Recent kwiples

Wednesday 24th of April 2024

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2020 Presidential election  At some point, people at the Justice Department, perhaps that prosecutor in Atlanta, are going to have to make a determination about whether or not they want to indict Donald Trump [for his role in the January 6, 2021 insurection]. … Well, I think there's going to be sufficient factual information. And I think that there's going to be sufficient proof of intent. And then the question becomes, what's the impact of — of such an indictment? My initial thought was not to indict the the former president out of concern of what — how divisive it would be. But given what we have learned, I think that he probably has to be held accountable. Eric Holder, on “Face the Nation,” May 8, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
2024 Presidential election That objective [in spouting the Big Lie] is  not somehow to rescind the 2020 election, as they would have us believe. That’s constitutionally impossible. Trump’s and the Republicans' far more ambitious objective is to execute succesfully in 2024 the very same plan they failed in executing in 2020 and to overturn the 2024 election if Trump or his anointed successor loses again in the next quadrennial contest. The last presidential election was a dry run for the next. J. Michael Luttig, April 27, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Abortion How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches? Matt Gaetz, 6:20 AM – May 4, 2022, proving himself to be, yet again, a snarky asshole who knows nothing about the demographics of abortion in America or anything else he blathers on about, except sex trafficking young girls and driving while intoxicated © 2022 Kwiple.com
Abortion Stare decisis,  the doctrine on which Casey's controlling opinion was based, does not compel adherence to Roe's abuse of judicial authority. Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives. Samuel Alito, February 10, 2022, initial draft of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Abortion We hold that Roe [v. Wade] and [Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. ] Casey must be overruled.  The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be “deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 721 (1997) Samuel Alito, February 10, 2022, initial draft of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Artificial intelligence It's easier to build an artificial brain that interprets all of humanity's words as accurate ones, composed in good faith, expressed with honorable intentions. It's harder to build one that knows when to ignore us. Steven Johnson, New York Times Magazine, April 15, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
The Big Lie Hitler says if you tell a lie that's of a certain scale that's big enough, people won't believe that you could deceive them on that scale. And since they believe it and take it in at first, they don't want to disbelieve it later on. It becomes part of their life; it becomes what we now call an alternative reality. It begins to shape politics. It begins to instantiate itself not only in memory, but in policy. You act as if it's true and you move on to do things as though it were true. So, in our example, if we pretend that Trump won the election in 2020, then we have an argument for suppressing votes because we can say, well there was fraud, therefore we should suppress votes. Timothy Snyder, April 29, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Bullshitters say And to ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischarcaterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion. Samuel Alito, February 10, 2022, initial draft of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade , which points out that decisons defending people's rights to interracial marriage, same-sex marriage, access to contraceptives, marrying in prison, etc., are based on the right to privacy assumed in Roe v. Wade  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Craft 3D printing has a value but you don’t learn much from just pressing Cmd+P on a keyboard. Jony Ive, Financial Times, May 6, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Democracy Unfortunately, it's very difficult for democracies to take action to prevent a future crisis. The risks of acting now are always clear and often exaggerated, whereas distant threats are just that: distant and so hard to calculate.  It always seems better to hope for the best rather than try to foretell the worst. Robert Kagan, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Food aid The US, the world’s largest provider of food aid, requires it to be in the form of American-grown food, rather than cash. And at least half of it must be sent on American-owned ships. As a result, a recently approved food aid bill for African nations will see the US spend $388mm to transport $282mn in food products. Economists and food assistance experts say the world should focus on sending cash and expertise, rather than just food stocks. It is much less expensive and much more efficient to help farmers produce locally, adapting crops to their climate and soil conditions. Megan Greene, Financial Times, May 16, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Ideas I wonder if a single thought that has helped forward the human spirit has ever been conceived or written down in an enormous room. Kenneth Clark, Civilisation © 2022 Kwiple.com
Immigration It’s a cliché that the US is a nation of immigrants — and a cliché that, for the past few years, has been just plain wrong. This nation of 330mn people managed to settle a meagre 11,000 refugees in the fiscal year that ended in September 2021, the lowest number in more than 40 years. Patti Waldmeir, Financial Times, April 2, 2022 [11,000 of 330,000,000 = 0.000033%] © 2017 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
NATO Nato argues that it has little choice but to expand its presence in eastern Europe. “Is it safer? Well, not doing it will not make us safer,” says Admiral Rob Bauer, chair of the Nato Military Committee, the alliance’s highest military authority. “Not being strong and credible is more dangerous than being strong and credible,” he adds. “The deterrence factor is very important.” Financial Times, May 4, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Post-2020 Senate shituation 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2020 population: 40,085,414 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,336,180 people — 1 state (California) 2020 population: 39,368,075 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,684,037 people 19,684,037 / 1,336,180 = 14.7, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth nearly 15 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth less than 7% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2020 population = 582,328, therefore: 1 Senator per 291,164 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 68 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.5% of a Wyomian's  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Power Many Americans tend to equate hegemony with imperialism, but the two are different. Imperialism is an active effort by one state to force others into its sphere, whereas  hegemony is more a condition than a purpose. A militarily, economically, and culturally powerful country exerts influence on other states by its mere presence, the way a larger body in space affects the behavior of smaller bodies through its gravitational force. Even if the United State was not aggressively  expanding its influence in Europe, and certainly  not through its military, the collapse of Soviet power enhanced the attractive pull of the United States and it democratic allies. Robert Kagan, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Progress  We've quietly ditched the idea of progress. Perhaps high-income countries don't need it any more. The new human mission, both global and personal, is avoiding disaster. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, May 19, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Russia The Russian democrat ends where the Ukrainian question begins. Volodymyr Vynnychenko, first Prime Minister of Ukraine, 1917-1918 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Russia Russia's problem was ultimately not just about its military weakness. Its problem was, and remains, its weakness in all relevant forms of power, including the power of attraction. At least during the Cold War a communist Soviet Union could claim to offer the path to paradise on earth. Yet afterward, Moscow could provide  neither ideology, nor security, nor prosperity, nor independence to it neighbors. It could offer only Russian nationalism and ambition, and eastern Europeans understandably had no interest in sacrificing themselves on that altar. Robert Kagan, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Supreme Court But we cannot exceed the scope of our authority under the Constitution, and we cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous infuences such as concern about the public's reaction to our work. Samuel Alito, February 10, 2022, initial draft of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade , expessing the Court's conservative majority's let-me-kiss-your-ring subserviance to the religious conservatives who make up the base of the Republlican Party that got them appointed to the Court, and its go-fuck-yourself disdain for others, including the vast majority of Americans who don't want Roe v. Wade overturned  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Get your act together sweetheart, because I'm coming for your seat. Get the fuck outta here! Tina Forte, Republican challennger for AOC's seat representing NY's 14th congressional district © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I haven’t given you all a history lesson in a while, and I wanted to give you a little history on homelessness. [In] 1910, Hitler decided to live on the streets for a while. So for two years, Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory, and his body language, and how to connect with citizens and then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books. It’s not a dead end. They can come out of these homeless camps and have a a productive life — or in Hitler’s case, a very unproductive life. Frank Niceley, Republican state senator in Tennessee, supporting a bill to criminalize homeless encampments on public property © 2022 Kwiple.com
< Trumpists say You could also argue the countries they've attacked were part of Russia. Or part of the Soviet Union. Rand Paul, responding to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's statement that the countries invaded by Russia were not members of NATO, and, in doing so, he implied that countries like Georgia, Moldova or Ukraine have no right to self-determination because they were once part of the Soviet Union or Russian Federation © 2022 Kwiple.com
Ukraine The futility of imagining that you can shoot Ukrainian culture into non-existence has been most fatuously exemplified by Russian troops who recently “executed” a statue of the great 19th-century Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko in Borodyanka, with a bullet to its skull, as though the life of literature was made of metal. Simon Schama, Financial Times, May 6, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Ukraine Putin did not thrust into Ukraine to reconquer this fabled “breadbasket.” The quest was for a certified sphere of predominance from the Caspian to the Baltic Sea. Unopposed for years, he did it because he could, and he could because the West had cashed in its peace dividends after the suicide of the Soviet Union in 1991. The American military in Europe, once at 300,000, had dwindled into 65,000 before Putin pounced.  Germany's 3,000 panzers had shrunk into 360. Opportunity, not acreage, beckoned. Josef Joffe, New York Times Book Review, April 4, 2022, review of Blood and Ruins  by Richard Overy  © 2022 Kwiple.com
 
War In modern times, when major powers invade smaller countries, they usually end up losing.  America failed in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq — and also beat humiliating retreats after smaller military interventions in Somalia and Lebanon. The Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan; and Russia is now failing in Ukraine. … The few exceptions to the rule that great powers lose small wars seem to occur when the fighting and objective are clearly limited. If the conflict is genuinely a “special military operation” (to use Putin’s disingenuous term for  the invasion of Ukraine), then success is possible. In the 1991 Gulf war, the US-led coalition restricted its goals to expelling Saddam Hussein's Iraq from Kuwait.  Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, May 16, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com