Our Current Situation: Florida Man Still President

FLORIDA MAN: I realized that with Mar-a-Lago and his frequent appearances in Florida that Trump is peak Florida Man.

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MEANWHILE…: While the news cycles are full of The Donald’s latest buffoonery he’s hiring people like Heather Wilson to be Secretary of the Air Force. Politico has the most in-depth review of Wilson’s career. Allgov has a summary version. And here’s a Project on Government Oversight report from 2013 about her illegal profiteering.

“Heather Wilson, a former Air Force officer who was once named one of the most corrupt members of Congress, was announced on January 23, 2017, to be President Donald Trump’s choice as Secretary of the Air Force.”

I’m sure this will be a great boon to the Air Force, given that it’s already full of disgruntled workers. (It may also be a good time to invest in Lockheed Martin.)

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SERIOUSLY, READ THIS: I cannot recommend this piece highly enough: 4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump

“Trump’s bizarre, inconstant, incompetent, embarrassing, ridiculous behavior — what the left (naturally) perceives as his weaknesses — are to his supporters his strengths.”

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SAME AS THE OLD BOSS: Obama loved Trump’s new Deportation Czar, Thomas Homan, the current acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Homan won the 2015 Presidential Rank Award, the government’s highest civil service award, last year for setting records for numbers of immigrants expelled.

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JUST IN CASE: Florida Representative Alcee Hastings introduced an bill for Authorization to Use Force in Iran on Jan. 3 of this year. Just in case. Hastings is a Democratic representative and boycotted Trump’s inauguration. Digital Journal has more.

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IDLE THOUGHTS: Trump and Rubio had dinner on the 15th. On the 22nd Rubio is meeting with delegates from Germany and France. Germany and France are part of the P5+1. We’ll need their support for an expanded war in the Middle East.

“Senator Rubio is traveling overseas this week to attend multiple bilateral meetings with heads of state and senior government officials in Germany and France, two countries with upcoming elections who are facing concerns about Russian interference. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Appropriations Committee, and Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Rubio is conducting this official oversight trip to discuss the U.S./E.U. relationship, NATO operations, counter-ISIS activities, foreign assistance programs, and Russian aggression in Europe.”

I hope I don’t fall into some rabbit hole where everything looks like a conspiracy to start a war with Iran, but, you know, it has me worried. Did I mention another Florida politician has already filled a bill for a Authorized Use of Military Force in Iran, just in case?

Also, Trump is on board with the Defense Department’s desire to expand the military.

“Trump’s proposals for the military during his presidential campaign were drawn heavily from the conservative Heritage Foundation, and could cost between $55 billion and $90 billion per year, according to outside experts. The plan included adding tens of thousands of soldiers until the service reaches 540,000, expanding the Navy’s fleet to have at least 350 ships, adding about 100 Air Force fighter or attack jets until the service reaches 1,200, and increasing the number of Marine Corps infantry battalions from 24 to 36, which would include thousands of Marines.”

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LISTENING: Sam Altman asks 100 Trump supporters some questions to learn why they voted for him, and what could turn them against him. Interesting narratives. It’s clear from reading this how much of their worldview (and mine as well) is shaped by media diet.

“The left is more intolerant than the right.” Note: This concept came up a lot, with real animosity in otherwise pleasant conversations.

“Stop calling us racists. Stop calling us idiots. We aren’t. Listen to us when we try to tell you why we aren’t. Oh, and stop making fun of us.”

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EDITORIAL: If you read the conservative press then it’s easy to see where the canard of the left’s intolerance comes from. It’s easy enough to cherry-pick individual comments from ‘the left’ to make them seem full of hate and bias, and that’s exactly what the right-wing press does. Of course, the holier-than-thou attitude of those on the left doesn’t help any. One thing I wish my allies could have learned from the last couple of decades is a little fucking humility.

I’ve mentioned before that Fallacy of Composition is a non-trivial problem when it comes to our political division. Those on the right don’t like being associated with the worst offenses of the right (while they may be racist according to an IAT, they probably don’t harbor overt racist thoughts at the forefront of their brain).

Inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole.

Logical Form:

A is part of B
A has property X
Therefore, B has property X.

Similarly, most of the left doesn’t like to be clumped together with black-bloc anarchists, or closed-minded haters.

BUT, we all engage in the Fallacy of Composition when bitching about ‘those others’.

We need to stop doing this. Yes, there is a lot of racism, sexism, transphobia, and religious intolerance among many on the right, but it serves no one by using broad labels.

So, today’s tip — be specific.

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