Justice Stevens' Dissent in the 2008 Heller Decision

The following is an exposee on Justice John Paul Stevens' dissent in the 2008 gun control decision decided by a 5 to 4 margin where Stevens was on the losing side.  It contained a case where a militia member wanted to take his gun home with him and whether he had the right.  This court ruling says he did.

As the nation contemplates Justice Stevens’ impending retirement and its implications, all Americans concerned about the daily tragedy of American gun violence should pause to recognize their debt of gratitude to him for his penetrating dissent in District of Columbia v. Heller.

In Heller, Justice Stevens wrote for the dissenters from the Court’s landmark 5-4 ruling recognizing, for the first time in our history, a Second Amendment right to possess guns for self-defense in the home. In so doing, Stevens brilliantly exposed the faux originalism and faux textualism of Justice Scalia’s majority opinion, demonstrating that these oft-claimed “neutral principles” of constitutional interpretation were, in Heller, a thin disguise for a deeply ideological reading of the Second Amendment.

For example, Stevens’ dissent laid bare the artificiality of Justice Scalia’s approach to the text, in which the meaning of the “right of the people to keep and bear Arms” is determined before any consideration is given to the impact of the first thirteen words of the Amendment about “a well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State.”This allows Scalia to assert the relevance of various 18th and 19th century examples of the phrases “keep arms” and “bear arms” denoting private conduct with guns unrelated to participation in a “well regulated Militia.”

But, of course, the issue is not whether “keep arms” or “bear arms” could have a non-militia meaning in some conceivable context, but rather the meaning of the phrase “keep and bear Arms” in the specific context of a provision referencing the importance of a “well regulated Militia” to the “security of a free State.” Justice Stevens carefully documents that “bear Arms” had a predominately military meaning at the time of the Founding, and “keep Arms” was a common phrase in state statutes specifying the duties of militiamen during the period. Thus, Justice Stevens shows that, taken in proper context, the Second Amendment right secured “to the people a right to use and possess arms in conjunction with service in a well-regulated militia.”

Instead, the Scalia majority manages to conclude that the Second Amendment “surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home” in a text in which this interest is entirely hidden and in which the “security of a free State,” not the security of “hearth and home” is the only expressed purpose of the guarantee. “The right the Court announces was not ‘enshrined’ in the Second Amendment by the Framers,” writes Justice Stevens. Rather, “it is the product of today’s law-changing decision.”

In addition to exposing the flaws in Scalia’s version of original meaning, Justice Stevens’ dissent spins out the dangerous implications of reading the Second Amendment to permit excessive second-guessing by courts of the considered judgments of elected officials on the regulation of guns to protect public safety. Justice Stevens warns that the Heller decision “will surely give rise to a far more active judicial role in making vitally important national policy decisions than was envisioned at any time in the 18th, 19th, or 20th centuries,” expressing his fear that the District of Columbia’s gun law struck down by the Court “may well be just the first of an unknown number of dominoes to be knocked off the table.”

It seems reasonable to assume that this powerful warning from the dissenters was a primary reason for the extraordinary language in Justice Scalia’s opinion offering reassurances about the limited effect of the Court’s decision. This section of the majority opinion — the now famous Part III — effectively pulls the dominoes away from the edge of the table. The right to keep and bear arms, according to Scalia, “was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Indeed, he adds, “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt” on a wide range of gun restrictions, including such categories as “laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of firearms,” “prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons,” and prohibitions on “dangerous and unusual weapons,” a listing of “presumptively lawful regulatory measures” that “does not purport to be exhaustive.”

In the two years since Heller, the lower courts consistently have relied on this language to uphold all manner of federal gun laws as consistent with the new Heller right. The categories of “presumptively lawful” regulations laid out in Heller so far have functioned as “safe harbors” for existing laws. As UCLA Law Professor Adam Winkler has put it, “The Heller case is a landmark decision that has not changed very much at all.” This result is a tribute to the impact of Justice Stevens’ dissent.

Of course, if the Supreme Court decides, in the pending McDonald v. Chicago case, to incorporate the Second Amendment right as a restraint on the states, this will prompt an avalanche of additional legal challenges to state and local gun laws. But even if it endorses incorporation, and strikes down Chicago’s handgun ban, it seems unlikely that the Court will say anything in McDonald to weaken the “safe harbors” it constructed in response to Justice Stevens’ dissent. Comments made during the McDonald argument indicate that those in the Heller majority remain sensitive to the charge of judicial activism, especially the suggestion by Justice Kennedy (the swing vote in Heller) that states should retain “substantial latitude and ample authority to impose reasonable regulations” on firearms.

By putting the Heller majority on the defensive with his implicit charge of judicial activism, prompting the language of Part III, Justice Stevens may well have saved countless lifesaving gun laws against attack. For that, and for much more in his distinguished career as a jurist, we should all be grateful. And to President Obama, we should say — send us more like John Paul Stevens.

Filling In the Details

I watched the Stormy Daniels interview on Sixty Minutes and I believe her.  She was successful in making her situation crystal clear.  She was confident and didn’t equivocate or hedge her bets or fail to look into the camera.  Yes she lied several times about her single time affair.  She explained exactly how it happened.  She said that Donald Trump led her on about getting a role on The Apprentice, which he failed to get for her.  Stormy and her infant daughter were physically threatened.  Now she’s upset because her daughter has to listen to all this media scuttlebutt about her.  Clearly she had to come forward now to set the record straight before any more wild rumors got started about her.  Stormy plans to sue a number of people, and at this point I'd trust my attorney who hopefully has a more positive outlook than Bill Handel does on his show.  Personally I think Stormy Daniels should earn all the money she can get from employment prospects.  Better her than some mass murderer.  After this they had something about an immigrant basketball player for the Milwaukee Bucks.  He's a very driven player though really good hewants to get better and works out every chance he gets. 

I'd like to "fill in the details" on this whole birth of the Universe thing.   You may ask how we make the magic leap from "unformatted" space to "formatted" space.  First I need to tell you than we speak of a universe "expanding" we refer primarily to expanding in the dimension of Time.  Remember that directions in the "starburst" pattern are directions in time.  A parrellel universe is parellel in Time.   To the extent that any universe has perpendicular aspects- - - this is "someone elses time" and not "our" time.  We can't get to these oblique universes because it's not "our time" and it's not "our space".   It's a whole other "space".  You knew that, hopefully.  Some say that the universe(s) expand with the speed of light.  My feeling is that the universe's physical expansion may well exceed the speed of light.  You can't therefore infer that we somehow live in the center of a giant sphere 25 Billion light-years in diameter.  If that were true everyone and his dog would be citing that figure as the size and scope of the universe.  But not even the people on Star Trek knew the size of the universe.  This is why I said that "infinity" was one of the things created by the Big Bang along with space and time.  (Hopefully you knew that before, too)  But I'd like now to explain what is responsible for the "formatting" (usability) of this space or any space.  It's bozons.  These bozons fill up empty space.  And the most important of these bozons is the Higgs bozon.  This is the famed "God" particle.  This is a ring shaped "particle" that is the famed graviton of myth.   Of course it is responsible for not only gravity but mass and time, too, as well as space.  None of this soup of bozons is present at the instant of the Big Bang.  Scientists tell us the universe was much too hot ans explosive then for bozons to yet form.  They form when the matter cools.  Does that clarify it for you?

  But I would also like to talk about Aether or Ether or however you spell it.  It has what I call variable viscosity.  That's normally a quality of motor oil but it basically means thickness or how hard it is to stir it around.   I'm going to tell you a secret.  If you are stationary- - - - and looking out from yourself "I am speaking with myself" Ether has no viscosity.   To make a mathematical law out of it- - - you see two dots stationary with respect to each other - - it doesn't matter how fast both are traveling with respect to some third dot off camera- - with these two dots?  No viscosity.  Only when you see one dot moving really fast with respect to the other dot- - now you have a lot of viscosity from the same ether.   Pick the dot you want to rout for.   Here's a little mind bending secret for you all.  If you have four non co-planer dots- - - it is IMPOSSIBLE to determine which dot is the "odd man out".  It could be ANY of the four dots.  This is because the triangle (three dots) is what DEFINES a "plane".   Now back to the narritive.  Variable viscosity is just that.  It's a magic substance that puzzled scientists a hundred years ago.  Sometimes it seems to have no viscosity.  (No measurable "ether wind")  However when you look at rapidly moving bodies they are having to fight their way through a sea of motor oil or Jell-O or what have you you have all sorts of viscosity.  They seem to be undergoing a "braking" action.  (It's an optical illusion)  Some of you are saying "But Einstein discarded the Ether theory".  That's right.  But like sound waves, light waves obey the doppler theory.  This the variable pitch or- - color- - wavelength of the light waves.  They are waves and waves need a medium of propigation.   This brings us to the "motor boat" illustration.  What this explains is what a STATIONARY OBSERVER sees someone else doing.  You see those waves of water don't actually expand and shrink.  This is an optical illusion you yourself are experiancing.  In the boaters own mind- - the waves he generates are circular and the same wave length.  It's only differences in your RELATIVE speed that gives you the illusion of the doppler affect.   So it's YOUR lake to get back to our analogy.  It's not HIS lake.   To sumarize then- - Einstein and Newton teach that wherever YOU are, YOU are assumed to be stationary (by yourself).   You thus have a unique view of the universe where YOU are the only one who sees things correctly.   

I've been informed lately of a posting called Brad's blog, or bradsblog.com.   I heard that Stephanie Miller uses Brad's blog as an inspiration for her radio program.  I think it goes without saying that John Bolton is going to get us into a major war.  The "guard rails" are off this reckless driver of a President and he's going to take us all over the presipice.  We don't know whether North Korea or Iran will be the first to be attacked.  You know it isn't going to be in Syria because we'd actually be doing a good thing to stop the carnage there.  Trump has a strange way of dealing with adversity and chaos.  He seems to thrive on it kind of like a guy packing a gun thrives on arguments and strife because if things get too hot he'll just pull out his gun and begin shooting.  It's almost as though President Trump and maybe some of his Born Again Christian friends thinks if things get too hot on the world scene the Hand of God will swoop down and save us all, or maybe just save "The Elect", if you know what I mean.  Selah.    

Holy Week

A principle of God being behind all the multiple universes is that you have a common designer to any possible universe.  The physical laws are the same in all of them.  It would be like if you have a duck, an alligator, a bear and a human, all of them are very different but they are all vertebrates.   So were you to go to one of these you would find a commonality.  Now Stephan Hawking may be trying to prove the possibility of traveling to one of these universes.  I stated (sometime) that it was a scientific impossibility but not a logical impossibility.  But that it would take God to do it.   I had been thinking of telling Paul about Stephen Hawking’s last theory.  But Judy has the gall to say “This theory can’t be valid because it’s all just imagination”.  Of course here is a person who pretty much believes that Donald Trump is God, and if he does it, that makes it OK.  It's amazing how easily people will subordenate their own morality and logic to one person.  A lot of questions arise when attacking someone on science with an IQ way higher than yours or mine.  And I would ask how much "science" there is behind Church beliefs not only in the past but at this present date.  I would ask about church and “The third Heaven” of Paul or the “Seventh Heaven” of Dante, or Limbo or Pergitory of Dante.  This was and has been accepted Catholic doctrine for centuries.   I found the burial references personally insulting and I’m not going to dignify them with a response. 

 There is a huge satellite the size of a school bus that’s going to crash anywhere from northern California to Pennsylvania between March 20^th and April 3^rd, but it will probably crash April first, April Fools.  They “aren’t sure” where such a big satellite will burn up in the earth’s atmosphere.  This is several days later and the question of where it will strike still isn't resolved.   

CREAM IN YOUR COFFEE

3 6 9 (Shirley Ellis)

Boogaloo Down Broadway (Johnny C) (?)

Bottle of Wine (Jimmy Gilner & the Fireballs)

Can’t Get Next to You (Temptations)

Conquistador (Procol Herum)

Give Me Some Kind of Sign (Brenton Wood)

Hang ‘em High (Booker T & the M G’s)

Hang On, Sloopy (Vibrations)

Here Come the Judge (Shorty Long)

Hitch Hike (Marvyn Gaye)

I Can’t Let You Go (Foundations)

I Need Your Loving Every Day  (artist?)

I’ll Second That Emotion (Smokey Robinson)

Iko Iko (Dixie Cups)

Jackson (Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood)

One Mint Julip (Ray Charles band)

Sally Go ‘Round the Roses (Janettes)
Scratch My Back (Slim Harpo)
Show Me A Woman (Joe Tex)

Something’s Got a Hold on Me  (Etta James)
The Cha Cha Cha (Sam Cooke)

The Coffee Song (Cream)  
Who’ll Be the Next in Line? (Kinks)

We are skewed toward the beginning of the alphabet on this one.  This contains 19 of the 20 songs “dictated to me” as I wrote them down.  We didn’t have Time for one song once I developed a proper foundational understand.  (Side order of Smitherines not included)  The front photo design is of a steaming cup of coffee with a flowery cup design, and then kind of a darkish background fading to a lighter red.  The title listings are on the back along with some brief commentary.  These are “Mostly soul” sixties songs.  Over half of these songs are new but some of them are songs from “Soul Train” we decided to bring forward to more prominence.  In the open out left we have nine of the faces of Trump administration people who have either been fired or left their jobs, including that attorney last week.  The media pundits agree that President Trump is setting us up with John Bolton for a major war wither with Iran or North Korea. We dug deep into the archives for these songs.  Sunday evening (now) we added "The Cha Cha Cha" and "Show Me A Woman" because we re-figured the playing time and we had the room.   An additional song was added Tuesday afternoon, which is the only track in this album popular in 1966.   I think we're done now.  

The accusation was raised by someone yesterday that we scientists don’t really believe in God or at least “The word of God” as recorded in the Bible as “revealed knowledge” but instead have to rely on our imaginations to keep coming up with novel scientific theories without the proper scientific foundation.  We’ll talk about this more in a minute.   Well I do agree with Einstein on two issues.  The first is that Black Holes are highly dubious even at this date.  Because gravity not only bends and holds back light, it even bends and holds back itself.   Under Einstein’s acceleration theory- - the formula is geared to accept no values higher than Infinity, which on at least four occasions in “real” math (analog) is a precise number.  If you try to exceed infinity you get nonsensical results.  I only say this because Black Holes require this formula to give values that exceed infinity.  Be warned.  You’re treading on thin ice.  If Black Holes are what people back fifty years ago believed they were- - their existence is something that can never be proved.  This is why people doubted the theory of Black Holes for a long time.  The other thing I agree with Einstein on is the phrase “God doesn’t roll the dice”.  God leaves nothing to chance.  I myself am a Deist, Determinist, Anti-dyspensationalist, Objectivist.  I have my own definitions for all of these words.   A deist would agree with Jim Morrison that “You cannot petition the Lord with prayer”.   An anti-dyspensationalist is someone who believes simply that God, whatever he is, does not change.  You’d be surprised at the Christian who believe that he has.  But the Bible itself makes it clear that God himself declares “I don’t change”. 

In Jesus Christ Superstar, everybody seemed to have mental focus and knew where they were headed, all except for Jesus, who seems forever the victim of circumstance buffeted about this way and that.  “You may not know where you came from or even who you are or how you ever got this far” but if you’re a Christian you have one thing the secular world doesn’t, and that’s an unshakable faith.  Martin Luther might as well have said “Only Faith” because he rejects any book that says “Faith without works is dead”.   We all have those books in the Bible that we don’t like.  Beware the book of Hebrews.  It contains dubious doctrines contained nowhere else.  It is the only book which so clearly declares “These are the Last Days”.  We weren’t in the “Last Days” then and I don’t believe we are in the last days now.   The book of Hebrews states that animal blood sacrifices “Don’t work anymore”.  In other words there was an expiration date on God’s words and commands that declared animal sacrifice was a way to get rid of all sorts of sin, and it names them.  That’s number two.  Hebrews praises a man who offered his virgin daughter as a “burnt offering” to God.  God doesn’t say to offer human sacrifices.  That the author of Hebrews would condone dealing so cheaply with your daughter’s life is abhorant to me.  Also we have no idea who wrote the book of Hebrews.   The book of Hebrews is the only book that expressly says “There are angels incognito amongst us and we may have entertained angels in our homes and not known it”.   You may believe it- - but you’d be hard pressed to find scripture back-up outside the book of Hebrews.  This is number four.  Also Hebrews is the only NT book that doesn’t accept the doctrine of “soul sleep”.   The book of Revelations does sort of but it’s a metaphoric book and not meant to be taken literally.  But Hebrews speaks of a “cloud of witnesses (or “martyrs”) looking down on us and cheering us on in our Christian pursuits.  I don’t think Aunt Jane is looking over your shoulder.  This is number five.  Hebrews almost engages in Martyr idolatry.  Finally Hebrews declares “It’s appointed once for men to die, and after this the Judgement”.   Nowhere else does it say that Judgement comes immediately after death.  Indeed in the book of Revelation is speaks of men in white robes “who have been slain in Christ” or something- - and they are looking for the Judgement on God on their enemies.  “When will we be avenged of our enemies”.  God tells them to hang tight and that judgement is coming.  I believe this whole conversation is metaphorical to make a point.  But what Hebrews does is both to knock out the doctrine of soul sleep taught in the rest of the Bible, but also it eliminates any hope of reincarnation, if you are a Hindu or Bhuddist looking for that.   There were Christians who believed in the possability of reincarnation as late as the fifth century.   Also the "hericy" of universal salvation was fought at this time.  Universal salvation would solve a lot of problems.  They say that if you’re not picky about where you’re headed, any road will take you there.  If you have a hundred dollars or so you can trace the migrations of your ancestors sixty thousand years ago.   They really ought to call it “forty-six and me”, though.  

National Security Sec Mc Masters is Fired

One long-awaited firing has now occurred.  National Security Secretary Mc Masters has been fired by Trump.  And as we told you over a week ago John Boulton is taking his place.  This is that Bush guy that’s pro war.  Evidently Donald Trump wants to listen to people who are urging that we get into a major war with Iran.  This is what Trump has been wanting his whole administration.  Who’s to say that Trump is done with all the firings. 

President Trump fired his lead attorney yesterday.  This is the guy who advised that Trump not attack Special Prosecutor Mueller personally, which he most certainly has in the past week.  This same guy told Trump in January not to testify before Mueller in any hearing.  Trump said then "I want to testify (to clear myself) but it will only happen if my attorney lets me.  He makes the final decision as to whether I testify or not before the Muller investigation.  

President Trump apparently slapped more tariffs on China’s goods coming into this country and now China has threatened to retaliate.  I agree with the President.  A trade war is one we can easily win because we’re already in a war.  Only up to now we haven’t been fighting back.  The Dow Jones Industrials finished 700 points down and the other indexes were down.  Facebook stock has already dropped due to this “campaign sabotage” problem they were a party to.  In my opinion now would be a good time to buy shares of Facebook.  This morning the D J I us up 93 points, but I think we can still predict that we have seen the top of the nine year bull market.  I wouldn't say the general market was a good risk now.  I'd buy oil companies because if we're getting into a major war, we'll need fuel.  My brothers own all that Chevron stock.  I'd hang on to that but sell the other stuff. 

That strange Sacramento police shooting in this guy’s backyard made the national news.  This guy was acting strangely hopping fences and he fit the profile of a police suspect.  And he fled to a relative’s back yard because the front door was locked and he usually knocks on a back window.  But there were a bunch of police who tracked him down and they gave him zero warning before they fired twenty rounds at him, all because he was holding a cell phone- - just like the case with J J and Theo on Days of our Lives.  It was dark and the police couldn’t tell the difference between a cell phone and a gun.  The police need their eyes checked. 

Loyola of Chicago won their NCAA game last night in the Sweet Sixteen against Nevada.  They had amazing bursts of scoring during that game.  Their 98 year old lady Chaplin still has it with the Almighty.  They need to keep on praying.  Kansas State beat Kentucky and Loyola will be playing Kansas State on Saturday- - and at this point it looks like they will win.  Michigan played Texas A & M at the Staples Center here in Los Angeles.  They announced the score but I don't remember. 

The government shuts down tonight unless Trump signs the bill and the President has indicated he will veto the bill because it doesn't have the right provisions in it.   However Paul Ryan is happy with the bill voted out and submitted to the president.  Now congress is on a two-week vacation.  

 “Days of our Lives” featured Chad paying a surprise visit to China to spy on his wife, who at the time was busy trying to seduce Stephan.  They also featured a good chunk of Gabriel’s trial.  There is one question that was not admissible in my opinion.  It’s the one about “What do you suppose Gabriel was thinking when she asked you to look the other way?”   That objection would be sustained in any other court.  

In a brief compilation note the version of "Careful with that Axe, Eugene" by Pink Floyd we included way back when- - is the original studio B side of a Pink Floyd British single, and not any of its Live incarnations. 

The Austin Sereal Bomber is Dead

That Austin bomber was killed Wednesday night.  It was a 24 year old white guy so he fits the typical profile.  He was in his car and the SWAT team was tightening the dragnet around him and he decided to bomb himself.  But he could remain a threat beyond the grave because maybe he left packages lying around, so the citizenry should be careful. 

The two big stories going around [yesterday] are those now five bomb explosions in Austin, Texas.  The latest one was in San Antonio but it was in a FED-EX package that came from Austin and was slated to return to Austin..  The fourth bomb was set off by a trip-wire on Sunday.  There were three others earlier in the month.  For a while they thought the bombings were racially motivated but then concluded that they were random.  The other story for today is this Maryland High School shooting wounding a fourteen year old boy and almost killing a seventeen year old girl who is in critical condition now.  The shooter was killed by a security guard this school was lucky to have.  The governor and others made a speech on KFI radio earlier today.  No doubt it will be on tonight’s news.

Stephen Hawking's final research paper could help astronomers find evidence that our universe is just one among many in a larger "multiverse," according to media reports.  The famed cosmologist, who died last week at the age of 76, is lead author of a study called "A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation?" which was originally submitted to an unnamed journal last July. On March 4 — just 10 days before Hawking's death — his co-author, Thomas Hertog, a professor of theoretical physics at KU Leuven University in Belgium, submitted a revised version of the manuscript for further review, according to British newspaper The Sunday Times.  The inflation referenced in the paper's title is the incredible expansion of space-time theorized to have occurred in the first few moments after the Big Bang, which created the universe. Many physicists believe that this dramatic ballooning wasn't limited to our neck of the cosmic woods but rather happened repeatedly, spawning multiple universes — perhaps an infinite number of them.   Of course this has been my theory all along, and I wrote on it just last week. 

Yesterday was the first day of spring but the east coast is having their fourth major snow storm in the last three weeks.  It's 37 and windy in Chicago.  How's that for baseball weather.  President Trump congratulated Vladimir Putin's election victory last Sunday even though none of his real opponents were allowed to even run.  There were supposedly notes telling Trump not to make the call.

I looked at that Pennsylvania map of congressional districts.  It seems that is the revised map the democrats wanted and not the gerrymandered situation that formerly existed.  The Supreme Court refused to overturn the Pennsylvania State Courts that ruled that democrats were entitled to a fair drawing of the districts.  So in November they will be using the democratic map.  In other news there is only one abortion clinic in Mississippi.  Bill Handel is against further restrictions of abortion but Mississippi lawmakers want a fifteen week limit on abortions.  This number seems perfectly reasonable, but Bill Handel is throwing a fit over it.  Of course on Saturday March 24^th they are having the “March for our Lives” of the student victims of gun shootings and people all over the country and perhaps the world will be marching.  In Washington DC they are postponing the cherry blossom festival till Sunday in response to the huge crowds that are expect.  I certainly hope the marches bring results.  

I had Sixty Minutes on.  It was those four teenagers from Parkland High School.  Emma Lopez had her short hair.  They are all accomplished speakers and have a future.  They are mature and have foresight beyond their years.  Then it was that Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.  I was favorably impressed by him even if it was an act.  He knew all of the right things to say to put Americans and the rest of the Western World at ease.  At twenty to eight I went down for medication and got cough medicine.   The third segment was women who have benefited from the reformed government of Saudi Arabia.  There was a crime program on CBS but I don’t remember what it was.  They had NCIS LA on at nine.

FBI Deputy Chief McCabe Gets Fired

WASHINGTON —  President Trump and fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe have unleashed a war of words over McCabe's abrupt dismissal, with the president calling it a "great day" and the FBI official saying he would no longer remain silent after a "relenting assault" by Trump and other critics on his reputation and service.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced late Friday that he fired McCabe effective immediately — barely 48 hours before his retirement benefits would have set in after 21 years of service with the FBI. McCabe, who had announced his intention to resign in January, was fired from the agency in the midst of a review into the FBI's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while serving as secretary of State.  Sessions, in a statement, said McCabe's firing was the result of an "extensive and fair" probe of alleged misconduct, which concluded that he had made "an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor − including under oath − on multiple occasions."  Just yesterday the White House Press secretary said there wouldn’t be any more firings.  It was all “fake news” of an impending purge.   It turns out Trump’s words didn’t even last one day.  This act of firing of an FBI agent didn’t hold true for one day.  It’s all because this guy was conscientious in performing his job.   Chris Matthews has a theory that Trump is in the process of systematically weeding out all of the qualified and stable people in his adminis-tration and leaving only synchophants who are basically empty headed yes men.  Trump has also indicated he goes for people who “look like” executives, like out of central casting. 

In other news Baine capital is the firm responsible for Toys-R-Us going bankrupt.  This is due to changes in “Venture Capital” regulations passed during the Reagan administration.  It’s a guaranteed win for these vulture capitalists.  They can pretty much do what they want and still loot a lot of money.   Changing these laws should be a priority of any democratic congress. 

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, told The Daily Beast on Saturday morning that he hopes Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will shut down Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russia’s election interference.

Reached for comment by email about the firing of former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Dowd sent The Daily Beast the text of Trump’s most recent tweet on the subject, which applauded the dismissal. “I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier,” Dowd then wrote.

In making the statement, a senior member of Trump's legal team joins the calls from his base to end the probe. As late as mid-December, another Trump lawyer, Ty Cobb, had brushed aside talk of stopped Mueller’s investigation, stressing that there was "no consideration at the White House of terminating the special counsel." The president himself has called the Mueller probe a “witch hunt,” but has not publicly urged Rosenstein to shutter it.  When The Daily Beast initially asked Dowd if he was speaking on behalf of the president, he answered, “Yes as his counsel.”  After publication of this story, however, Dowd emailed to say he was actually speaking in his personal capacity, and not on the president’s behalf.

I was thinking this morning that if I croaked suddenly what would my legacy be?  Maybe I better leave somebody material to explain all my writings and different types of writing and the motives for each of them.  Leo Le Port says that even a CD on Voyagers I and II may not be sufficient as a way of preserving stuff.  What if they don't understand the directions for playing it or the algerithms involved.  Of course using anything magnetic like disk or tape would be out of the question with all these magnetic storms and cosmic radiation in space.  Hopefully the CD wouldn't rust in space.  I've heard of CD's rusting.  In my writings I refer to Mal Evans- - who died in early 1976 and he was the Beatles' road manager and later got an executive position with Apple or whatever but he was inferior to Neil Asphenol.   Then I refer to Stewart Sutcliffe, who was the deceast bass player for the Beatles who died in April of 1962.  I'd have to explain how he got the nickname "Bones" from us, and the name wasn't my doing but was from a housemate and the name was for a black and white cat that Stu was reincarnated as.  And I could explain "Greenie", which is my nickname for the "Rock and Roll" persona of John Lennon from the old days, who sang all of the classic Beatle rockers.  I was going to go into more detail but maybe I'm boring you already.  

Russian Nerve Gas Is a Menace to the World

Theresa May has visited Salisbury after the "brazen" nerve agent attack on a Russian ex-spy and his daughter.  The prime minister was briefed by public health experts, as the pair remain critically ill in hospital.  Mrs May has said Russia is "culpable" for the attack and that she is expelling 23 Russian diplomats - but Moscow denies all involvement.  France, Germany, the US and UK said in a joint statement Russian involvement was "the only plausible explanation".  Mrs May added: "This happened in the UK, but it could have happened anywhere and we are taking a united stance against it."   President Trump has finally come out against what the Russian’s did, but his protestations over it are very weak. 

CIVIL LIBERTIES IN UNITED STATES REMAIN IN PERIL 

President Donald Trump’s nominations of Gina Haspel to lead the CIA and Mike Pompeo to be America’s top diplomat are the latest indications of steadily eroding human rights standards in the United States and the rollback of the rule of law that has characterized U.S. counterterrorism policies since Sept. 11, 2001.

Haspel, a CIA operative who oversaw the torture of terrorism suspects at a secret prison in Thailand and then helped destroy tapes of the interrogations, and Pompeo, who has made statements in support of torture and mass surveillance, are both expected to be confirmed by the Senate with little fanfare.

After all, when Pompeo was nominated for his current post of CIA Director his confirmation sailed through the Senate on a vote of 66-32. This, despite what Human Rights Watch’s Maria McFarland Sanchez-Moreno called “dangerously ambiguous” responses to questions about torture and mass surveillance.

“Pompeo’s failure to unequivocally disavow torture and mass surveillance, coupled with his record of advocacy for surveillance of Americans and past endorsement of the shuttered CIA torture program, make clear that he should not be running the CIA,” Sanchez Moreno said in January 2017.

Shortly following Pompeo’s confirmation, his deputy director at the CIA was named as Gina Haspel, who “played a direct role in the CIA’s ‘extraordinary rendition program,’ under which captured militants were handed to foreign governments and held at secret facilities, where they were tortured by agency personnel,” the New York Times reported last year.

She also ran the CIA’s first black site prison and oversaw the brutal interrogations of two detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. In addition, she played a vital role in the destruction of interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both at the black site she ran and other secret agency locations. The concealment of those interrogation tapes violated both multiple court orders as well the demands of the 9/11 Commission and the advice of White House lawyers, as Glenn Greenwald has reported.

Despite these serious misgivings, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he is not currently urging Democrats to oppose Pompeo’s nomination to be Secretary of State or Haspel’s nomination to lead the CIA. So much for the #Resistance.

The Democratic acquiescence follows a long pattern of tolerating human rights abuses and normalizing torture. When President Barack Obama declared that he wanted to “look forward, not backward,” and to close the chapter on the CIA’s torture practices under the Bush administration without allowing any prosecutions for crimes that were committed, he ensured torture would remain a “policy option” for future presidents, in the words of Human Rights Watch.

NIBBLING AROUND THE EDGES IN SCIENCE

Ground breaking was done on the Star Wars Lucas museum yesterday in Exposition Park.  The museum had been scheduled to be erected either in Chicago or else in San Francisco but it ended up here.  I guess they have a lot of extra parking lot space here.  I wonder if there is any actual science in any of these exhibits.  I used to be a believer in "hyperspace" but I'm not anymore.  

 I have come to the point reading the book “A Brief History of Time” where I am pretty much stuck.  I can’t relate to the Black Holes chapter.  I am thinking “More understanding; fewer words”.   There is a lot of verbiage without imparting understanding to the reader.  People who read my stuff might think it’s been a little inconsistent over the years but I think I do a better job with understandable mental imigry.  You need to take the reader into your world and get the reader to see “things” as you see them.  I don’t believe that Steven Hawking does this.   But the book buying public loves his stuff.

I just read a thing explaining Hawking’s relation to and study of Black Holes, that was more clearly written than his book was.  The article contended that Einstein predicted the existence of black holes in 1915.  I had always heard the opposite.  Now there is some emission from black holes called “Hawking radiation” that are actually twin positive and negative mass particles and in some the one goes off into space.  Either that or the masses cancel each other out and the black hole shrinks, which is something I have never heard of before.

Trump plans to get rid of Jeff Sessions according to multiple sources and also plans to get rid of Mac Masters as national security secretary and he’s going to put the Bush hawk, John Boulton in the spot.   One person says “there is (still) going to be a major housecleaning in the Trump administration.  Trump already has another AG picked out to replace Sessions and Trump will get him to fire Special Prosecutor Mueller.  

• Toys R Us filed for liquidation in US Bankruptcy Court early Thursday.
• That marks the likely end of the chain, which was a source of joy for children around the world.
• Many are quick to blame the end of the retailer onAmazon, but that doesn't tell the whole story.
• The retailer was saddled with an enormous debt burden after it was taken private in 2005, and it never really recovered.

Toys-R-Us is closing all of their stores both in England and in the United States.  The company is going out of business.  They have bitten the dust just like Blockbuster Video and Tower Records did.  The economic times are changing.  Supermarkets are going out of business one by one.  Twenty years ago things made a lot more sense.   I think they should bring back cassette tapes.  Sometimes you feel like you’ve just lived too long.  There comes a time when older people should start thinking about their “next life” be it in heaven or reincarnation or something.  You always hear how older people “find happiness” after the middle age crisis in their lives.  I don’t see that myself.  One good thing is that these high school students today haven’t been raised on all these Western movies either in the theater or on TV.  They haven’t been marinated in a culture that embraces “A good man with a gun”.  Now they are passing laws saying there should be no smoking on any state beach or any park or for that matter in your own car if there are children under eighteen in the car with you.