Hillary Blameless for Loss?

Hillary is now explaining her loss and it has little to nothing to do with her candidacy but is mostly because of things beyond her control.

1. Russian Hacking: The Russians "meddled with our election."  Specifics were not offered, instead simply hinting at the ongoing story that has failed to find any link.

2. Misogyny: Americans hate women.  "That has to be admitted," she says.  It isn't her they hate, but women in general.  Does that mean that McCain lost in 2008 and Mondale in 1984 because misogynists couldn't handle a woman as vice president?  Also, didn't she win the popular vote?  Is misogyny limited to certain swing states?

3. FBI Director Comey: Darn that Comey for reopening the case less than 2 weeks before the election.  Her private server and detailed work emails had already been covered.  That more emails were found on Anthony Weiner's laptop was a poor excuse to reopen the case.

4. WikiLeaks: How dare Julian Assange publish John Podesta's emails!  Sure, they were all true and exposed the double dealing and coordination with the media but the voters had no right to know that, especially since it reflected so poorly on Hillary and her campaign.

Missing in her list of reasons why she lost is any introspection beyond "things I could have done better."  Might that be a reference to her 'deplorables' comment?  While Trump was constantly on the campaign trail and filling stadiums, Hillary was taking weekends off to rest and barely filling high school gyms.  Hillary lacked either Trump's or her husband's charisma.  Points 3 and 4 are self-inflicted and yet she pretends they were outside her control.  To those not in denial, it is clear that Hillary was the problem, not her listed external factors.  She was a terrible candidate who only looked acceptable because Donald Trump was the other candidate.

Follow Your Logic, Chuck

I heard this clip on the radio while driving home today.  Senator Schumer blasts President Trump for doing 'virtually nothing' on trade relations with China and therefore looking like a '98-Pound Weakling.'  On the surface, that seems like a scathing criticism of the president, an effort to hold Trump accountable for his campaign promises.  However, there is another message that Senator Schumer has unwittingly given:

1. China is cleaning our clock, a claim that Schumer accepts.

2. Trump has done 'virtually nothing.'

3. Schumer believes that presidents can modify US Trade policy.

4. If Trump has done nothing, existing policies are unchanged.

5. The existing policies are those of President Obama.

6. Therefore, Senator Schumer is calling President Obama a 98-Pound Weakling.

 

Amazingly, I agree with Chuck Schumer!  Next, Senator Schumer will blame President Trump for the $20 trillion debt.

The Change in Messaging is Key

Illegal border crossings have hit their lowest point in 17 years!  Doubtless, like the economy, this is an Obama success for which Trump is taking credit.

The ground hasn't even been broken for Trump's Wall, the government is still operating on a 'budget' that was approved by Barack Obama, and yet the number of illegal crossings is down by two thirds!  This is all messaging.  Where Bush tried to get an amnesty bill through Congress, Obama simply bypassed Congress and offered Dreamer status to whomever could get into the United States.  The message could hardly be clearer: come in and we won't try to kick you out.

Trump has offered a different message: crossing the border illegally is illegal and the laws will now be enforced.  The risks and rewards have suddenly changed and migrants are taking that into account.  Paying a coyote a small fortune to get across the border is a lot more likely to end in deportation than last year.  With America closed off as an overflow safety valve, maybe Mexico will finally be forced to get its act together.

 

This is a tremendous success for Trump and so far it is just messaging.  When a Trump budget with border enforcement as a priority arrives, the numbers will fall even further.  Immigration is great but illegal immigration is illegal.

The Interventionist

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has blasted the Trump Administration for not hard charging into Syria in the wake of the latest chemical weapons attacks.  According to McCain, Russia, Iran, ISIS, and Syrian Dictator Assad all need to pay a price for war crimes that rival those of Pol Pot or Nazi Germany.  He is particularly annoyed that Secretary Tillerson voiced a policy that sounds like disengagement, leaving Syria and the Syrians to fend for themselves.

 

First, Trump has exactly one appointee in the Pentagon, Secretary of State Mattis.  As far as the military is concerned, Trump has hardly even begun to take the reins.  In the wake of 9/11, it took a month before Bush acted militarily but McCain is seething that Trump isn't sending weapons to the Syrian rebels tonight.

 

Second, the window for acting in Syria has come and gone.  At this point, it is a disaster.  The competing interests are so numerous that any action will create more problems.  Do we side with the Kurds or the Turks?  The Turks have been US allies for decades and the Kurds were our best allies during the Iraq War but the two absolutely hate each other and are butting heads in Syria.  Who do we pick?  With the Russians already participating on the side of Assad, how can the Syrian rebels hope to unseat him without significant American support?  Air support will lead to an air war with Russia.  At best, this is like the Korean War where we dare not cross the Yalu River lest we expand the war.  Tackling ISIS on the Iraqi side of the border is relatively safe but will be inconclusive, just like the Korean War, and have little impact on the Assad Regime.

 

Third, what is the US national interest here?  US fracking has been so successful that Middle East oil holds far less importance in American foreign policy.  Where a sudden decrease in the oil output of the Middle East could once crash our economy, it would now serve to enrich us by making more fracking economically viable.  Humanitarian military actions (e.g. Somalia, Libya) have not gone well for us and are best avoided.

 

Whatever we do militarily, the outcome will be bad.  Better to engage the various players diplomatically and economically rather than risk military.  Russia and Iran are harmed by America's rising oil independence.  The more oil we drill, the further their economies sink.  Approving the XL Pipeline may be one of the best moves in bringing OPEC countries to heel.

 

Looking back, it may be that we dodged a bullet when McCain lost to Obama.  Yes, Obama was a catastrophe - we are enjoying his Syrian successes today - but McCain has rattled the saber at every conflict.  He would have been far more active against Russia than either Bush or Obama.  He made lots of noise when Russia pealed off part of Georgia, was feisty when Russia annexed the Crimea, and has called for more sanctions in the wake of the election hacking hoax.  Though I agree that the US should have done more, McCain sounds like he wants to restart the Cold War and then warm it up a bit.  You know, the good ole days when foreign policy was easy.

Life

A soil sample from Mars has been recovered and brought back to the International Space Station (ISS) where a noted biologist, Dr. Hugh Derry, will investigate.  A dormant cell is found which Derry awakens with some warmth and a glucose bath.  This new life form, named Calvin, grows quickly and has impressive qualities.  The cell walls are unusually thick and each cell possesses attributes of nerve cells and muscle cells.

The astronauts, all highly educated and trained, prove to be incredibly dense.  Worse, most of them have no idea of the protocols should the experiment go badly.  When Calvin escaped the incubator, the lab was sealed but some fool opened the door to try to save Dr. Derry, which leads to Calvin escaping the lab.  Wonderful.  Somehow in the fire suppressant system, Calvin worms its way into the communications array and disables it.  "Houston, we cannot tell you what is happening because we have no backup communications system."  Really?  When a Russian ship arrives to shove the infected space station into deep space, only one crewman actually knows that was the protocol.  Because he doesn't know, another crew disrupts and effectively sabotages the effort.  Maybe Commander Golovkina could have told everyone about the protocols after Calvin escaped.  Apparently, the only people who knew were Golovkina and Dr. North, who likewise failed to inform anyone until the Russians showed up.  Stupid beyond belief.  It turns out there are two escape pods on the space station, each capable of transporting 1 astronaut.  Really?  Crew of 6 and lifeboats for 2?  Is this the Titanic in space?  And why don't the lifeboats have communications?  All capsules have communications and should have served as one possible backup for the failed communications array.

 

The makers really needed to decide on the abilities of Calvin.  At one point, Calvin wanders around the exterior of ISS, generally unconcerned by the vacuum of space.  However, the crew later depressurize much of the space station with the expectation that it will force Calvin into dormancy.  Calvin feeds on the organic life forms on the ship and yet is somehow composed of something far tougher.  How does Calvin survive unscathed from a flame thrower or being in the nozzle of a rocket when it fires.  Even if it survives the 5,000+ degrees of heat from the rocket, how does it not get fired like a cannonball into space from a thrust that is changing the orbit of 500 ton space station?  How is it that the rocket nozzle somehow leads into the interior of the station?  That makes no sense.  Calvin seems to be all-knowing and all-seeing with an intuitive sense for modern technology.  Of note, in the weeks that Dr. Derry spent studying the growing Calvin, he apparently learned nothing.  No biopsies to test what chemicals might harm or help, no deeper analysis of cell structure or maybe genetic code.  Nope, he just played patty cake with it until it attacked him.  Genius!  You know, when the alien germ starts crawling out of the Petri dish, it's time to stop feeding it.

 

Dr. Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare) proves to be the biggest fool on the space station, a man who played with fire until it burned him then sabotaged efforts to put the fire out.  "It doesn't hate us, it just wants to live."  Who picked this guy to study the alien?

 

Commander Ekaterina Golovkina (Olga Dihovichnaya) is fully aware of the protocols should Calvin get out of the lab.  Calvin is out of the lab.  Her first order of business should be to inform the rest of the crew that they are all already dead.  No, I think I'll go on a spacewalk to see why the communications array is down.

 

Rory Adams (Ryan Reynolds) is the mechanic, the guy who maintains and fixes all the parts of the ISS.  He has the right attitude in most things except keeping the quarantine.  The moment Calvin gets hostile, Rory wants to kill it.  All his efforts to do so inexplicably fail because Calvin is fireproof.

 

Sho Murakami (Hiroyuki Sanada) is a technician like Rory but forgot to pack his Samurai sword.  His job is to let everyone know what system Calvin has broken and the state of the ISS orbit, usually decaying.

 

Dr. David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the medical officer.  He is something of a misanthrope, having spent more than a year in space because he hates what people do to each other on earth.  Okay, yet another crewman with psychological issues.  Like most of the crew, he is more concerned with saving his crewmates than containing the doom of humanity virus.

 

Dr. Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson) is from the CDC and was involved in determining the protocols for containing the Mars specimens.  She knew what would happen if they lost containment but never bothered to tell anyone.  "Hey, Rory, if you open that door we will all be shoved into deep space.  You really want to open that door?"  Nah, she didn't need to say anything.  I'm sure it will be fine.

 

Not considered by the last of the astronauts was that Calvin started as a single cell and, since escaping, has traversed the ISS multiple times.  How many single cells may have been scattered in Calvin's wake and stuck to astronauts, waiting for a glucose bath?  No one can leave, which is something Dr. North should have known.

 

The movie is light on science and heavy on the fiction.  The look of the movie is great but the story is atrocious.  Skip this one.

Flynn Immunity Request

In July, 2003, Robert Novak noted that Joseph Wilson had been suggested for the job of confirming the Saddam Hussein yellow cake story in Niger by his wife, Valerie Plame.  The CIA requested an investigation to determine who had 'leaked' Plame's name to Novak.  The firestorm commenced with suggestions that the Bush Administration had leaked Plame's name for revenge against Joe Wilson's debunking the yellow cake story.  With that in mind, the targets of the ensuing investigation quickly became Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and VP Dick Cheney.  However, when all was revealed, the leaker proved to be Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State, which the investigation knew almost from the beginning.  Therefore, almost right out the gate, Special Counsel Fitzgerald knew that Novak's leak came from Richard Armitage.  Armitage was charged with no crimes.  Ergo, the very act that was the impetus for the investigation was found not to be criminal.  $2.6 million spent on investigating something that was not a crime and resulted in no prosecutions?  Unthinkable.  Therefore, Scooter Libby, who demonstrably did not leak Plame's name, was charged with 5 crimes and convicted of 4 in association with the investigation.  Thus, Dick told Bob about Valerie and Scooter was blamed.

 

Libby was charged with perjury, making false statements, and obstruction of justice.  Why?  He wasn't involved in releasing Plame's name and had no reason to lie.  Fitzgerald announced that Libby had prevented the grand jury from determining if the leak had been a federal crime.  Huh?  The testimony of Libby was going to determine whether Armitage's leaking was a crime?  Libby was done in because his testimony did not match that of Judith Miller, who had taken notes of her conversations with Libby.  Fitzgerald viewed discrepancies as Libby lying and obstructing.  As he did not leak the name, Libby got a raw deal.  Unless Flynn is a dedicated diarist, his memory is going to be inconsistent.  Such could be judged criminal.

 

Seeing the fate of Libby, Mike Flynn may just be taking rational precautions.  Immunity is a tool to bypass the little fish and catch the big fish.  If Flynn can expose a bigger fish, why not give him immunity to do so?  Maybe he expose Trump's dealings with Russia, if there are any.  Maybe he can shed light on who is leaking to the media, such as who leaked Flynn's name.  Either of these would be blockbusters.  Of course, the former is unlikely or immunity would already have been offered; neither party likes President Trump.

Beauty and the Beast

The movie opens in Baroque France with a selfish prince (Dan Stevens) hosting a dance in which he is the only man on a dance floor crowded with two dozen or so young lovelies.  It is then that an old crone bursts in and demands lodging, offering a rose as payment.  The prince scoffs.  She requests again and he tosses the rose aside.  The crone transforms into a beautiful enchantress who curses the prince to ugliness until he should find someone who will love him.  Oh, and all your servants get to share in your curse because... they should have prevented you from being such a brat!  Even you, Chip!  Uh huh.  On top of that, the enchantress has a lasting appearance which I do not recall in the original.  She shows up repeatedly - in disguise - and is present when the curse is broken.

The live-action version attempts to expand the story, usually for the worse.  We learn that Belle's mother died of the plague in Paris.  Also Beast's father is responsible for making his son a selfish scion in his own image after Beast's mother died.  Thus, Beast is kind of blameless for his situation.  Oh, and Beast joins the motherless Disney character club with Belle.  LeFou, Gaston's sidekick, is gay and, to press the point, he dances with another clearly gay man at a ball where both have a sly smile.  Also, it is strange to see how racially integrated 18th century France was.  Yes, it is fantasy but then why try to emulate the style and technology of a real historical period?  If a live-action Mulan comes to pass, I doubt such ahistorical casting will be made to satisfy the diversity police.

 

The characters mostly failed to make the leap to live action.  The Beast felt a lot less intimidating than he should.  He's all roar and no bite.  When it comes to a fight, he always finds himself at death's door but for Belle's intervention.  Really, how did he survive this long?  A doddering father in the mold of Geppetto works much better in a cartoon than live action.  Maurice (Kevin Kline) comes across as a bumpkin and a fool.  Gaston (Luke Evans) is truly cartoonish, wanting to marry the prettiest girl, speaking to himself in mirrors, and just over the top narcissism.  That's good shorthand characterization in an animated feature but poor form in live action.

Belle (Emma Watson) starts out perfect and remains perfect.  She has read every book in town (and is apparently the town's only literate woman), invents a washing machine, knows what tool or part her clock-maker father needs before he does, dismisses Gaston's amorous advances with relative ease, and boldly risks the roads alone to find her missing father.  There is no character arc for her beyond the love story.  Even there, she is mostly won over by the library.  So much is made of Beast needing to break the curse and Belle wanting to save the servants who are doomed to become inanimate objects that any chemistry and love between Beauty and Beast is incidental.

Fun to watch but generally overrated.  By explaining the background, trying too hard to expand the story, and failing to account for a different presentation, it has failed to capture the heart of the original.