Amazon's take on Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, now with Michale Bay.
Short take. If you have read my takes on the rebooted Star Trek movies you can probably stop right now. The conclusion for this show is almost a copy paste with any specific Star Trek Reference with Jack Ryan. The show is good... possibly great. Very entertaining. But it is far more Bay action, than Clancy thriller on display here. On a bonus note... at least they didn't ruin any actual Clancy stories in this manner.
Standard warning on spoilers. I talk about the whole series if that is a problem, turn back now.
The Good:
While they shed the "just an Analyst" front way to fast... they did at least pay serious homage to the roots of the Character and the essence of Clancy stories. At a rough estimation I'd say they inverted the "Analyst to Man of Action" ratio of the Clancy books. In Red October you go almost the entire book with no guns involved. Patriot Games begins and Ends with Ryan wielding arms. Clear and Present Danger goes almost the entire book without Ryan taking direct action. Cardinal of the Kremlin is entirely gun free for Ryan if I recall correctly, as are Sum of All fears (probably the closest in relation to this story arc) and Executive orders. Considering this was a Bay production I find it commendable our Hero doesn't shed his unpretentious exterior for the the first 50 minutes of the first episode. They are never again as restrained. I don't particularly like the take here... but it was done well and Krasinski pulls off the Boy Scout heart of the character well. The same can be said of Wendell Pierce for his rendition James Greer. Suliman as Suleiman is a fantastic antagonist for the story and the arc is solid. Together, these three carry the series on their backs. Shame they killed off Suleiman. They could have played him off as a puppet master they couldn't get to for multiple seasons.
While I think in some respects it was poorly integrated, the side story about the drone pilots was powerful and one I think deserving of more time in future series. This was also another good homage to the source inspiration material. Clancy novels often have side plots like this that are often largely tangental to the main story that are used to show different perspectives.
They did not mangle an actual Clancy story with the bumped up action. Much thanks they did not juice up something like Red October, or Executive orders.
Jim Greer's problems with his career in the Agency do not appear to stem from the fact he is African American but instead rises from the actions/decisions he has made and the politics of 'field operations' vs 'headquarters'. A common theme in Clancy's books. However, a racial element is at least inadvertently if not explicitly implied in the division lead being White offering a promotion to a clearly less deserving Ryan. But that is subtle as these things go. More about that below...
The So So:
While the main 3 are solid characters, the rest of the cast is pretty thin... and even our main three are very much arch types who start and end pretty much the same. Ryan I suppose moves the most... but the rapidity with which they thrust him into action makes it hard to buy the "just an Analyst" husk he sheds was anything more than a speed bump on the way to what they really wanted to do with the character. Once Ali walks through the interrogation room door with the solider Ryan flips the switch... and it stays switched. They could have upped the gut wrenching nature of the decisions Ryan has to make in what to accept in order to do good. They could have done more to show the radicalization of Suleiman and perhaps have him struggle more with the idea that to accomplish his goals he would have to do horrible things. Do more to highlight the atrocities that drive his desire to strike. The story hints as these elements but does not embrace them... the strongest effort seems to be in the Drone pilot side story.
Not super germane but one of the analysts Ryan is working with says something about knowing someone from having been at the farm at the same time. The Farm is the CIA school for field operations. Perhaps I have it wrong but it would be odd to find a Farm graduate in that level of role working with Ryan. I suspect this was done just to get as much "Clancy" in there as possible as references to the Farm are very common in his books. This one does not seem done by someone that really understood what it was about or what the implications were for this character to say that.
The Random sex scenes. Yes its a prime original and its adult. Not complaining to much though. Biggest issue is the just "Now sex is happening" nature of 2 of the 3. The scene with Cathy and Jack is probably the closest to being actually relevant especially if you know where that is likely to be headed from reading the books. Even so... you do not have to have characters get it on to get they are seriously into each other. The scene with Suleiman and his wife comes off as creepy at best, was totally unnecessary if not out of line. The showy oddball "Vegas" sex scene with the drone pilot is pure titillation and has zero relevance. Yeah yeah yeah... I know, I am missing the point. Sex and Explosions is the order of the day for this series. Frankly, in that case... I'd rather have had far more random salacious sex and fewer explosions\gun fights.
The Bad:
Ryan's character set in the middle east disputes of the present do not ring as true to me as the Cold Warrior of Clancy. As I said above they danced with the notion of nuance but never really embraced it. At best there is conflict in the show over HOW we should be involved in monitoring and intervening in the Middle east... there is no question regarding if we should be involved at all. For USSR and WARSAW pact vs USA and NATO that kind of certainty worked. For the current situation, not so much. There is legitimate room to debate whether or not being there and doing the things we do is the right way to go. To have truly embraced the gamut of the situation there should have included a serious discussion regarding whether or not we should be involved at all... in particular I think a strong thread should have been about whether or not our involvement is self defeating if our goal is to reduce terrorist action against us. That someone who has reached the point Suleiman is at needs to be stopped is not up for debate. But the idea that our actions in stopping or preventing such a person are in fact creating more just like them is a seriously dark rabbit hole just crying out to be elevated here.
Having the CIA running around the streets of the US with guns drawn. No.... No... and NO. In general the focus on guns drawn and explosions action involving CIA operations. I mean seriously... the whole Clancy 'thing' was going away from the James Bond misconception of intelligence work. Elevating the painstaking high stakes behind the scenes work that goes on to make for successful intelligence operations. Once you get past the first episode or two, this rest of this series pretty much tosses all that into a trash can, douses it in gasoline and gleefully tosses a Micheal Bay inspired match on it.
The smarmy awkward thing with another department Given lead on the Suleiman task force, then offering a lead of that task force to obviously under qualified Ryan. Ryan is 4 years in, isn't even the lead of the financial team he is own before Greer arrives. These were probably intended to induce tension and drama but for me they were just awkward and unnecessary. They also opened the door on racial issues but pointedly didn't address them. Without these two scenes Greer is just on the outs politically and Ryan is only offered advancement when Greer goes to Moscow leaving his former post open. Less drama... also less distracting from the case. Less problematic. I mean... if they wanted to tackle racial discrimination in the work place fine, plenty there to discuss. But I don't see that here. I just see a very insensitive blind eye/ignorance towards what is being depicted. If done intentionally I expect there there would have been explicit dialog elevating it as such.
Conclusion:
Action heavy schlock for the most part... but as far as Action Schlock goes it is damned entertaining and the plot and character motivations are for all their flaws a good bit more complex than the typical red white and blue kill the bad guy stuff. That said there are plenty of tired jingoistic tropes for a "Team America" type send up here as well. The Jack Ryan here is somewhat related to the original Clancy character but almost all else is pretty much the antithesis of a Clancy story which is frustrating if you are a fan of the Clancy books as I am. I am by no means saying they should have no action. In the end Jack Ryan is a ridiculously over done perfect at everything studly do-right.
What would make it better in my opinion?
If they really wanted to do Clancy, they should have played more to the "Analyst side" and the slow burn of intelligence gathering, uncertainty etc... Ryan working the details, Case officers making contacts etc... and slowly unraveling the story of Suleiman in a way that paints a story that is inevitable in its conclusion of how and why he became what he is. Highlighting the grim cycle of creating terrorist through how we hunt them. The role of systemic inequality. Yes he needs to be stopped. I do not think that should be questioned in the least. I am not looking for a Stockholm syndrome story approach where we are asking the readers to sympathize and think his actions are justified. More... there obviously are those in the world that DO sympathize, that do think his actions are justified. If we don't understand that, and how it happens... how the hell are we ever going to stop the cycle? And most of all.... I would have taken the ratio of Ryans action in the first episode and put it across the whole season. That is to say he wouldn't have been in action until the very end. The opening episode could have had Suleiman released "just a body guard" and Ryan could have had something niggling in their interaction that gave him what he needed to dig through more on him and uncover the truth that they had the guy... and let him walk. The Paris subplot can be done entirely without him physically involved. Same with trying to track down Suleiman's wife. Having him and Greer go rouge on American soil in the final chapter in order to "save the world" I am good with... more or less as is. Would it be as popular? I doubt it. But I think it would be a far more powerful story... and one that could help educate a wider audience about the nuances involved in our current Middle East involvement.
Friday, October 19, 2018
Saturday, October 06, 2018
Kavanaugh Vote: Constitutional crisis live?
Sitting here this morning listening on and off again to the speeches from the floor of the Senate leading up to and including the vote I am left thinking a few things.
1. The only thing I am certain of Bret Kavanaugh is that he is neither the perfectly vile puppet of the white house he is made out to be by the Democrats nor is he the shinning saint of judicial officialdom he is made out to be by the Republicans. Seriously, each side could have stepped up and just said "what they said" for the previous speaker from their party. The speaking points were almost universally the same on either side. It is like they were talking about two different people.
2. I do not believe the Republicans would be voting in party lock step if there was clear irrefutable evidence of Ford, Ramirez, or Swetnick's accusations. There is no court case. There is no video. There is no smoking gun. Simply put there is no legal standing of the accusations. There are old memories, lots of hearsay and innuendo. Could it have happened? Yes. Did it happen? It. Is. Not. Clear. There was enough doubt to cause a hiccup with Flake's balk and the deal he required to clear his conscious in letting the vote get out of committee and to the floor of the Senate. Could more investigation possibly have helped? Yes. But how much is enough? There were supposedly 7 FBI background checks of Kavanaugh. If you don't think they are doing their job, what is an 8th going to prove? Or a 9th?
3. If the claims of Ford were whole cloth fabrications by the Democrats the story would have been tighter. This was not a story to hang their hat on. It was a story that drove them, not the other way around. That said, the timing of the break of the vs other opportunities to request investigations into the allegation does stink. If Senate Democrats request that investigation into the incident in closed deliberations and it turns up un-definitive hearsay it likely doesn't reach the public. It likely also does not create the environment in which the follow on accusations from Ramirez and Swetnick emerged. It certainly doesn't cause the highly public extra FBI investigation into the accusations.
4. The fact there were follow on accusations concerns me. More than concerns me. One person being manipulated (or choosing) to upend their life for a character assassination attempt is one thing. 3 accusers, From different sources, and clearly not coordinated? Again... do you think an orchestrated attempt by the Democrats includes Avenatti? The guy does not come across as positive for either side as far as I can tell. He is a walking meme for why people hate Lawyers. In court Kavanaugh faces almost no risk based on the facts of the cases. In the court of public opinion... that is a different matter. As for whichever side you fall on in the public court verdict... which court do you want to decide your fate should something happen to you? Which standard do you want the Senate to work based on? No... that doesn't make it easier. The process of government is hard. For me? There is enough doubt in what was presented that I find myself rather amazed the Republican's did not simply run down to the next candidate on the list. Conservative judges are not a rare commodity. That they did not concerns me far more than the appointment of Kavanaugh. The Trump campaign changed the game of what ends a campaign and it has now officially bled over into other areas. What previously was enough to sink someone in the political arena is no longer assured it will do so in the future. The DC game is changing, not for the better, and that should be of great concern.
5. Any Republican staunchly holding to the professional credentials argument that there is no reason to oppose this nomination needs to look hard in the mirror over the Merrick Garland fiasco. You can chase back a series of events on this one that land pretty hard on both sides of the isle. Obama was a part of a Democrat failed effort to Fillibuster a Bush nominee (Alito) which can be seen as a clear precursor to McConnell's scorched earth policy with Garland and nuclear option by which they removed the filibuster as an option for opposing a Supreme Court Nomination. But don't think this started there.
6. Guilty until proven innocent does not mean the accuser is a lying sack of shit until proven otherwise. It also doesn't mean the accused is a saint unless proven otherwise. Sexual harassment is a particularly vexing legal quandary in this nation. It is overwhelmingly perpetrated against women. The victim is always in the uphill role as the accuser in our system. A large portion of such cases revolve on hearsay and thus often have little or no chance in the legal system. Prosecuting a current case (even with DNA evidence) can be hard in cases where there may have been consent and or impaired judgement, much less a 30+ year old case that was never reported and is past the statute of limitations. Men have disproportionately held all the positions of authority in which cases of accusations of sexual harassment are judged and thus have set the precedents which are so hard for the accuser to meet. This is not some femi-nazi screed statement. This is simple fact. Doctors, Lawyers, Police, Judges are historically male positions and are still dominated by men today. What is the solution? Hell if I know... mandatory constantly cloud synced body cameras for everyone?
7. For those suddenly 'worried for their sons'.... The worst (WORST) case false accusation rate for sexual harassment I could find is around 1 in 10. That is for those who most strongly want to call out the problem of false accusations the best they can pick their studies is that the valid accusation rate is at LEAST 90% and the false accusation rate at MOST 10%. I'd say you have far more to worry about for your Daughters. It is estimated in 1000 cases of sexual assault, only 10% will be reported. Of those 100 cases, only 10 will go to trial. That 10% worst case scenario means 10 men at worst in that 100 cases where an accusation was made got falsely accused. 80 legitimately accused didn't even have to go to trial. Somewhere between 800 and 900 (depending on how many were false accusations of the full 1000...) faced no consequences at all. And of the 10 that go to trail more left without being found guilty than did. So for 1000 incidents of sexual harassment less than 10 perpetrators will face legal consequences. 900-990 victims, yet less than 10 perpetrators pay any kind of legal penalty of at least having to face a trial, fewer still face a sentence. I know as a nation we are bad at math... but sheesh.
8. Questions about his past behavior aside. His professional stance regarding presidential indictment is worrying. However, to be clear, he is not saying a president cannot be held accountable for their crimes. He is saying that to do so they must first be removed from office. That while in office anything short of impeachable offenses must wait until they are out of office. This is not just because of the Mueller investigation. This view basically says that if a president (ANY president) has the backing of congress they can do anything that will not lose them that backing as congress in this view is the only body that can remove the president from office. This is an area where the founders fell short in the creation of the Constitution. They did not foresee what was going to happen with party politics. Party politics effectively links the Congress and President in a way not considered in the original system of checks and balances. This was as much of a problem when Obama led with a Democrat majority in both houses as it is now with Trump and a Republican congress. Of a secondary concerns is that whether or not the hearings should have gone there or not... he lied under oath to the US Senate. He could have refused to answer. He could have chosen raw honesty. Instead he chose to deceive with explanations of flatulence and drinking games for terms that were easily proven to be about sex. It is almost certain he at best omitted the truth in answer to questions regarding his drinking habits at the time. People who lie about their drinking problems in the past tend to have problems in the present. Even if he doesn't. A high court official lying under oath to the US Senate (WHATEVER THE DAMN REASON) is NOT a good sign for what is to come on the highest court. The irony is he himself made this argument as a member of the Ken Star investigation of Clinton over the Lewinsky affair. Instead of following his own belief as stated during that investigation, he instead emulated the man they were investigating. And in this case I sincerely doubt there ever be an apology for having done it.
9. Life appointment with no limits on Supreme Court Justices needs to end. The massive increase in life span since the founders times and refusal of justices to yield the bench as they move past their prime in almost all cases means it is time to set limits. A decade max. Social Security retirement age as mandatory time to step down. And I would be in favor of that for any government position. That is approximately half a generation time max for any one person to preside over the highest court of the Land. Or hell... lets go 12 years max. And while we are at it limit House Representatives, Senators, AND Presidents to the same. This would allow a third term for presidents which would be an increase. But it would severely curtail the decades long tenure of congress critters that has become more the norm than the exception.
10. Jeff Flake said the single most frightening thing I have heard in a long time. Perhaps it was the most frightening thing I have ever heard in my lifetime. "Would you have done this if you were running for re-election?". Flake in response " No. There is no currency in working across the isle ". A US Senator clearly stating there is no value to working across the isle as a general rule if you hope to get re-elected is an extremely frightening state of affairs. Congress has to work as a whole in the interest of the Nation as a WHOLE. That is how it was designed.
11. The Media and by extension "We The People" need to get our collective shit together. Fox and Sinclair are clearly aligned Republican. Many major national outlets are clearly aligned Democrat. Facebook and the rest of the internet first newcomers are whatever the hell you want them to be because they reflect and confirm your biases as function of their design to hook you and draw you deeper and deeper into their systems. As a result, there is no one clear voice looking to hold ALL to account. Elon Musk is in the midst of going full Howard Hughes (Eccentric genius Billionaires should never go "Full Howard Hughes") ... but one of his nuttso rants about founding a media outlet dedicated to verification of truth resonates with me. Its nuts... pretty much no realistic way to do it. But damn it would be nice if there was a nice easy one stop shop where you, and your worst enemy, could both rest assured and agree you were getting a clear unbiased scoop on a given issue. Social media is not the cause of this problem. It is simply a new lens that gives us a new perspective on news. Broadcast news of the past wasn't any better... take the rose tinted glasses off already on that... they were just less questioned. And a bit more centrist... at least to the majority culture in power. The days of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite had plenty of problems too.... we just were not as "Woke" to them. In many ways we have it better today. The problem is we suffer from to much of a good thing. Pick a side, any side... and a few quick google searches will lead you to like minded folks. This is insanely bad because it means almost zero chance of ever having your assumptions and world view challenged in any meaningful way. This is potentially catastrophic. The bubble phenomenon is something I largely think is leading to an ever increasing calcification of our political views that drive elections and thus party politics and that has led to the present situation where a Senator says there is no currency in working across the isle. It has broken the process by which the party system has worked despite itself to make our democratic institutions of government function... and that in turn stands a chance to break our government itself. We are not there yet. But we continue making progress in that direction. It will get easier and easier to continue in this direction... and harder and harder to course correct. Congress is not a failing of the parties. It is a reflection of us. The Media is not some conspiracy corporate menace manipulating us. It again is a reflection of us... and attempt to give us what we want, or at least what we respond to in the way necessary to make them money. If we as a society figure out how to shift our views on this... these institutions will follow suit. But it is obviously easier said than done. Whether the tail wags the dog, or the other way around, you still have to make the change. And the party and media are both mechanisms through which we inform ourselves and through which our desires are reflected. But they exhibit inertia just like physical things. Change of this nature is not easy. But it isn't all bad. That ability to join like minded people also means it is FAR easier to make people aware of your point of view exists even at the same time it is ever easier for folks to tune you out. Creating these communities affirms that your view exists outside of just you. It affirms that there are others like you. In the case of Neo Nazi's that is bad. In the case of sexual harassment/assault survivors it can be a beautiful, life saving thing.
12. A prediction. Should a Democratic candidate take the White House in 2020 with a Democratic Congress there will be talk about expanding the Supreme court in order to appoint more liberal Justices to counter balance the overly Conservative makeup we are now about to have. The number of Justices has changed before. They can change again. Congress has the power to change the number. It will take a willing president as even if a Veto is over ruled, the nominations must come from the Executive Branch. The last time it was attempted was by FDR as a part of trying to secure support for the New Deal.
1. The only thing I am certain of Bret Kavanaugh is that he is neither the perfectly vile puppet of the white house he is made out to be by the Democrats nor is he the shinning saint of judicial officialdom he is made out to be by the Republicans. Seriously, each side could have stepped up and just said "what they said" for the previous speaker from their party. The speaking points were almost universally the same on either side. It is like they were talking about two different people.
2. I do not believe the Republicans would be voting in party lock step if there was clear irrefutable evidence of Ford, Ramirez, or Swetnick's accusations. There is no court case. There is no video. There is no smoking gun. Simply put there is no legal standing of the accusations. There are old memories, lots of hearsay and innuendo. Could it have happened? Yes. Did it happen? It. Is. Not. Clear. There was enough doubt to cause a hiccup with Flake's balk and the deal he required to clear his conscious in letting the vote get out of committee and to the floor of the Senate. Could more investigation possibly have helped? Yes. But how much is enough? There were supposedly 7 FBI background checks of Kavanaugh. If you don't think they are doing their job, what is an 8th going to prove? Or a 9th?
3. If the claims of Ford were whole cloth fabrications by the Democrats the story would have been tighter. This was not a story to hang their hat on. It was a story that drove them, not the other way around. That said, the timing of the break of the
4. The fact there were follow on accusations concerns me. More than concerns me. One person being manipulated (or choosing) to upend their life for a character assassination attempt is one thing. 3 accusers, From different sources, and clearly not coordinated? Again... do you think an orchestrated attempt by the Democrats includes Avenatti? The guy does not come across as positive for either side as far as I can tell. He is a walking meme for why people hate Lawyers. In court Kavanaugh faces almost no risk based on the facts of the cases. In the court of public opinion... that is a different matter. As for whichever side you fall on in the public court verdict... which court do you want to decide your fate should something happen to you? Which standard do you want the Senate to work based on? No... that doesn't make it easier. The process of government is hard. For me? There is enough doubt in what was presented that I find myself rather amazed the Republican's did not simply run down to the next candidate on the list. Conservative judges are not a rare commodity. That they did not concerns me far more than the appointment of Kavanaugh. The Trump campaign changed the game of what ends a campaign and it has now officially bled over into other areas. What previously was enough to sink someone in the political arena is no longer assured it will do so in the future. The DC game is changing, not for the better, and that should be of great concern.
5. Any Republican staunchly holding to the professional credentials argument that there is no reason to oppose this nomination needs to look hard in the mirror over the Merrick Garland fiasco. You can chase back a series of events on this one that land pretty hard on both sides of the isle. Obama was a part of a Democrat failed effort to Fillibuster a Bush nominee (Alito) which can be seen as a clear precursor to McConnell's scorched earth policy with Garland and nuclear option by which they removed the filibuster as an option for opposing a Supreme Court Nomination. But don't think this started there.
6. Guilty until proven innocent does not mean the accuser is a lying sack of shit until proven otherwise. It also doesn't mean the accused is a saint unless proven otherwise. Sexual harassment is a particularly vexing legal quandary in this nation. It is overwhelmingly perpetrated against women. The victim is always in the uphill role as the accuser in our system. A large portion of such cases revolve on hearsay and thus often have little or no chance in the legal system. Prosecuting a current case (even with DNA evidence) can be hard in cases where there may have been consent and or impaired judgement, much less a 30+ year old case that was never reported and is past the statute of limitations. Men have disproportionately held all the positions of authority in which cases of accusations of sexual harassment are judged and thus have set the precedents which are so hard for the accuser to meet. This is not some femi-nazi screed statement. This is simple fact. Doctors, Lawyers, Police, Judges are historically male positions and are still dominated by men today. What is the solution? Hell if I know... mandatory constantly cloud synced body cameras for everyone?
7. For those suddenly 'worried for their sons'.... The worst (WORST) case false accusation rate for sexual harassment I could find is around 1 in 10. That is for those who most strongly want to call out the problem of false accusations the best they can pick their studies is that the valid accusation rate is at LEAST 90% and the false accusation rate at MOST 10%. I'd say you have far more to worry about for your Daughters. It is estimated in 1000 cases of sexual assault, only 10% will be reported. Of those 100 cases, only 10 will go to trial. That 10% worst case scenario means 10 men at worst in that 100 cases where an accusation was made got falsely accused. 80 legitimately accused didn't even have to go to trial. Somewhere between 800 and 900 (depending on how many were false accusations of the full 1000...) faced no consequences at all. And of the 10 that go to trail more left without being found guilty than did. So for 1000 incidents of sexual harassment less than 10 perpetrators will face legal consequences. 900-990 victims, yet less than 10 perpetrators pay any kind of legal penalty of at least having to face a trial, fewer still face a sentence. I know as a nation we are bad at math... but sheesh.
8. Questions about his past behavior aside. His professional stance regarding presidential indictment is worrying. However, to be clear, he is not saying a president cannot be held accountable for their crimes. He is saying that to do so they must first be removed from office. That while in office anything short of impeachable offenses must wait until they are out of office. This is not just because of the Mueller investigation. This view basically says that if a president (ANY president) has the backing of congress they can do anything that will not lose them that backing as congress in this view is the only body that can remove the president from office. This is an area where the founders fell short in the creation of the Constitution. They did not foresee what was going to happen with party politics. Party politics effectively links the Congress and President in a way not considered in the original system of checks and balances. This was as much of a problem when Obama led with a Democrat majority in both houses as it is now with Trump and a Republican congress. Of a secondary concerns is that whether or not the hearings should have gone there or not... he lied under oath to the US Senate. He could have refused to answer. He could have chosen raw honesty. Instead he chose to deceive with explanations of flatulence and drinking games for terms that were easily proven to be about sex. It is almost certain he at best omitted the truth in answer to questions regarding his drinking habits at the time. People who lie about their drinking problems in the past tend to have problems in the present. Even if he doesn't. A high court official lying under oath to the US Senate (WHATEVER THE DAMN REASON) is NOT a good sign for what is to come on the highest court. The irony is he himself made this argument as a member of the Ken Star investigation of Clinton over the Lewinsky affair. Instead of following his own belief as stated during that investigation, he instead emulated the man they were investigating. And in this case I sincerely doubt there ever be an apology for having done it.
9. Life appointment with no limits on Supreme Court Justices needs to end. The massive increase in life span since the founders times and refusal of justices to yield the bench as they move past their prime in almost all cases means it is time to set limits. A decade max. Social Security retirement age as mandatory time to step down. And I would be in favor of that for any government position. That is approximately half a generation time max for any one person to preside over the highest court of the Land. Or hell... lets go 12 years max. And while we are at it limit House Representatives, Senators, AND Presidents to the same. This would allow a third term for presidents which would be an increase. But it would severely curtail the decades long tenure of congress critters that has become more the norm than the exception.
10. Jeff Flake said the single most frightening thing I have heard in a long time. Perhaps it was the most frightening thing I have ever heard in my lifetime. "Would you have done this if you were running for re-election?". Flake in response " No. There is no currency in working across the isle ". A US Senator clearly stating there is no value to working across the isle as a general rule if you hope to get re-elected is an extremely frightening state of affairs. Congress has to work as a whole in the interest of the Nation as a WHOLE. That is how it was designed.
11. The Media and by extension "We The People" need to get our collective shit together. Fox and Sinclair are clearly aligned Republican. Many major national outlets are clearly aligned Democrat. Facebook and the rest of the internet first newcomers are whatever the hell you want them to be because they reflect and confirm your biases as function of their design to hook you and draw you deeper and deeper into their systems. As a result, there is no one clear voice looking to hold ALL to account. Elon Musk is in the midst of going full Howard Hughes (Eccentric genius Billionaires should never go "Full Howard Hughes") ... but one of his nuttso rants about founding a media outlet dedicated to verification of truth resonates with me. Its nuts... pretty much no realistic way to do it. But damn it would be nice if there was a nice easy one stop shop where you, and your worst enemy, could both rest assured and agree you were getting a clear unbiased scoop on a given issue. Social media is not the cause of this problem. It is simply a new lens that gives us a new perspective on news. Broadcast news of the past wasn't any better... take the rose tinted glasses off already on that... they were just less questioned. And a bit more centrist... at least to the majority culture in power. The days of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite had plenty of problems too.... we just were not as "Woke" to them. In many ways we have it better today. The problem is we suffer from to much of a good thing. Pick a side, any side... and a few quick google searches will lead you to like minded folks. This is insanely bad because it means almost zero chance of ever having your assumptions and world view challenged in any meaningful way. This is potentially catastrophic. The bubble phenomenon is something I largely think is leading to an ever increasing calcification of our political views that drive elections and thus party politics and that has led to the present situation where a Senator says there is no currency in working across the isle. It has broken the process by which the party system has worked despite itself to make our democratic institutions of government function... and that in turn stands a chance to break our government itself. We are not there yet. But we continue making progress in that direction. It will get easier and easier to continue in this direction... and harder and harder to course correct. Congress is not a failing of the parties. It is a reflection of us. The Media is not some conspiracy corporate menace manipulating us. It again is a reflection of us... and attempt to give us what we want, or at least what we respond to in the way necessary to make them money. If we as a society figure out how to shift our views on this... these institutions will follow suit. But it is obviously easier said than done. Whether the tail wags the dog, or the other way around, you still have to make the change. And the party and media are both mechanisms through which we inform ourselves and through which our desires are reflected. But they exhibit inertia just like physical things. Change of this nature is not easy. But it isn't all bad. That ability to join like minded people also means it is FAR easier to make people aware of your point of view exists even at the same time it is ever easier for folks to tune you out. Creating these communities affirms that your view exists outside of just you. It affirms that there are others like you. In the case of Neo Nazi's that is bad. In the case of sexual harassment/assault survivors it can be a beautiful, life saving thing.
12. A prediction. Should a Democratic candidate take the White House in 2020 with a Democratic Congress there will be talk about expanding the Supreme court in order to appoint more liberal Justices to counter balance the overly Conservative makeup we are now about to have. The number of Justices has changed before. They can change again. Congress has the power to change the number. It will take a willing president as even if a Veto is over ruled, the nominations must come from the Executive Branch. The last time it was attempted was by FDR as a part of trying to secure support for the New Deal.
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