trump

links, etc American Kakistocracy the atlantic’s considered take on how trump’s grafting wrong. Berlusconi’s shortcomings helped fuel his success, but he wasn’t proud of them. Trump wears his flaws like medals, and is appointing people to his coming administration who have the same attitude. Berlusconi would never have allowed the equivalent of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. near Italy’s department of health. An Italian Matt Gaetz would have been considered for a reality show on one of Berlusconi’s TV channels, at most....

links, etc Hear a Chopin Waltz Unearthed After Nearly 200 Years - The New York Times on the heels of the recent discovery of a string trio arrangement by mozart this is pretty neat news. we can only really have these “discoveries” if there’s a durable medium for preserving creative outputs. in this case paper and pen. with everything being hidden on personal hard drives and in proprietary software/file formats these days, i do find myself wondering what creative bits (no pun intended) we’re going to lose to the ravages of time and bit rot....

links, etc The End of Judicial Independence long, but worth the read. i learned quite a bit about the judicial branch here and while i’m resistant to the notion of far reaching right-wing conspiracies, it’s clear that right-wing scholars realized the importance of controlling the judiciary far earlier than the political left/center has. the left/center assumes too much good faith and honesty on the part of the judicial branch.

links, etc Trump’s Slow-Burn Authoritarianism there’s a lot of media attention on the notion of violent authoritarianism, the expected cronyism of a trump term, etc. this is the first time that i’ve seen someone sit down and really discuss the slow-burn authoritarianism. we saw glimmers of this when the sharpies were busted out to talk about hurricane path projections, etc. but the impacts to scientific research, the impacts to the ability to regulate based on science get hollowed out....

[What Did the Democrats Win?](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/12/17/election-2020-what-did-democrats-win/) it’s not a pretty picture when half the country picks the party of obstruction. Instead, we appear to be headed for two more years of gridlock. McConnell will pass nothing. As for the Supreme Court, not only will Biden not increase its size, which he’s hesitant to do anyway; we may be locked into a situation where Justice Stephen Breyer, now eighty-two, can’t retire and give Biden a chance to put a younger justice on the Court, because McConnell will likely not allow a vote....