- Conservative principles: none. Priorities: power, and money;
- More about Lindsey Graham and those who are most against gay rights;
- The recurring nonsense about “Daylight Saving Time”;
- Brief items about how facts are stubborn things, and Hegseth’s ongoing campaign to enforce white supremacy in the military.
Once again. There are no principles here, only thirst for money, and power (see Lindsey Graham, yesterday).
Slate, Fred Kaplan, today: Trump’s Iran Bluster This Week Revealed the Only Thing That Really Matters to Him
Beginning:
President Trump’s decision to resume and escalate the war in Iran makes even less sense than his decision four and a half months ago to start the war in the first place. More jarring still, Trump announced on Monday that he would also take control of the Strait of Hormuz and charge a 20 percent toll to all ships passing through—which, besides defying credulity, blows to bits the tiny shred of moral claim that he had held against Iran’s government.
On Tuesday, just hours later, Trump walked back his demand for a toll—perhaps he was advised that it could double global shipping costs (if it could be enforced)—but supplied no details on how the U.S. would take control of the waterway. Nonetheless, both declarations, as well as the backpedaling, amplify what has been loud and clear for some time—that Trump makes major decisions off the cuff, often with no discussion of their implications, and that nothing he says should be taken seriously.
This story rather buries the lede. (Or perhaps this is the headline editor’s fault.) Last para. I don’t usually do this, but I’ll bold the key point.
Trump backpedaled on the toll plan one day after posting it, but, like many of his offhand remarks, it revealed his true state of mind. Rubio and others might tout the fine principle of free passage on open seas and even claim that this is why the U.S. needs to renew its military pressure on Iran. But to Trump, everything is all about money and almost nothing but money. The war with Iran, as he now sees it, is over who controls the strait and who collects the money from that control.
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Another running theme.
Slate, Christina Cauterucci, yesterday: The Complicated Legacy of Lindsey Graham, subtitled “The most anti-LGBTQ voices are usually quite different behind closed doors.”
On the gay internet, the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham was met with a smirk. Memes and posts suggested that the longtime South Carolina lawmaker, who unexpectedly died on Saturday, was gazing on a Provincetown cruising spot from the afterlife, flamboyantly courting Ronald Reagan’s attention in hell, and being honored at Grindr headquarters with a flag flown at half-staff.
Though Graham maintained throughout his life that he was not gay, his sexuality was an open question in Washington. It’s not just that he had what some deemed an effeminate air and was never romantically linked with a woman, though that certainly fed the rumors. There were also multiple public accounts from men who said Graham had paid them for sex, claims he also denied. Still, nothing ever erupted into a full-blown scandal. And until his death, Graham remained a staunch opponent of LGBTQ+ rights.
Those most vocal against gay rights are hiding something, is the impression many of us have. And many can’t help but noticing scandal after scandal involving priests and church counselors and young boys. It’s easy to guess why those men went into those positions.
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We go through this every few years. Honestly, some of these legislators truly do not understand the situation. They don’t understand reality.
CBS News, today: House passes bill to make daylight saving time permanent
and
NY Times, yesterday: House Votes for Permanent Daylight Saving Time, subtitled “House Republicans and Democrats united in favor of a bill to eliminate semiannual clock-changing, but it faces an uncertain fate in the Senate.”
This has always been nonsense. You can’t change reality just by saying so. That is: some of these people think sunlight is “being saved.” From NYT:
The House on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to make daylight saving time permanent, but the measure to spare Americans the semiannual clock-changing that shortens winter days faces an uncertain path to enactment.
The measure, fittingly named the “Sunshine Protection Act,” passed on a 308-to-117 vote. Its fate is murky in the Senate, where one G.O.P. leader said it was unclear whether it could move ahead and at least one Republican appears inclined to try to block it.
President Trump has championed the effort to save an extra hour of daylight before nightfall and make the time zone permanent, describing the ritual of moving clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall a “ridiculous, twice yearly production.”
“We are going with the far more popular alternative, Saving Daylight, which gives you a longer, brighter Day,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post in May. “And who can be against that.”
This is nonsense. There is no “longer” brighter day. The amount of sunlight on any given day is determined by the seasons, in turn determined by the angle of the Earth’s orbit around the sun, and one’s latitude, and cannot be changed by edict. The problem here is that people — mostly office workers, perhaps? — don’t adjust their daily schedule to adjust to the available daylight, as the year goes by. (Farmers understand this, and I suspect don’t care about this measure; they’re always driven by available sunlight, not the clock.)
In effect, this legislation says that those of us in the Pacific Time Zone will reassign ourselves live on Mountain Time, those in Mountain, to Central, and so on.
And, this has been tried before, in the 1970s. And quickly given up, as the sun didn’t rise until 9am in some northern states. But some people cannot learn, apparently.
(At least on the TV news I never heard anyone slip and say “Daylight Savings Time,” with the s.)
The solution is to stay to Standard Time, all year round, which aligns with the actual time according to the sun. And people adjust their schedules to the real world.
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Brief items:
This is certainly related.
- AlterNet, Nick Hilden, today: ‘Facts are stubborn things’: Judge ruling a ‘masterclass’ on smacking down Trump
*
- The current administration’s ongoing white supremacy.
- NY Times, yesterday (via JMG): Opportunities Narrow for Women as Hegseth Blocks More Promotions, subtitled “For the first time in more than a decade, no active-duty female Navy officers are likely to be promoted to admiral this year.”
And tomorrow I’ll pick up on the story about how Pete Hegseth wants to give the military testosterone tests, and boosters for those who are low. This actually might make a certain kind of sense, even though it’s driven by base motivations.
