Thursday: Hili dialogue

December 19, 2019 • 6:30 am

Good morning on a chilly Thursday: the temperature is 18° F (-8° C) in Chicago, and it’s December 19, 2019—a week from Boxing Day. That means there are only six shopping days left until Coynezaa.

It’s National Hard Candy Day in the U.S., which seems unfair since there’s no National Soft Candy Day. In Britain it’s National Hard Cheddar Day, marking the election victory of the Tories. It’s also National Oatmeal Muffin Day, celebrating is the debasement of a good food genre (like rhubarb pie), and Holly Day.

Big News of the Day: That, of course, is the fact that last night the House of Representatives impeached Donald Trump, only the third time that’s happened in American history. I watched a fair amount of the speechifying before the vote, but it was all predictable, and the important thing was the outcome, which was never in doubt. As we all knew, it was strictly along party lines. Here’s the breakdown from the New York Times:

Tulsi Gabbard was the one Democrat who voted “present” on both counts, Democrats Collin Peterson, Jeff Van Drew, and Jared Golden voted “no” on one or both counts, while no Republican defected. This reflects the polarization of Americans in general, who seem evenly divided on whether Trump should be left alone now or removed from office. Overall, the deep divide is dispiriting to anyone who hopes that Democrats and Republicans can find some common ground to move America forward.

That’s all I have to say, except the to reiterate my opinion that the best thing that could happen to America now would be for Trump to be out of office ASAP—but replaced not by Mike Pence (a disaster!) but by a Democrat. And this is for sure: if Trump is given the boot, it will be effected next November by the votes of citizens, not in January by the votes of Senators.

Oh, and Trump has of course been active on Twitter, but mostly retweeting Republican comments that he was unfairly railroaded. He also wrote this dignified statement:

Have your say below.

Stuff that happened on December 19 include:

  • 1606 – The ships Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery depart England carrying settlers who founded, at Jamestown, Virginia, the first of the thirteen colonies that became the United States.
  • 1777 – American Revolutionary War: George Washington’s Continental Army goes into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
  • 1924 – The last Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is sold in London, England.

Here’s the luxury car:

  • 1945 – John Amery, British Fascist, is executed at the age of 33 by the British Government for treason.
  • 1972 – Apollo program: The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, and Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth.
  • 1983 – The original FIFA World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet Trophy, is stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Let’s learn a bit about that trophy (for one thing, I wanted to), which has been stolen twice, the second time for good. From Wikipedia:

On 20 March 1966, four months before the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England, the trophy was stolen during a public exhibition at Westminster Central Hall. It was found just seven days later wrapped in newspaper at the bottom of a suburban garden hedge on Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood, South London, by a black and white mongrel dog named Pickles.

Pickles! D*gs have their uses. The second theft:

. . . The Brazilian team won the tournament for the third time in 1970, allowing them to keep the real trophy in perpetuity, as had been stipulated by Jules Rimet in 1930. It was put on display at the Brazilian Football Confederation headquarters in Rio de Janeiro in a cabinet with a front of bullet-proof glass.

On 19 December 1983, the wooden rear of the cabinet was opened by force with a crowbar and the cup was stolen again. Four men were tried and convicted in absentia for the crime.  The trophy has never been recovered, and it is widely believed to have been melted down and sold. Only one piece of the Jules Rimet Trophy has been found, the original base which FIFA had kept in a basement of the federation’s Zürich headquarters prior to 2015.

. . . A replacement trophy was commissioned by FIFA for the 1974 World Cup. Fifty-three submissions were received from sculptors in seven countries. Italian artist Silvio Gazzaniga was awarded the commission. The trophy stands 36.5 centimetres (14.4 in) tall and is made of 5 kilograms (11 lb) of 18 carat (75%) gold, worth approximately US$161,000 in 2018, with a base 13 centimetres (5.1 in) in diameter containing two layers of malachite. It has been asserted by Sir Martyn Poliakoff of Periodic Videos that the trophy is hollow; if, as is claimed, it were solid, the trophy would weigh 70–80 kilograms (150–180 lb) and would be too heavy to lift. Produced by Bertoni, Milano in Paderno Dugnano, it weighs 6.175 kilograms (13.61 lb) in total and depicts two human figures holding up the Earth.

Here it is: such a small trophy for such a big achievement!

  • 1998 – President Bill Clinton is impeached by the United States House of Representatives, becoming the second President of the United States to be impeached.
  • 2001 – A record high barometric pressure of 1085.6 hPa (32.06 inHg) is recorded at Tosontsengel, Khövsgöl, Mongolia.

Those born on this day include:

  • 1915 – Édith Piaf, French singer-songwriter and actress (d. 1963)
  • 1918 – Professor Longhair, American singer-songwriter and pianist (d. 1980)
  • 1924 – Cicely Tyson, American actress [She’s still alive at 95.]
  • 1934 – Al Kaline, American baseball player and sportscaster
  • 1940 – Phil Ochs, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1976)
  • 1944 – Richard Leakey, Kenyan paleontologist and politician
  • 1963 – Jennifer Beals, American model and actress [Who remembers “Flashdance”?]
  • 1972 – Alyssa Milano, American actress and television personality
  • 1980 – Jake Gyllenhaal, American actor and producer

Notables who “passed” (I hate that word) on December 19 include:

  • 1848 – Emily Brontë, English novelist and poet (b. 1818)
  • 1946 – Paul Langevin, French physicist and academic (b. 1872)
  • 1953 – Robert Andrews Millikan, American physicist and eugenicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1868)
  • 2012 – Robert Bork, American lawyer, judge, and scholar, United States Attorney General (b. 1927)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili found an insect:

Hili: Look, there is a fly.
A: What fly?
Hili: A dead fly.
In Polish:
Hili: Popatrz tam jest mucha.
Ja: Jaka mucha?
Hili: Martwa mucha.
And Mietek had an accident! Malgorzata reports:

Mietek managed to break his kneecap (patella). I’m sending you the picture. A cat?! He is barely out from the previous disaster and now this!

From Jesus of the Day:

Seth Andrews put this on his Facebook page:

And a contribution from reader j.j.:

I hope that virulent anti-Semitism is still rare in the black community, for, historically, Jews and African-Americans have always been on the same side:

From reader Barry, a lovely caterpillar:

Two cat tweets from Heather Hastie. First, a cat gets its forever home (I wish it were true of this tweet!):

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1204186800769634304

Feline wrestling, which, like human wrestling, is not aggression but play:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1205998778962063360

And a passel of tweets from Matthew Cobb. First, the good morning egress from Marsh Farm barn (I’ve tweeted them to see if they’ll mention me on my birthday). Note the black cat

And Matthew emitted these two tweets himself:

Matthew links to the speech itself: Jean Moulin was a big hero and organizer of the French Resistance during World War II, and on this day in 1964, his ashes were interred in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Matthew, of course, wrote a book on the French Resistance. His take on the tweet:

Malraux invokes the spirit of the Resistance in this weird shaman-like speech, full of powerful images. He calls on French youth to follow Moulin’s example, which they did less than 4 years later, but not in the way he intended. I linked to a video extract in which, even if you don’t understand it, you can hear the rhythms.

Now here’s a real find!

The disappearing act is at the end, and these little guys are fast!

Neither Matthew nor I ever get tired of looking at murmurations:

And a closeup of a murmuration:

 

64 thoughts on “Thursday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Ironically, according to Wikipedia:

    “Pickles died in 1967 when he was strangled by his choke chain lead that caught on a tree branch while he was chasing a cat near his new home in Surrey [bought from the reward money for finding the World Cup].”

  3. Pelosi says she won’t refer impeachment to the senate until she thinks it will get a fair hearing. I like this move. I’m sure she had decided this from the beginning.

    2. She could tell McConnell before she refer the articles of impeachment he’ll have to go on CNN and solemnly swears to do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws, so help me God.

        1. I think you are right. I wouldn’t mind seeing Nancy do as rickflick suggests, see McConnell make such a statement and then have Nancy decline because McConnell was too insincere / wishywashy (technical term).

    3. Yeah, I think it’s a smart move, too. Circumstances are likely to get worse for Trump if the impeachment proceedings marinate a bit, what with Rudy Giuliani staring down the barrel of a potential indictment in the Southern District of New York, and with SCOTUS scheduled to hear arguments in March on Donald Trump’s desperate, last-ditch effort to keep his tax returns and Deutsche Bank records secret.

      Pelosi now has leverage to insist on at least some measure of fairness in the senate impeachment trial. What needs to happen is for some US senators to come together in one of their old-fashion, bipartisan “gangs of eight” — four Democrats and four Republicans who, if they vote as a block, can deny Mitch McConnell the 51 votes he needs to jerry-rig the rules. (There should be at least four Republican senators up to the job — Republicans who want to maintain at least the pretense of playing a good, clean game — between Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, the four Republicans who are up for reelection in purple states, and the three retiring Republicans who don’t owe Donald Trump squat.)

      The best outcome would be for the senate to agree to leave decisions on the presentation of witnesses and and evidence to (Republican-appointed) Chief Justice John Roberts (who has no love lost on Donald Trump personally). As Roberts repeatedly declaimed at his confirmation hearings back in 2005, he sees his role strictly as an impartial “umpire calling balls and strikes.” Roberts, I think, would make Bolton and Mulvaney and Pompeo and Giuliani show up in response to subpoenas, and he’d call bullshit on any refusal to answer questions based on their bogus claims of immunity and privilege.

      And If Trump wants to let the sideshow take over the circus by having the senate hear from Hunter and Joe Biden, I say, fine, have at it. Hunter can take the stand in the senate and do a chest-beating mea culpa for accepting a cushy position with Burisma for which he was under-qualified and overpaid, while telling the nation that his dad is the best, most honest, decent man he’s ever known and had nothing to do with any of it.

      Then old Uncle Joe can take the stand and call out the worst of Republican senators for the filth they are, going after his only surviving son. And he can declare his own absolute, uncontested innocence of any Ukraine wrongdoing on live national teevee, giving his version of Nixon’s corny 1952 “Checkers Speech” — except with sincerity, in living color, and with a few “malarkeys” thrown in for good measure. It’ll be like a half-day infomercial for his campaign.

      1. Something like this would be nice to see. It seems plausible, but I can’t help thinking that since there has yet to be any significant break among the Republican ranks, just what will it take?

        One thing seems a sure bet though. The longer impeachment is hanging over Trump with no resolution the more insane behavior it will inspire in him due to fear / humiliation / spoiling his brand, and the more putridness will come to light about the cesspool of traitorous shit he and his minions / manipulators have been involved with over the past few years, or more.

        1. The four Republican senators needn’t agree to vote to convict Trump (indeed, I would be surprised, albeit very pleasantly so, if they ended up doing so). They need merely agree not to let Mitch McConnell give the rules for conducting a senate trial the old fuckeroo.

      2. If there were 3 Republican senators with backbone, they could insist on conditions. It requires a majority to pass the rules for the trial, which can’t go forward until rules are passed, and in this case Pence doesn’t get to break a tie. For instance, they could insist that the final vote be by secret ballot and refuse to pass any rules until that was included. It would be interesting to see what the outcome of a secret ballot vote would be.

        1. A secret ballot? I’d hope not before June, 6 months of president Pence is about the most I could possibly stomach. 🙂

      1. “Once you realized that everything was a hoax you got wise and began to bleed and burn your fellow man.”

        -from Factotum, 1975, Charles Bukowski, author

  4. Mietek, please get better soon…

    Must remember this impeachment would not have been possible but for the 2018 election where 9 million more democrats voted and turned the House. It is voter power that removes politician no matter how you look at it.

    1. I should say that I did not watch any of the stuff on TV yesterday as it happened, just the highlights after, as if there were any. Trump has been successful in turning a very poor party into his own cult. They really should come up with a new name, such as Trumps puppets. There was no defense of what Trump has done, nothing. Just Assaults toward democrats and denial that what happened did happen. I thought one republican from Georgia had the best, comparing democrats to Pontius Pilate against Jesus. Yes, this is a party based on BS and pure lies.

  5. Ronald Brownstein is a political analyst at The Atlantic. I enjoy his columns because in contrast to most pundits he deals in analysis as opposed to making predictions based on nothing. I think he has done a good job in summing up the state of the political landscape today in light of the Trump impeachment. He notes:

    “The starkest message to be gleaned from the impeachment struggle may be that red and blue America have almost completely separated into hostile camps. Polls have shown an almost complete partisan split over impeachment, with 90 percent or more of Democrats supporting it and virtually all Republican partisans in opposition. This continues a pattern of unprecedented unity within the parties—and division between them—that has characterized virtually every moment of Trump’s presidency. The gap between presidential approval ratings among Democratic and Republican voters has been widening steadily since the 1970s, but under Trump the trend has peaked. Across a wide array of surveys, Trump routinely receives positive ratings from around 90 percent of Republicans and fewer than 10 percent of Democrats.”

    He goes on:

    “In this Battle of the Bulge between two divergent Americas, small differences in both parties’ ability to mobilize supporters may tip the outcome. But in such an evenly matched conflict, small slivers of erosion at the edges of each coalition—or minor shifts in the opinions of any remaining swing voters—could also prove decisive. Recent trends in public opinion offer hints at the competing forces that will weigh on the ambivalent voters who could decide next year’s result.”

    The generally good state of the economy (although a significant portion of the population has barely benefited) helps Trump. If the economy should tank by election time, he will be toast. Even so, he is generally disliked because Trump is Trump. Thus, as Brownstein points, a small shift in public opinion can tilt the election, particularly in the critical swing states – Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. In my view, the extreme polarization, which should be obvious to anyone breathing, means that changing the minds of Trump supporters is probably a futile effort and certainly not cost effective. If a few change their minds on their own that would be great, but Democrats should not count on this. Democrats need to increase turnout among previous non-voters in presidential elections who are sympathetic to them. The fate of the nation and democracy depends on how successful they turn out to be.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/12/impeachment-trump-2020/603832/

    1. That all sounds good up to a point and that point is the equal split stuff. The Trump cult only survives because of the completely undemocratic Senate, nothing else. In the House the vote is based on population. The Senate is based on land. It is a pity this totally unrepresented part of congress has never been fixed. It is also this discrepancy that kills this government. Just look at the stack of bills sitting on Moscow Mitch’s desk and find justification.

    2. “This continues a pattern of unprecedented unity within the parties—and division between them—that has characterized virtually every moment of Trump’s presidency.”

      The number are not disputable, but I don’t quite agree about what they mean. The two sides here are not remotely equivalent. This is a situation in which one side really is wrong and the other side ranges from an order of magnitude less wrong to flat out right. One side lies, creates false narratives and rewrites history as their primary tactics and again the other side does such things to an order of magnitude less degree, or more.

      Characterizing this split as both sides being at fault for not getting along together is, quite frankly, bullshit. One side has always been quite open to getting along. In fact doing so way past the point of good reason was a major fault of the last Democratic president. Meanwhile the other side has made it their primary tactic to not get along at all, on anything, ever. Narratives of the sort Brownstein relates are not accurate in my opinion and to the extent that they aren’t they are more helpful to the Republicans than to the rest of us.

  6. “Have your say below”

    Reminds me of a passage from T. Pratchett’s Maskerade:
    “And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. Opera can do that to a man.”

    You surely can swap “opera” for “show business notoriety” or “political power”.

  7. I, too, watched a fair amount of the speechifying ahead of yesterday’s impeachment vote, despite the tedium of listening to congress people argue the same points over and over again.

    What I never heard from the Republican side was a substantive defense of the conduct of Donald Trump that gave rise to the articles of impeachment — no defense of what Rudy Giuliani was doing on Trump’s behalf in Ukraine, no denial that Trump had directed his own administration officials to follow Giuliani’s lead, no discussion of the damning testimony given by the career public servants who appeared at the impeachment-inquiry hearings held by the House intelligence committee (except to cherry-pick a point or two out of context to support Republican talking points).

    Aside from these talking points, all Republicans really had to say is that Democrats hate Donald Trump, that poor Donald Trump has been treated unfairly, and that Democrats were trying to overturn the 2016 election results and, thus, the will of 63 million American voters (a ridiculous argument, given that the power to impeach was put in the US constitution precisely for the purpose of empowering congress to remove a duly elected president under appropriate circumstances).

    I also never heard any Republican concede that what Trump had done was in any respect wrong or unwise or even mistaken (an argument that is seemingly verboten to them, given their Supreme Leader’s insistence that everything he does is “perfect”).

    Most telling of all, I never heard a single Republican vouch for Donald Trump’s character — never heard a single one say that Donald Trump is a decent, honest, honorable, patriotic American who would never put his own narrow political interests ahead of what best serves this nation’s national security and foreign policy. That would be a bridge to far even for them, I suppose.

    1. Agree. Someone said yesterday that if you have a defense based on the facts then you bang on about the facts. If you have a defense based on the law you bang on about the law. If you have no defense you bang on the table.

      I heard a lot of dull thuds.

    2. They long gave up on trying to defend his behaviour, because it’s simply not defensible. That’s the bottom line. No intelligent person can defend his behaviour – those who have tried have instantly become immortalised by the absurdity of their own arguments, eg. Kellyanne with her ‘alternative truths’ defense.

      The fact that they are defending a man as low and ethically bankrupt* as Trump actually helps them unify. They know they don’t have to abide by any standards any more, they know that their reputation’s are torched, so they can just fight like cornered rats. And cornered rats don’t worry about optics, or whether they appear triumphal, or anything. They just fight, backs against the wall.

      *he actually went ethically bankrupt six times! couldn’t resist it

  8. I’m still slightly mystified that he thinks a party can be both “radical” and “do nothing” simultaneously the categories would seem to be mutually exclusive.

    1. “I’m still slightly mystified”

      This is how it works in Fantasyland – it is by design.

      1. Everyone’s mystified. I still half-expect to wake up and find out it was all a horrible dream. I probably fell asleep watching the Apprentice or something.

  11. It was put on display at the Brazilian Football Confederation headquarters in Rio de Janeiro in a cabinet with a front of bullet-proof glass.

    On 19 December 1983, the wooden rear of the cabinet was opened by force with a crowbar

    So it didn’t occur to anybody that thieves might be clever enough not to try to go in through the front…

  12. With this pyrrhic victory under their belt, let’s hope the Dems can focus on what matters—namely, dumping Trump in the upcoming election.

    I’ve been characterized on this site as a “Trump supporter.” That’s not how I think of myself, but if not being a “never-Trumper” automatically makes one a Trump supporter—i.e., if these are the only two options available—then I guess that’s what I am.

    In point of fact, however, there are at least four Democratic candidates that I would definitely vote for over Trump—Tulsi Gabbard, Mayor Pete, Bernie, and Biden—and, now that Harris is thankfully gone, only one I would definitely not vote for over Trump—Elizabeth Warren. There are others I would most almost certainly vote for over Trump but who are so unlikely to be nominated that I don’t want to waste my time thinking about it.

    I’m aware, of course, that Tulsi Gabbard is also unlikely to be nominated, but she is at this point my favorite among the Dem candidates and the one I think would do best going head to head with Trump. She has a mind of her own and isn’t afraid to speak it. Most impressive, she’s not afraid to criticize her own party, which I find refreshing (though it’s also the main reason she won’t be nominated).

    So speaks this “Trump supporter.” 😊

    1. So you say Tulsi Gabbard is most impressive with a mind of her own. Not afraid? Then why did she vote present instead of yes or no on the impeachment? Just couldn’t make up her impressive mind?

        1. “It’s a ballsy kind of spinelessness.”

          Exactly. However you interpret her “present” vote there’s no question that she’s bucking the party line. I interpret it to mean that she doesn’t approve of Trump’s behavior but also doesn’t think it rises to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Polls suggest that this is pretty much the take of most Americans.

          1. Most Americans? The latest Wall Street Journal poll, released a day ago, shows 48% to 48%, on whether to remove the president from office. Some polls show over 50% want him removed. The idea that “most Americans” don’t feel his actions are impeachable is a laughable GOP talking point.

          2. Latest from Gallop:
            (https://news.gallup.com/poll/271691/trump-approval-inches-support-impeachment-dips.aspx)

            “Americans remain split on whether to impeach and remove Trump from office, but the percentage who support these legislative actions has dipped slightly each time Gallup has polled on the matter since October.

            “Currently, 46% support impeachment and removal, down six percentage points from the first reading after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry. Meanwhile, 51% oppose impeachment and removal — up five percentage points over the same period.”

          3. When you start with 58% of Republicans that say nothing he could do would cause them to lose their support, you have to wonder about the sanity of some Americans.

          4. That’s not really what I meant. I think it’s spineless, with the surface appearance of bravery.

            She strikes me as extremely untrustworthy and fundamentally illiberal.

          5. No, mirandaga, that would be a “no” position. “Present”, here, is equivalent to “I don’t know” or “I don’t care”.

          6. Gabbard is a real puzzle. I suspect she’s doing whatever she can to get noticed but has no real coherent agenda. She’ll be famous for 15 minutes as a crazy politician.

  13. I took the “You’re adopted” cat image a different way. It’s like when you tell your child that he/she was adopted. Their reaction is bound to be “Wha…?!”

  14. I listened to some of Trump’s Battle Creek harangue last night, during the house vote (caught them at the same time). I tried taking dictation so that I could fact-check his assertions but I’m not fast and couldn’t read much of what I did write down. Fortunately, there is factbase https://factba.se/, https://twitter.com/FactbaseFeed. I post these links for reference, because I’d say this is the best source for finding Trump’s exact words.

    I’ve only skimmed the transcript, will get into it later, but I remember some doozies, such as Trump proclaiming that we have the cleanest air and the cleanest water on earth because of his efforts, and he claimed yet again that his father was from Germany. Of course, most of the stercoraceous verbiage that spewed from his anterior anus was blatantly false and/or crude insults (such as to the Dingell’s), but I’m fascinated (up to a point) by the free association that ‘structures’ his speeches at these rallies, even though it’s all old hat, and it’s interesting to watch him as he preens and struts as he recycles the same tired lies, talking points, and stories from speech to speech and within his speeches, his voice mostly a yell then it falls to be almost imperceptible.

    I’m not sure but I bet his claim that he’s responsible for removing the most (governmental) regulations than any president is one of the few undeniable truths he proclaimed.

    If anyone’s interested here is Vox’s account of the rally https://www.vox.com/2019/12/18/21029287/trump-impeachment-battle-creek-michigan-rally.

  15. Speaking with a native Hawaiian friend tonite re. Gabbard, what he said is that she’s a Republican pure and simple, but runs as a Democrat because Hawaii is so blue that nobody can win there as a Republican.

    There are practical reasons for Hawaiians to embrace actual SPAM. Will she have a shelf life long enough to last beyond the next election?

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