and reveal themselves, will be assigned a new pre-debate duty:  to ask if all the candidates had a chance to relieve themselves before beginning, just like Moms across the country used to do before the family set off on long car trips...

Infantile, of course, because you trust that people understand how much time is allotted for breaks, and if there is any question they cannot walk to and from the bathroom in time, they should ask for a special accomodation, in advance.  Otherwise, it just looks like you think you're someone special, walking in late when others had agreed to be back by a certain time...

Let's not make this into a transgender issue.

What does a bathroom mean? It means welcome. Knowing that there are facilities you can use in a school, a business, a library or a theater means that place has opened itself to you, has said, with the whir of a hand dryer or the whisper of an automatic flush: Yes, you belong here. You will not be shamed or inconvenienced or forced to walk, or to wait longer than the boy at the next desk or the candidate at the next podium. 

Keep campaigning like that, and it will be Trump in a landslide! (The "boo-hoo I'm a girl"vote not being all that large in subsequent generations...  Title IX, and all.)

When Mrs. Clinton strolled back onto the stage last Saturday night with her devastatingly dry “Sorry,” she earned a knowing nod from any woman who’s ever lined up for the loo at a museum or an amusement park, or any man who’s ever had to wait, and wait, and wait for her, as the lights went down or the game started up. Even when facilities have restrooms of equal size, women are inconvenienced. It takes longer to wriggle out of a skirt and hose to sit on a toilet than it does to unzip and stand at a urinal, and that’s if all you’re doing is answering nature’s call, not fixing your hair or touching up your makeup, activities I doubt the other Democrats spent much time on.

That's not how you "earn" your way to the presidency, girls.

Be careful of the traps being set.
Be very very careful...

“What would happen if a woman told the truth about her life?” the poet and activist Muriel Rukeyser once asked. “The world would crack open.”

What would happen if Hillary Clinton acknowledged that her tardy for the party speaks to a real inequity, that her inconvenient restroom symbolized the many inconvenient truths about how different and how difficult it can be when you’re a woman in a world that was mostly made for men?

Would that world really crack like a cheap toilet seat if, instead of playing down her gender and insisting she’s just as strong and smart as the boys, Mrs. Clinton said, “I’m different, and it’s not fair that my bathroom was where it was and, by the way, it’s not fair that the line for the ladies’ room is always 10 times longer than the line for the men’s”?

"It's not fair." *foot stomp!*  (That might earn you a hug from daddy, but that is not the way to create change, girls...  You gotta own it.  Yourself first.)

A "modest but meaningful" sacrifice.

or, Mission Unaccomplished.

By Greg Jaffe

HONOLULU — A deeply conflicted President Obama warned earlier this year when he extended the American troop presence in Afghanistan that he did not support “the idea of endless war.”

For Obama, the deaths Monday of six U.S. soldiers near Bagram air base underscore the perils of his decision to keep as many as 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through much of next year.

A war that Obama had pledged to end before he left office is now increasingly looking endless.
...
The most recent deaths, coming just before Christmas and just a few months after Obama’s decision to extend the longest war in American history into his successor’s presidency, are likely to stick with the president.
...
The deaths come at a particularly fraught moment in the long and often overshadowed Afghan war. In October, a U.S. warplane launched a barrage of strikes against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, killing as many as 30 people and drawing widespread condemnation.
 ,,,
More recently, Taliban forces have made big gains throughout southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province, the site of some of the heaviest American casualties during the height of the U.S. troop presence. Afghan civilian casualties are at an all-time high for the 14-year war, according to the United Nations...

In October, he described the change in plans as a “modest but meaningful extension of our presence” that could make “a real difference” in Afghanistan, and emphasized that U.S. troops would not be taking part in direct combat or patrolling Afghan villages. Instead Obama said they would focus on “two narrow but critical missions”: advising Afghan forces and launching targeted counterterrorism strikes against groups that threatened the United States or its allies.

The Taliban’s growing strength and the Afghan army’s struggles have drawn U.S. troops deeper into a combat role than many expected. In Kunduz, American Special Operations teams on the ground called in the mistaken strike that destroyed the Doctors Without Borders hospital. In restive Helmand province, Special Operations soldiers have been working alongside Afghan troops on the front lines.
...
In his announcement extending the U.S. presence, Obama acknowledged the inherent peril of the remaining work, even if he declined to call it combat. ... He praised Afghan troops for fighting “bravely and tenaciously,” even as he admitted they were “still not as strong as they need to be” to hold off the Taliban and ensure that groups such as al-Qaeda never return to Afghanistan.

Twice in response to a shouted question from a reporter, Obama insisted that his decision not to end the war as planned was not a “disappointment.”

But the six deaths on Monday underscore Obama’s growing sense that he will leave office with one of his toughest and most important missions unfulfilled.

-------------------------------------

In other news Monday:   The reporter here forgot the 5th W, a question that surely pops up in most readers' minds... When was this episode taped? (The president being in Hawaii these days himself.)

The president will appear in an episode of Mr. Seinfeld’s web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” to be released on Dec. 30, the White House said Monday.

In the show, Mr. Obama and Mr. Seinfeld take turns driving a blue 1963 Corvette Sting Ray split-window coupe around the White House driveway encircling the South Lawn, and then sit in a basement dining room to chat about what it’s like being president.

 I get the Bear Grylls special with the president -- where Mr. Obama confessed to the British narrator that what he most feared was ... Michelle, when she gets a certain angry look in her eyes ! (I couldn't believe what I was hearing either...) -- was taped over the summer, before things heated up on the international scene, and likely seemed a good idea at the time. for the charismatic president.

But Comedians in Cars with coffee?  Are you joking me?  This can't wait until the man is out of office... ?

“The president and Jerry had a unique, candid conversation that focused largely on the lighter side of the presidency,” said a White House statement on Monday.

(He's a president, not a comedian.  Stop your laughing, Jerry.)
Reminds me of Jonathan Gruber, who pointed out in a politically incorrect way who exactly was the butt of the jokes, on the receiving end, so to speak...

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, who claimed the authors of ObamaCare took advantage of what he called the "stupidity of the American voter," played a much bigger role in the law's drafting than previously acknowledged...

But that's another TV show, to be created another day...

With the Lights Out...

It's Less Dangerous.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has smashed the record for the biggest box office debut weekend globally with tickets sales of $529m (£355m).  The previous record, $525m, was set by Jurassic World in June.

The seventh installment of the nearly 40-year-old space saga also opened with a record-breaking $248m in the US and Canada.

Here We Are Now...

Analysts say the space saga could become the biggest-selling movie of all time.

This is despite the fact that Jurassic World's had the advantage of opening in China on the same weekend it opened everywhere else.  The Force Awakens, in contrast, will not debut in the world's second biggest cinema-going territory until 9 January.

Entertain Us.

The latest film returns to "a galaxy far, far away" some 30 years on from the action of 1983's Return of the Jedi.  It sees original trilogy stars Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher reprise their Han Solo and Princess Leia roles alongside younger franchise newcomers.

"Our sole focus has been creating a film that delivers that one-of-a-kind Star Wars experience, and director JJ Abrams, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and the Lucasfilm team have outdone themselves," Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn said in a statement.

-------------------
ADDED:  More big numbers, if that's your thing...

We all knew legendary actors Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford would be paid a bit more than newcomers Daisy Ridley and John Boyega for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but now we know by just how much.

According to the Mail on Sunday, Ford has reportedly been paid £16.7 million for reprising the role of Han Solo and will also get 0.5 per cent of the film’s gross earnings, estimated to be £1.3 billion.  He’s also already been handed £1 million in compensation after breaking his leg during shooting at Pinewood studios.

That means, in total, the Indiana Jones actor could earn £23 million, 76 times what British newcomer Daisy Ridley and John Boyega will take from the film. 

...

A Disney source told the Sunday paper: “Harrison is the key to making this movie work. He’s the link between the old generation and the new. Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were good to get, but the film could have lived without them. You couldn’t make it without Harrison Ford.”

Of course, it should also be noted that for the original 1977 Star Wars film, Ford was only paid £7,000 as he was a relatively unknown at the time.

“Daisy’s a virtual unknown, and this is a career-making role, so she’d probably have been willing to take it for free and Disney knew it,” the insider continued.  “She has been signed to a multi-picture deal with pre-set bumps in her salary that rise substantially with each movie. That doesn’t guarantee she’ll be in subsequent films, but it gives the studio peace of mind to know she’s contractually obliged if they want her again.”

It was also revealed that director JJ Abrams was paid £3.3 million to direct the film and will take a two per cent share of the film’s gross, while Carrie Fisher -- reprising her role as General Leia -- was paid £1 million. The actress has previously signed away her likeness to the character, meaning she will make no money on merchandise.

------------------------------
ADDED:  Another entertainment numbers story, in the same vein...

Occasionally there is a marriage of artist and medium so perfect it trumps everything that came before... no one has mastered Snapchat -- the outlet where publicly posted pictures and videos live for 24 hours, then disappear -- like DJ Khaled, who has become a social media celebrity in a way that outpaces his musical fame.
...
His effectiveness and addictiveness in the medium have elevated him from carnival barker to transcendent public figure. It’s not clear how many followers DJ Khaled has, but a screen grab of his Snapchat data he posted suggests that about two million people are seeing each post.

Here we are now...

In his public Snapchat stories, which span the full arc of his day in and around his Miami home, DJ Khaled shows an innate understanding of narrative, and a grasp of how to brand an idea instantly: say, watering his plants, which he calls his “angels”; greeting the lion statue in his garden, shouting “Lion!”; or running the camera over the length of his body and landing on a fresh pair of sneakers, punctuating the moment with “Another one!”
...
Each day, he invites viewers to “walk with me on the pathway to more success” as he films his feet. (You’ll never be as familiar with a star’s feet as with his.)

Entertain us!

Other hip-hop artists tend to use Snapchat as a more blatantly promotional tool, or at least aren’t as comfortable spotlighting their moment-to-moment activities. But DJ Khaled has no such inhibitions:

• He films himself, nimbly, while in the shower. 
• He shoots himself slathering his body with cocoa butter. 
• He posts clips of his pedicures and massages. ... 
• He once referred to his genitalia as “the theory.”

(With the evanescence built into Snapchat, it can sometimes be difficult, the morning after, to distinguish real life from fever dream, but he did indeed say that.)

~ Jon Caramanica reporting...

Somewhere, Donald Trump is Laughing *...

Steve Harvey just goofed-up big-time on live TV in announcing the winner of the Miss Universe contest.  He misreads the card and ... Colombia repeats!  She gets a crown and banner, smiles and spins, and doesn't speak English, we remember from the questions round...
So when Steve comes back on stage to announce that there was a mistake:  Colombia was the first runner-up... it was all very confusing on stage. Philippines was re-bannered and re-crowned the winner.

Only on Live TV!
------------------------

Sarah R. Smith (@SarahatReynolda)

4 mins ago - View on Twitter

That time you were actually named @MissUniverse but Miss Colombia won't give you the crown. #MissUniverse2015
-------------------------

Over to the Sound of Music...
-------------------------

* ADDED:  The new owner of the pageant is WME-IMG, whose co-CEO is Ari Emanuel, Rahm and Zeke Emanuel's brother.

Skol 'ng 'Em.

Oh dear. What's this?

A contrary weather prediction:

By Jillian MacMath, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer

December 16, 2015; 1:00 PM ET *

The greatest area for some snow to stick around for Christmas Day will be across northern Maine.

"In Chicago, snow is possible, but any totals will still be less than normal," Anderson said. "Minneapolis, on the other hand, is likely to have a white Christmas."

Forecasters predict at least two to three storms will spread snow across the Upper Midwest leading up to Dec. 25.
...
The best chances this year overall will stretch across the Dakotas and much of Minnesota. Additionally, the interior West and the Rockies will benefit from a better-than-usual chance.

-----------------

* back-dated. 1:21 CST

A Woman With a Plan... She Can? *

Walter Mondale and Hillary Clinton in Minneapolis yesterday.

Meanwhile, in the Democratic primary campaign,  Hillary Clinton was in Minneapolis yesterday afternoon:

“We cannot let fear push us into reckless actions that end up making us less safe,” Clinton said in a 45-minute speech at the University of Minnesota.
...
Speaking to a supportive audience of about 500 people at the McNamara Alumni Center from a stage festooned with U.S. flags, the Democratic presidential front-runner laid out a five-point plan aimed at making Americans safer at home and abroad. Before the speech, Clinton met with several Minnesota Muslim leaders who shared concerns and insights from a community that has watched as a handful of its young men were radicalized and lured overseas to fight in the Middle East and Africa.

“There are millions of peace-loving Muslims living, working, raising families and paying taxes in our country,” Clinton said. “These Americans may be our first, last, and best defense against home-grown radicalization and terrorism.”

At least 12 Somali-American men from Minnesota have been charged with attempting to go abroad to fight for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL. Minnesota is part of a nationwide pilot project, a collaboration of federal and local law enforcement, Muslim religious leaders and youth groups trying to intervene with young people who might be vulnerable to recruitment. Clinton praised the program and said it should be better-funded.

“I think people are scared and they just need to give us a chance,” said Fartun Weli, a local Somali activist who was among those to meet privately with Clinton. The group included Minneapolis City Council Member Abdi Warsame.

Replicating those efforts on a large scale are one part of Clinton’s five-part plan. The others are shutting down domestic ISIL recruitment, stopping would-be jihadists from getting training overseas, disrupting terror plots before they’re carried out, and supporting law enforcement officers who are the first line of defense against domestic terror.

~ Patrick Condon

I like the emphasis on law and order.
And I think this is exactly right on countering terrorist recruitment or activation in America's Muslim communities.  No one wants security, freedom and fair policing more than an immigrant glad to be in the country, committed to their children's citizenship and growth.

But I do wish Mrs. Clinton would take Donald's advice on the crazy hands thing... (4 minutes of video, at the StarTribune link.)  (Photos by Renee Jones Schneider)

 ------------------------------------
* (or Just a Canned Plan?)   I honestly can't figure this one out, myself.  And I know, with certainty, where my heart lies...

Minneapolis Councilman Abdi Warsame

Imam Abdisalam Adam of Minneapolis
(click on the photo to enlarge:  that woman in the middle is beautiful...)

We'll Weather the Weather, Whatever the Weather, Whether We Like It or Not...

Think "Kansas City" winter in Minneapolis this year...

(I like it.  I love it.  I want some more of it!)

December Worms, Rain and Slush; Mild Trend Lingers By Paul Douglas

I should have taken more psychology classes. Some days I feel like a therapist, whispering sweet nothings into the ears of frustrated Minnesota snow lovers.

John Judkins reports an outbreak of worms in Cottage Grove, in mid-December. Grant Offermann sent me this digital plea: "You gotta help me though, I'm a winter enthusiast and need some snow. My ski's are collecting dust....my Siberian husky is shedding like its spring time again. Give me something to look forward to!"

Uh, I'm just the messenger and the headline remains the same: think Kansas City winter this year. The pattern may shift abruptly next month or February, but the trends are the trends. The Godzilla of El Ninos will probably keep us milder and slushier than average, into March.

To get all-snow temperatures in the lowest mile of the atmosphere should be <32F. Once again today there's too much warm air aloft for snow in the metro. Expect mostly rain at MSP; a few inches of slush for central and western MN.

We chill down by late week - but expect 30s to near 40F much of next week. Santa will need his red SUV.

Wisconsin Voter Information.

Career Experience	Rebecca Bradley	Claude Covelli
Jury Trials	1	200
Court Trials	1	30
Appeals	6	80
WI Supreme Court Cases	0	12

Gov. Scott Walker appointed Justice Rebecca Bradley to the bench upon the death of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice N. Patrick Crooks in mid-September.  (full disclosure:  He swore me into the Bar in Sept. 2005.)

Clearly, her opponent on the ballot is more experienced, and the best positioned to serve as a top Wisconsin judge.  I can't vote in this one, being a Minnesota resident now, but maybe you can?

Merit matters.  Vote Covelli.
--------------------------

*  Crooks was caught up in all of the drama behind Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson's court.  He announced he would not run for re-election, then died in chambers five days later.  He was only 77.

Speaking of Doubling Down...

Yeah, baby!  That's two then, in one blow/ one comment thread ... but who's counting?

I just hope this puts to rest the tired old Drumpf - Hitler comparisons...

(We might not want to discuss or hear the people's "call to action" on Middle East peace, illegal immigration at home, or the stagnating economy, but we're darned ready to stop Hilter if he ever comes back to life!  The politicians and media are all over that issue, anyway...  Fear not.)

Midway

NYT Pick
Midwest 3 hours ago

Where have you been these past decades?

Trump supporters are remaining quiet no longer.
We want Change, and President Obama could not deliver.

Members of both parties, Republicans and Democrats who love America, want to see the immigration and security issues addressed. We want to end the inequality that is fostered by a status-quo Washington.

Change is coming... ready or not!

That one with the gold tag, was in response to this:

John F. McBride

is a trusted commenter Seattle 4 hours ago

Trump and Cruz aren't in charge, and some say can't be, so why not just remain silent?

Because silence is consent.

In the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller (there are several versions of this quote and some dispute about which is "THE" correct version, but they all mean essentially the same thing).

"In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Socialist.

"Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

"Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

"Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Remaining silent is an option only for the passive and those who agree.

Child's Play.

Who remembers the verrry politically incorrect childhood game, where one pulls the corners of their eyelids up and recites,

My mother is Chinese...

then down...

My father is Japanese...

then one up and one down:

... and I'm all mixed up!

I hope this child, whose mother is writing about him self-identifying in the New York Times today, is able to laugh at old childhood jokes like that after he grows up... as an American kid.

 There will be surprises in my own household when it comes to racial identity. According to the Pew study, biracial Asian-whites are more likely to identify with whites than they are with Asians. This line made me sit up: It never occurred to me that my sons could possibly identify only as white. I’m forced to think more carefully about what it is that actually makes me uncomfortable with that idea: It’s not that I want my sons to experience discrimination, but if they do choose to identify as white, there is something about being a racial minority in America that I would want them to know. As a child, I most wanted to fit in. As a young adult, I learned how I stood apart and to have pride in it. In the experience of being an “other,” there’s a valuable lesson in consciousness: You learn to listen harder, because you’ve heard what others have to say about you before you even have a chance to speak.

American, momma.  Listen to me:  your son is an American -- no matter what he eats, or where he applies.  More and more, as racially mixed children don the spotlight, we will see them for who they are:  people.

And you know something?  It's simply untrue that the pairing of diverse racial lovers enhances their offspring's ears for listening.  That's a myth.

Bad Investment, in the Long Run...

I just overlapped one year with John Heilemann at Northwestern, and vaguely remember him working on The Daily Northwestern while my work-study job freshman year had me back in The Comp Shop of Students Publishing Company, inputting classifieds and helping to cut-and-paste ads (manually!)**

He was gone by the time I stepped up and served as a reporter and wire services editor at the paper:  He was Medill ('87) and I was Medill ('90).  I haven't aged like that, though, thankfully... (clean living and all ;-)

For the title of one of his books, he swiped my line about doubling down, from my earlier blog post about the sickening way the Affordable Health Act was passed into law.  Here.

There's still time for the politicians to step back up to the plate and get this thing right... Will they listen here, or double down?

I'm hoping a new crew brings a new attitude and humbles some of the players who just can't fathom that what they twisted and compromised to get through -- and tried unsuccessfully to sell to the American public through liberal media mouthpieces represented on Journolist...

Now, he's signed on for a political show on Showtime "The Circus" with Mark Halperin and Mark McKinnon.  Don't expect much.

I don't think John is all that an original thinker, or much to look at either.  Both matter when you are talking pay-tv, right?

He's got the connections, but politically?  I think the public is pretty much fed up with talking heads, and we really don't need the oversaturation of yet another show glamorizing the political candidates.

Not a wise investment, in the long run.
Put me on the record now, as saying that...

Showtime President David Nevins, who has known Halperin since high school, said the show will be in the same vein of their weekly sports series, "A Season With," which shows the behind the scenes drama around a sports team's season (this year's subject is the Notre Dame Fighting Irish).

"I want the nitty gritty of how campaigns works. I want access to Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, but I also want the people behind the candidates," Nevins said in an interview.

The trio approached Showtime about a documentary series about four months ago, and Nevins said he was immediately interested in the prospect of a real time documentary series as the election unfolded, instead of waiting until after election day. The show is being done with Bloomberg's blessing, though it is using completely separate production crews from Halperin and Heilemann's daily show "With All Due Respect," which is now also being broadcast on MSNBC.

"We can develop characters like any good story. You’ll develop characters and you’ll stay with them. We’ll find a compelling 23 year-old kid who dropped out of college to follow Marco Rubio on the road, we’ll stay with that kid," Nevins said. "Like any great television show* the audience identifies with characters and follows them."

Why do they keep throwing big money at the old ways of doing business, when they could be paying modestly to learn what is happening in the new world of America?   #SharetheWealth  #OutWiththeOld

Heilemann became a household name three years ago after he helped pen one of the most popular insider accounts of the 2008 presidential election. HBO later turned “Game Change” into a critically acclaimed movie focusing on Arizona Sen. John McCain’s selection of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Writing the blockbuster book put Heilemann in the front row for the political ascendancy of Obama, who has known Heilemann since the late 1980s. Heilemann recalled that the future commander-in-chief  -- “this tall, thin, striking African-American guy” -- asked to borrow a cigarette outside Harvard University’s law school library in their first encounter.

(Like President Obama, he's straight though...
Also noted:  Heilemann was not enrolled in Harvard law, but earned a masters degree from the JFK School of Government.  He's a professional schmoozer, all right... )
------------------------

* Who the hell is going to watch not an episode, but a whole season following a college dropout who follows Phish Marco Rubio?  Seriously?

They're just throwing money against the wall in the journalism world now, seeing what sticks... and what doesn't.

MORE on Heilemann's ways of thinking:

Heilemann said he recalled bumping into White House senior adviser David Plouffe on the campaign trail Monday and feeling skeptical as Plouffe ticked off his predictions for the president’s performance in each key state.

“Every margin that he gave me was within one point of what they got the next day,” Heilemann recalled. “I’ve got to say I’m a cynical, jaded guy who’s done six of these presidentials and a lot more gubernatorial and senatorial elections. I’ve never seen people that confident, and I’ve never seen their confidence so totally bore out by the result. It was precision.”

Heilemann said Obama’s strategy “blows apart” the political science theory that campaigns do not matter and election outcomes are often predetermined by economic indicators. He compared the Obama campaign’s ground game to a supercomputer and Romney’s operation to a few pocket calculators.

Style over substance.
Not impressed...
---------------------------

** and of course, reading reading reading the copy... same as when I was a papergirl for The Hammond Times in the 1980s:  reading while rolling in the mid-afternoons, pre-delivery by bike, in all weather.  Except on snowy Sundays, when sometimes I walked...

You can learn a lot by reading, you know, even if you're not a natural schmoozer.
 

Top of the Pops!

Midway

Midwest 1 minute ago

What part of the country exactly is Mr. Cohen visiting?

Here, Americans are getting ready for Christmas, celebrating Hanukkah in the Jewish communities, enjoying the rev-up to the winter sports season, and watching their children get excited by the end-of-the-year festivities and upcoming school holidays.

Does Mr. Cohen live in London or America? Has he established himself in an American community with roots? Or is he a citizen of the world, with no established traditions of his own -- familial, religious, or in his own American community?

Cake and cookie walks; plays and practiced pageantry; the ritual of cooking, and stocking the pantry (whether by hunting, or shopping)... does Cohen observe Americans participating in these activities in "weimar America"?

As we ready for the harshness of winter, which community has Mr. Cohen committed to? Does he lead a family, for which he is present daily, going to toil at work and sharing his daily bread?

Sometimes, when we try to "cheat" life, by lifting ourselves above others and jetting around finding the best the world has to offer, we miss out on life's simplicity. One family, growing old together and enjoying the young. One nation, (under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all). One Life (whereby in our monotheistic nation, some believe also in the life to come...)

Mr. Cohen needs to come visit the "other" America and Americans he scorns. He is fearful, and writing about that which he does not know.

-----------------------------------------

*My comment in the NYT got the gold-tab affixed to it today.  No money involved, like they're paying Mr. Cohen, who consistently producing pieces like this:

Roger Cohen DEC. 14, 2015

NEW YORK — Welcome to Weimar America: It’s getting restive in the beer halls. People are sick of politics as usual. They want blunt talk. They want answers.

Welcome to an angry nation stung by two lost wars, its politics veering to the extremes, its mood vengeful, beset by decades of stagnant real wages for most people, tempted by a strongman who would keep all Muslims out and vows to restore American greatness.

...

America, like Europe, is rattled by Islamic State terrorism and unsure how to respond to the black-flagged death merchants. Its polarized politics seem broken. The right of Donald Trump and the right of France’s Marine Le Pen overlap on terrorism and immigration. On the American left, Bernie Sanders sounds like nothing so much as a European social democrat. But that’s another story.

...

The rise of the Islamic State, and the Western inability to contain it, leads straight to the Islamophobia in which Trump and Le Pen traffic with success. It would be hard to imagine an atmosphere better suited to the politics of fear. Americans say they are more fearful of terrorism than at any time since 9/11.

...

The unthinkable has happened in Europe. It is not impossible in America.

It would be wrong not to take Trump very seriously. It would be irresponsible. It would be to forget European history, from whose fascist example he borrows. In Weimar America politics are not what they were. The establishment looks tired. The establishment has not understood the fact-lite theater of the contemporary world.

The Weimar Republic ended with a clown’s ascent to power, a high-energy buffoon who shouted loudest, a bully from the beer halls, a racist and a bigot. He was an outsider given to theatrics and pageantry. He seduced the nation of Beethoven. He took the world down with him.

 ===============

Jesus Christ, Mr. Cohen. 

Enough with the Hitler comparables already.

Come, visit America before you go spewing forth your fears and attributing them to us.

Trump supporters, I believe, are just rejecting the stagnancy out of Washington this past decade.  When we said we wanted Change, we were not kidding.

We didn't get it, so we're still pushing... and we vote too.

If America can secure Israel's borders, why not our own?  If we can protect other people's citizens, why not our own?  Haven't we waiting long enough for Washington to address the immigration dilemma that we are seeing in our own communities?

How can we expect citizens to assimilate and stand up for their rights, if they are not citizens and do not believe themselves worthy of being counted, or having any rights, particularly in the workplace?

Who benefits by continuing the status quo?

On the question of bigotry, who is benefitting by perpetuating the current affirmative action system that discriminates against some candidates based on the alleged "sins" of the past?  Isn't inequality spiraling under this current system, whereby the elites get to pick and choose the winners, with the people's voices sidelined?

Change is coming... ready or not!

It's not the Hitler boogeyman that people like Mr. Cohen really fear.  It's the idea of Change, whereby the elites leading their comfortable lives, jetsetting around the world and then calling for carbon taxes on the workers putting gas in their cars, might have to downsize too.  Share the pain.  Give up a little of their own, to open the door to needier others...

Someone is knocking, Mr. Cohen.

Why won't you let them in?