Civil Commotion

A webcam maintained by Northern Michigan University, in Marquette, Michigan, shows scarcely any ice on Lake Superior — at the end of February, the most miserable time of the year.

To help orient yourself, here’s a map showing the location of Marquette — almost due east of Duluth.

The wolf and moose on Isle Royale (a federal park comprising an island in Lake Superior) cross the ice bridge to the mainland each winter, a key mechanism for maintaining the genetic diversity of the herds; because the bridge rarely forms nowadays, the herds are now in decline and growing sickly. There are doubtless other varieties of wildlife adversely affected by rising temperatures.

But the First Felon, abetted by such as Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, continues to insist that concern about climate change is nothing but a liberal bed-wetter hoax sponsored by the Chinese — and a lot of moronic Americans fall for it. He must be put out in November.

I speculated a few years ago that Trump et. al. might attack the press by attempting to financially exhaust news outlets.

Last, Trump has signaled plainly that he intends to neuter the media, that reporting which doesn’t flatter him will be punished. When scowls don’t work, my guess is that his tool of choice will be economic attrition via the courts — a long train of legally feeble but costly SLAPPs. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN were targeted in that way. We all know that newspapers, especially, are hurting, and so the expectation would be that the lesser news outlets would quickly fall into line.

Ha-ha. If The Donald thinks that journos are in it for the money, he is in for a big surprise. As Richard Nixon was surprised, say, when he thought that a court order could arrest publication of the Pentagon Papers — and woke-up to find them published in hundreds of newspapers all across the country.

Well. What do you know?

The campaign to reelect President Donald Trump sued The New York Times for defamation Wednesday, saying it was responsible for an essay by a former executive editor for the newspaper that claimed the campaign made a deal with Russian officials to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

In the lawsuit in state court in New York, Donald J. Trump for President Inc. said the newspaper knowingly published false and defamatory statements when the Op-Ed piece claimed the campaign had an “overarching deal” with “Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy” to defeat the Democratic candidate.

Even FOX News’ Judge Napolitano ridicules the lawsuit.

Napolitano explained why he does not believe the campaign has “standing” to bring a libel lawsuit.

“The plaintiff is the [Trump] campaign, and under libel law here in New York, where they filed the complaint, a group can’t be the plaintiff, only an individual who’s actually been harmed by the alleged defamation can be the plaintiff. Was the president harmed? I don’t think he was harmed, this statement came out after he was already president and it certainly didn’t harm him when he was running for president and it is not harming him now,” Napolitano argued.

Remember: There is an election coming, and this is no more than an effort to make the New York Times and other newspapers tippy-toe around the First Felon.

With respect to the journalists I’ve known, and the publications I’ve written for, this suit is akin to throwing mounds of bloody red meat before bare-fanged carnivores; there is no way on earth this suit will intimidate them. Do Trump and his sycophants really not know that?

Or are they hoping to go around the journos and send a case of indigestion to the business office? That might actually work against struggling regional newspapers, but is unlikely to be effective against nationally distributed newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post. Nobody should feel any confusion, though, about the gravity of Trump’s intent to put freedom of the press in the rear-view mirror.

Today, the last Impala rolls off the line at the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant.

Production of the Chevrolet Impala will cease Thursday after six decades, making the Impala yet another Detroit sedan to be laid to rest as buyers switch to crossovers, SUVs and pickups.

Introduced in 1958 and produced continuously except for gaps in the 1980s and 1990s, the final Impala will roll down the line at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly. Seen by many as emblematic of the all-American car, more than 16.8 million have been sold globally (not including the 1994-96 Impala SS, which was counted as a Chevy Caprice).

Tastes change, I guess. Even as a kid, in the years when it was stylish, I didn’t much care for those huge wings in back; to each his own.

Is this the end of the Hamtramck assembly plant? The Hamtramck assembly plant is in an area formerly known as Poletown, an area then occupied chiefly by people of Polish ethnicity. About 1973, the entire area was condemned so that the land could be turned-over to General Motors for construction of the assembly plant.

Think about that: Eminent Domain was exercised not for construction of needful public infrastructure, but in order to create room for a factory that would boost employment. It was litigated for years; eventually, the residents lost and the plant was built.

Eminent Domain is a necessary evil; sometimes, there is no escaping that towns must be submerged for a reservoir, a neighborhood must be uprooted for a highway, shoreline ambience must be sacrificed for a bridge. But public-sector condemnation and seizure of private property to facilitate corporate ownership should never happen.

As we all marvel at the inexhaustible enthusiasm of evangelicals for Donald Trump, it’s worthwhile to recall one of the most insidious of their teachings and to recognize that they’re persisting in things besides trying to kill-off the gains of the Enlightenment.

Second, I can teach my boys to look for the one great quality in a spouse that matters more than any. I can teach each boy to look for a woman who loves Jesus more than she loves him. I want my boys to marry into a partnership where they pursue God together. That means that above anything else there must be that deep love for Jesus.

No. Anybody who thinks that pleasing an Invisible Friend is more important than their wedding vows is a fool who isn’t actually married at all, and who is committing a fraud against his or her spouse.

It is not an accident that evangelicals have the highest divorce rate in the country; it’s the direct, predictable consequence of cult-like nonsense like this. Better he taught his boys to look for a spouse they can count on being in their corner when they need her.

UPDATE:   The same site noodles what ought to be done about the SBC’s steadily-declining rate of Baptisms, and notes this:

One of our two presidential candidates (Mohler) has offered in the past a real solution: Southern Baptist couples should have more babies. That would prove more effective than any new plan or program.

Famously, Mohler encourages seminarians to get married and to start families as quickly as possible, though delaying marriage until the late 20’s vastly enhances their stability and cuts divorce. As I’ve said countless times through the years, and in spite of the self-aggrandizing marketing lies about religion and marriage, Southern Baptists do not believe in marriage; they believe in animal husbandry.

Back in May 2018, the former House speaker John Boehner declared: “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”

It’s actually not napping anymore. It’s dead.

Tom Friedman, New York Times

Yep … though, of course, a lot of us have known for a long while that the Republican Party is deceased. I mean, Geez, who could miss the stench when the Senate refused to conduct an impeachment trial?

Though I can name policy differences with each, credible, decent-minded, non-conspiracy-nutniks like Jeb Bush and John Kasich need to form a new party, a third party.