Friday, March 24, 2017

The Absurd as Official Policy


THE ABSURD TIMES


Trump's budget favors the military, so illustrated a way to solve starvation.



"Nonsense and utterly ridiculous" was said by the UK in reference to Trump's wiretapping claims.  It could easily be extended to every single other justification for anything he does.  In fact, the Absurd has taken on greater significance since Trump took office.





ABSURDITY BECOMES REPUBLICAN AGENDA UNDER TRUMPISM

[BTW: We have just received the transcript of the Franken questioning and will attaché it to the end of this week's edition.]



Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the recent hearings on the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.  It may take a few more words to make this clear, but it is wroth reading to the end, I assure you. 



Gorsuch has shown tremendous, almost unmatched creativity, in devising a multitude of ways in which to say absolutely nothing of any value in evaluating him for such a position.  Only one Senator, Al Franken, who has no law degree, was able to penetrate this façade of blank badinage. 



He asked Gorsuch a simple question, one about a trucker in which he was driving in 17 degree below zero temperatures and the trailer brakes froze.  He called the company and was told to wait for the repairs.  Three hours later, he had fallen asleep, a victim to hypothermia, and was woken only by a cell phone call from his brother.  Since he had called the company several times with the same result and instructions, he detatched the trailer and drove the cab to a source of heat.  Upon his return 15 minutes later, he was fired for not following orders.  All courts, including the Department of Labor, ruled in his favor except Gorsuch who insisted that "that was the law". 



Now it gets interesting.  Franken asked him about his dissent.  Another reply saying nothing.  Franken then said he did not have a law degree, but he had been on this committee for eight years and actually paid attention and was familiar with the doctrine of Absurdity.  Now Gorsuch said that the doctrine only applied to "Scrivener's errors."  Ok, so what's a scrivener?  It goes way back to before the invention of typewriters and law clerks, scriveners, hand copied documents and sometimes spelled a word wrong or even skipped a line or put in the wrong date. 



Today, it simply means a typo, although I personally encountered one myself when I was treating addicts as patients.  Sometimes they were committed by a judge for treatment for mental health reasons and once a judge literally committed herself to the care of my patient (I was one of those troublesome ones who actually read the legal documents).  Now, this would be considered a scrivener's error, even though, since in her case I did argue a case pro se  and in retrospect did feel that she was a good candidate for mental treatment.  Still, I sent it back for correction.



Now, are you still with me?  Well, never mind.  Gorsuch was wrong.  Here is a definition of the doctrine of Absurdity:



The common sense of man approves the judgment mentioned by Pufendorf [sic. Puffendorf], that the Bolognian law which enacted 'that whoever drew blood in the streets should be punished with the utmost severity', did not extend to the surgeon who opened the vein of a person that fell down in the street in a fit. The same common sense accepts the ruling, cited by Plowden, that the statute of 1st Edward II, which enacts that a prisoner who breaks prison shall be guilty of a felony, does not extend to a prisoner who breaks out when the prison is on fire – 'for he is not to be hanged because he would not stay to be burnt'.



At any rate, Franken attacked by pointing out that he had his prior career in identifying absurdity and pointing it out (as a comedian, or comedy writer), and then attacked, asking he what he would do.  Getting no response, Franken said "well, I can tell you what everyone else here would do" and then left the questioning.  That was the one bright spot in the entire hearing and it made Franken more popular than all of his work on Saturday Night Live.



That is only one example.  However, if Gorsuch cannot tell the difference between a scrivener's error and the Doctrine of Absurdity, it is the equivalent of a layperson not being able to tell his ass from a hole in the ground.



**

Conservativism: the belief that human beings are to be treated with as much contempt as possible.



**

Trumpism: See conservativism.



**

There was to be more about healthcare and the like, but the transcript is too important to omit as Gorsuch could be with this country for 30 or 40 years:



We feature an extended excerpt of Senator Al Franken (D-MN) grilling Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing about the so-called frozen trucker case of Alphonse Maddin. Gorsuch ruled it was right for Maddin to be fired after he disobeyed a supervisor and abandoned the trailer that he was driving, because he was on the verge of freezing to death. "It is absurd to say this company is in its rights to fire him because he made the choice of possibly dying from freezing to death or causing other people to die possibly by driving in an unsafe vehicle," says Sen. Franken. "It makes me question your judgment."



TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to Senator Al Franken, who questioned Judge Gorsuch on the Alphonse Maddin, the so-called frozen trucker, case during the confirmation hearing.


SEN. AL FRANKEN: A couple hours goes by. The heater is not working in his cab. It's 14 below zero, 14 below zero. He calls in, and he says, "My feet, I can't feel. I can't feel my feet. My torso—I'm beginning not to be able to feel my torso." And they say, "Hang on. Hang on. Wait for us." OK, now he actually falls asleep. And at 1:18 a.m., his cousin, I think—cousin calls him and wakes him up. And his cousin says that he is slurring his speech and he doesn't make much sense. Now, Mayo Clinic in Minnesota says that is hypothermia. And he had fallen asleep. If you fall asleep waiting under 14-below-zero weather, you can freeze to death. You can die.

He calls them back, and his supervisor says, "Wait. You've got to wait." So he has a couple of choices here: wait or take the trailer out with the frozen brakes onto the interstate. Now, when those brakes are locked and you're pulling that load on a trailer with brakes locked, you can go maybe, what, 10, 15 miles an hour? Now, what's that like on an interstate? Say you're going 75 miles an hour. Someone's going 75 miles an hour. They come over a hill and slam into that trailer. Also, he's got hypothermia. He's a little woozy, probably figures that's not too safe. I don't think you'd want to be on the road with him, would you, Judge?

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Senator—

SEN. AL FRANKEN: You would, or not?

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: I—

SEN. AL FRANKEN: It's a really easy yes or no.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Would I want to be on—would I want be on the road with him?

SEN. AL FRANKEN: Yeah.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: With the hitched trailer or the unhitched trailer, Senator?

SEN. AL FRANKEN: Well, either, but especially with the hitched trailer with the locked brakes.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: No, I don't think that was a serious option. I agree with you.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: OK, I thought that was—I wouldn't want to be there, either.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Yeah. An unhitched trailer—

SEN. AL FRANKEN: And so, what he does is he unhitches it—

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Right.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: —and goes off in the cab.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: And then I believe he comes back 15 minutes later.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: And he comes back after he gets warm, so that he can be there when it gets repaired.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Right.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: OK. Gets fired. He gets fired. And the rest of the judges all go, "That's ridiculous. He shouldn't—you can't fire a guy for doing that." It was—there were two safety issues here: one, the possibility of freezing to death, or driving with that rig in a very, very—a very dangerous way. Which would you have chosen? Which would you have done, Judge?

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Oh, Senator, I don't know what I would have done if I were in his shoes, and I don't blame him at all, for a moment, for doing what he did do.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: But—but—but—

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: I empathize with him entirely.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: OK, just you've—we've been talking about this case. Don't—you don't—you haven't decided what you would have done? You haven't thought about, for a second, what you would have done in his case?

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Oh, Senator, I thought a lot about this case, because I—

SEN. AL FRANKEN: And what would you have done?

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: I totally empathize and understand—

SEN. AL FRANKEN: I'm asking you a question. Please answer questions.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Senator, I don't know. I wasn't in the man's shoes. But I understand why he did—

SEN. AL FRANKEN: You don't know what you would have done.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: I understand—

SEN. AL FRANKEN: OK, I'll tell you what I would have done. I would have done exactly what he did.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Yeah, I understand that.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: I think everybody here would have done exactly what he did. And I think that's an easy answer, frankly. I don't know why you had difficulty answering that. OK, so you decide to write a thing in dissent. If you read your dissent, you don't say it was like subzero. You say it was cold out. The facts that you describe in your dissent are very minimal. But here's the—here is the law that—and you go to the language of the law, and you talk about that: "I go to the law." "A person may not discharge an employee who refuses to operate a vehicle because the employee has reasonable apprehension of serious injury to the employee or the public because of the vehicle's hazardous safety or security condition." That's the law. And you decided that they had the right to fire him, even though this law says you may not discharge an employee who refuses to operate a vehicle, because he did operate the vehicle. Is that right? That's your—that's how you decided, right?

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: That's the gist of it.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: Well, no, is that how you decided? That's what you decided, right?

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Senator, there are a lot more words in the opinions, both in the majority, by my colleagues, and in dissent. But that—I'm happy to agree with you. That's the gist of it.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: Right. Well, that's what you've said. And I—look, I'm not a lawyer. But I've been on this committee for about eight years. And I've paid some attention. So, I know that what you're talking about here is the plain meaning rule. Here's what the rule means. When the plain meaning of a statute is clear on its face, when its meaning is obvious, courts have no business looking beyond the meaning to the statute's purpose. And that's what you used, right?

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: That's what was argued to us by both sides, Senator.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: But that's what you—that's what you used.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: Yeah. Both sides—

SEN. AL FRANKEN: That's right. OK.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: —argued that the plain meeting supported their—

SEN. AL FRANKEN: Yeah, and you used it to come to your conclusion.

JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH: But both sides did.

SEN. AL FRANKEN: But the plain meaning rule has an exception. When using the plain meaning rule would create an absurd result, courts should depart from the plain meaning. It is absurd to say this company is in its rights to fire him because he made the choice of possibly dying from freezing to death or causing other people to die possibly by driving an unsafe vehicle. That's absurd. Now, I had a career in identifying absurdity, and I know it when I see it. And it makes me—you know, it makes me question your judgment.

AMY GOODMAN: That's Senator Al Franken, former comedian, before he was a senator, questioning Judge Neil Gorsuch about the Alphonse Maddin case, the so-called frozen trucker case. Again, Judge Gorsuch was alone, among seven judges, to rule that the company was right to fire Alphonse Maddin. As we wrap up, we're still with Maddin's attorney, Robert Fetter. I want to talk about the timing of Judge Gorsuch's dissent. When the candidate Donald Trump gave his list of Supreme Court justices that he would choose if he were to be president, Gorsuch was not on that list. That was in May. Bob Fetter, the decision was handed out—when was it? The dissent handed out by Judge Gorsuch, August 8th last year, on the frozen trucker case. When the second list came out in September, Gorsuch was added to Trump's list. Can you talk about the significance of this?

ROBERT FETTER: Yeah. It's certainly a set of circumstances that, after he was nominated, it certainly rung a bell with me that he was not on the initial list. He writes a—he has this case on his desk where he can show just how uncompassionate he can be and how far he's able to take extreme textualism in order to rule in favor of a company and corporate interest. Certainly, if I were the Chamber of Commerce or other business interest and I saw that decision, that signals to me that this is my kind of guy. Then he appears on the second list, which, of course, we all know it now, that that decision was outsourced to the Federalist Society and Heritage. And those groups certainly would have saw that decision, a very recent decision, and said, "This is the type of guy that we want on the Supreme Court, because he's going to be pro-business." And they've indicated they're very happy with his nomination, because he is pro-business. Pro-business is not a judicial philosophy. It is fine for a legislator to be pro-business, if he can get elected on that basis. But not for a judge. When you're pro-business as a judge, you're just biased. And we cannot accept bias on the United States Supreme Court.

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fetter, I want to thank you for being with us, labor lawyer, partner at Miller Cohen firm in Detroit, represented truck driver Alphonse Maddin in his wrongful termination lawsuit.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.




Thursday, March 16, 2017

TRUMP: BUGGER THE PEOPLE, ISRAEL APARTHEID


THE ABSURD TIMES



It seems the religions get along together as long as the people can use their minds.  At the bottom or end of this is a report on Zionism in action.  The photo comes from people working together here to pick up after hate crimes. The article is a UN thing on Apartheid in Israel.  [There is no need to point out, except for the sake of mockery, that Israel thinks it is a lie.] 





Trump: Bugger the People



This may not be apparent to most U.S. Citizens, but the idiocy and inanity of the Trump administration is quite a relief to parts of the international community.  While all the superficial funny stuff is going on, and our media is gobbling it up, other countries are happy to see it flailing away and looking like a clown with two left feet.  So, let's look at the more amusing things first and then what Trump really means for the rest of the world.



Of course, hate crimes here have risen dramatically as Trump in office makes many think that such is fine these days.  The morons who commit them, however, are not very well educated or knowledgeable, of course, as they voted for the clown.  For example, we have several examples of Indian people (from India), Sikh sect being shot at and told to go back home to Iran.  India and Iran are two different countries, naturally, but they have no idea of that.  Mention Ghandi to them and they would look at you strangely.  Mention a travel ban against Moslems, and they will still applaud, despite further rulings that they violate the first amendment (remember that?)  In case you missed it, we deid publish the entire Constitution just recently.  We may open things up for comment on the blog for awhile to see how things go.



Facebook, it seems, has yielded to Zionist pressure and banned most BDS conversations, but nude and objectified Marine women were to be found there until recently.  The photos have now reappeared several places, but we have not looked for them.



Trump tends to TWC (Tweet While Constipated) often when publicity is a problem and manages to change the conversation.  The latest spate was over Obama "tapping his phones" before the election.  Soon afterwards, after a list of praise for Wikileaks  ("I love Wikileaks'), a list of covert spying methods was released.  "Weeping Angel" was my favorite, but they were many others, including something about a kangaroo.  Lots of fun there.  People pretended to be shocked and offended, but hasn't it been common knowledge that EVERYTHING is digitized, compressed, and stored somewhere by the NSA? 



At any rate, these revelations were enough for his helpers to defend Trump.  Kelley Anne Conway would say things like "they turn your microwave into a camera."  Later, someone said that it was "said in jest," but we can tell when someone is jesting.  Why we can even tell when Steven Wright was jesting.  Conway simply cannot jest.  She can use the term "alternative facts" completely seriously without any idea of how strange it sounds.  Sean Spicer handled the nonsense a bit more safely, saying that "The tweets speak for themselves," and then ducking away from the cameras, surely a statement worthy of the Trump Administration.  In case you wonder, all those tweets will become national property and placed eventually in the Trump Library one day.



Perhaps this belongs with the hate crimes, but what the hell – it all fits together anyway.  Representative King (R – IA) stated that we can't have a civilization with other peoples babies.  Confused?  Well, you can't play tennis with them either.  What's the point, moron?  I keep reminding myself that he is a Republican and that explains most things.



Still, even Republicans are running away from the TWC, but many support their version of "healthcare".  1) Don't buy an Iphone, and 2) if you are 64 and make 34K/year, half goes for health insurance.  Obama is increasingly being called the ACA which was its original name but called Obamacare by Republicans because, you know, black healthcare and all.  Gotta keep our civilization with out babies.



Before we blame everything on the Republicans, consider how the Democrats kept Sanders from the nomination and remember he could have defeated both Trump and help other Dems take seats in Congress.  However, he thought Medicare for all was the solution, and many voters agreed.  That would put insurance companies out of profits and bring health care cost to what they are in other industrial nations (about half of what they are here).  These companies donate hugely to campaigns.



And finally, Wikileaks never told us anything we didn't already know – it just provided documentation.  It was popular here during Bush's war on Iraq; they same people are now attacking it as an instrument of Russia. 



This is getting too crazy, so let's see how this affects the world.  Since the military budget is being raised beyond what the military even wants, and already is larger than the next 8 countries' combined, we gotta cut other stuff, like the UN, EPA, and all that tree-hugging stuff.  Perhaps those who voted for Trump will notice what he actually does to them. 



Meanwhile, everyone seems to have forgotten Israel amidst all this nonsense and perhaps that is the reason.  Here is an interview on Apartheid in Israel:

For the first time, a United Nations agency has directly accused Israel of imposing an "apartheid regime" on the Palestinian people. The report also urges governments to "support boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] activities and respond positively to calls for such initiatives." The findings come in a new report published by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, which is comprised of 18 Arab states. For more, we speak with the co-author of the report, Richard Falk. He's professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and previously served as the U.N. special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.

TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: For the first time, a United Nations agency has directly accused Israel of imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinian people. The report also urges governments to, quote, "support boycott, divestment and sanctions activities and respond positively to calls for such initiatives." The findings come in a new report published by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, which is comprised of 18 Arab states. This is the head of the U.N. agency, Rima Khalaf.
RIMA KHALAF: [translated] The importance of this report is not only because it is the first of its kind, one that is published by one of the United Nations' bodies that clearly and frankly concludes that Israel is a racist state that has established an apartheid system that persecutes the Palestinian people, but also it sheds light on the essence of the Palestinian cause and the conditions needed for accomplishing peace.
AMY GOODMAN: The report met with immediate condemnation from Israel and the United States. U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York the report was published without any prior consultation with the U.N. Secretariat.
STÉPHANE DUJARRIC: If we just saw the report today, which, as you say, was published by ESCWA, it was done so without any prior consultations with the Secretariat. And the report, as it stands, does not reflect the views of the secretary-general.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the report, we go, not to The Hague, but to Edinburgh, Scotland, to talk to Richard Falk, co-author of the report that's titled "Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid." He has written a number of books, including Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. He previously served as the U.N. special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights.
Professor Falk, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the main findings of your report and how unusual this report is within the United Nations?
RICHARD FALK: Yes. As the head of the commission indicated, this is the first time that a comprehensive and systematic inquiry has been carried out into the allegation that Israel is responsible for maintaining an apartheid regime in relation to the Palestinian people. One of the distinctive features of the report is to treat the Palestinians as a whole, and that's quite innovative as far as the discussions of the applicability of apartheid to the Palestinian circumstances is concerned. And that means distinguishing between Palestinians that live under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza or as permanent residents in Jerusalem or as a Palestinian minority in the state of Israel, and, finally, as refugees or involuntary exiles.
What the report argues is that Israel has pursued a policy of fragmenting the Palestinian people in order to maintain the domination of a Jewish state over these different categories of Palestinians, and has done so in a way that is systematically discriminatory and is responsible for deep suffering over a very long period of time, with no end in sight. Unlike other forms of international criminality, this is an ongoing crime, according to the analysis in the report, and there is no end in sight, nor no political process that can adequately challenge this set of policies and structures that have been applied to the Palestinian people.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Professor Falk, I'd like you to say something about the agency that commissioned and published the report, the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. The membership of this agency, there are 18 Arab members, a number of whom don't recognize Israel. So, do you think that that might raise questions about the legitimacy of the report?
RICHARD FALK: Well, all the—these Arab members of ESCWA did was to ask that such a report be prepared. And Virginia Tilley, professor at the University of Southern Illinois, and myself were asked to prepare this report on a contract basis. It doesn't represent a U.N. finding as such. It is a report commissioned by the U.N. that has been received, with approval, but there's been no formal endorsement of it. It's possible that it will be endorsed, or efforts will be made to obtain an endorsement at the General Assembly or in other parts of the U.N. system. But as of now, it's a scholarly report undertaken by independent scholars. And there is a kind of disclaimer that the U.N.—this U.N. commission made, that the report doesn't necessarily represent even ESCWA's views. It is the views of the two of us who prepared the report.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon issued a statement saying, quote, "The attempt to smear and falsely label the only true democracy in the Middle East by creating a false analogy is despicable and constitutes a blatant lie." The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the former South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, said the U.S. is "outraged by the report." In a written statement, she said, quote, "That such anti-Israel propaganda would come from a body whose membership nearly universally does not recognize Israel is unsurprising. That it was drafted by Richard Falk, a man who has repeatedly made biased and deeply offensive comments about Israel and espoused ridiculous conspiracy theories, including about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, is equally unsurprising." Can you respond to this? She said that the U.N. should withdraw the report altogether.
RICHARD FALK: Well, this is, of course, nothing new in terms of the way in which Israel and the United States respond to any kind of criticism, no matter how well grounded in fact and careful, reasoned analysis. I would ask that people look at the report, look at the evidence, and then come to a conclusion. Whatever else it is, it isn't an effort to smear Israel or to in any way give aid and comfort to anti-Semitism. In fact, the report makes a clear statement that it—that the authors are unconditionally opposed to anti-Semitism as a form of racism. And it tries to draw a distinction between criticizing Israel as a state, or Zionism as a movement, from any kind of hostility to the Jewish people. But, unfortunately, American diplomacy, including under the Obama—during the Obama period of leadership, and Israel don't want to deal with the substantive issues that are raised.
AMY GOODMAN: So talk about those substantive issues that you raised in this report, Professor Falk.
RICHARD FALK: Well, the essence of the substantive issues are policies and practices that impose a discriminatory—a discriminatory pattern of behavior that has greatly—greatly contributed to Palestinians suffering over the years on a daily basis. It is a situation that appalls most of the governments in the world, and is not something that is in any way dealt with in this report in an emotional way. It looks at the policies and practices. It looks at the structures by which Israel has justified the way in which it addresses the Palestinian presence in these four domains, and generally tries to make an objective appraisal of how these policies and practices stand up against the international definition of apartheid that is in the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and—
AMY GOODMAN: And what did you conclude?
RICHARD FALK: We concluded that there is a integrated regime of apartheid that is victimizing the Palestinian people in a collective manner, and that it should be acted upon by the United Nations and by other institutional mechanisms to bring this crime to an end. That's the essential—
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Professor Falk, very quickly, before we conclude, can you say, what do you expect to happen? What's the effect of this report, given that the U.N. has already distanced itself from it?
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
RICHARD FALK: Well, the Secretariat has distanced itself. Other organs of the U.N. haven't responded so far as I know. Our hope is that this report will lead to a careful inquiry by appropriate organs of the U.N., and that if our analysis is persuasive, that it will have some political consequences.
AMY GOODMAN: Richard Falk, we want to thank you for being with us, joining us from Edinburgh, Scotland, co-author of the report, "Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid." Thanks for joining us.
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.