Month: July 2017

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will continuing with the painting of Heritage House in Kanab, Utah, seen in the photo directly below.  I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 5×7 inch canvas.

When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.

I have continued to refine the building.  Roof, foundation and chimneys now appear in a similar shade.  The lit brick is an orange shade while shadowed portions of the house are in blue.  And yes, the sky has changed once again.  It’s starting to come together now.

The current state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.

I’ll have more progress to show you next week. See you then.

Earlier paintings in this series can be seen here.

Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney once famously characterised the polite Irish society approach to difficult or awkward topics as “whatever you say, say nothing” and Irish politicians have, in the main, practised that down to a fine art. Even sports coaches and players are quick to praise their opponents, lest any derogatory comments be pinned on the opposing dressing-room walls as motivational material for the battle ahead. “They think you’re shite” the opposition coach would say: “Just look at what they said about you”, pointing to the offending article pinned to the wall. “Now prove them wrong!”.

One of the reasons Leo Varadker stood out from a pack of fairly mediocre ministers to win the Fine Gael leadership and prime ministership was his willingness to buck the trend and come out with the occasional, usually well calibrated and orchestrated “outspoken comment” to demonstrate a fresh and open approach to politics.  He would only be saying, of course, what many had been saying quietly for quite some time, but couldn’t quite bring themselves to say publicly, for fear of causing offence…

Now he’s gone done it again with Brexit: Defiant Varadkar tells British: we won’t design Brexit border for you. Taoiseach says `if anyone should be angry, it’s us.’

“What we’re not going to do is to design a border for the Brexiteers because they’re the ones who want a border. It’s up to them to say what it is, say how it would work and first of all convince their own people, their own voters that this is actually a good idea,” Mr Varadkar said.

Mr Varadkar said there was a political border between the Republic and Northern Ireland, but not an economic one.

“As far as this Government is concerned there shouldn’t be an economic border. We don’t want one,” he said.

“It’s the UK, it’s Britain that has decided to leave and if they want to put forward smart solutions, technological solutions for borders of the future and all of that that’s up to them.

“We’re not going to be doing that work for them because we don’t think there should be an economic border at all. That is our position. It is our position in negotiations with the British Government and it’s the very clear position that we have when we engage with the task force that is negotiating on our behalf with the UK.”

Mr Varadkar said an economic border would not be in the interests of the Republic, Northern Ireland or the United Kingdom, “and we’re not going to be helping them to design some sort of border that we don’t believe should exist in the first place”.

—<snip>—

Meanwhile, asked if he was frustrated with the British approach to Brexit talks, Mr Varadkar said: “If anyone should be angry, it’s us, quite frankly.”

“We have an agreement. We signed up to the single European Act. We joined the EC alongside the United Kingdom. We have a Good Friday Agreement and part of the Good Friday Agreement…talks about working together and continuing to do so within the context of the EU.”

Now that the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) holds the whip hand over the Conservative government, they have not been slow to flex their muscles. Criticising suggestions that the border could be moved into the Irish sea to facilitate customs checks at air and sea ports, DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson said a border at sea plan was “utter madness”. Varadker was only backing up his Foreign Minister (and leadership opponent) Hugh Coveney, who had said:

“The objectives of protecting the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts and the gains of the peace process including avoiding a hard border are shared by all sides.”

Mr Coveney told RTÉ’s later he didn’t agree with Mr Donaldson and denied that his efforts were “damaging” the relationship between Ireland and the UK. “I am a friend of Britain. I went to university there. I have friends there. We have to be honest with each other. Enda Kenny said this is a political matter not a technical matter.”

Mr Coveney said that Britain had made its democratic choice to leave and “the onus is now on them” to ensure that they don’t do any damage to Ireland.

He dismissed Mr Donaldson’s assertion that a technological solution was possible in relation to the border. “The border is 500k long with 400 crossing points. It won’t be possible to put cameras on all of them. I don’t think that’s the approach to take.

While the Irish government deny that the above exchanges mark any change in policy towards Brexit, there is no denying the change of tone. The Irish government has lost patience with it’s UK counterpart, and what it sees as a cavalier and unserious approach to the risks that Brexit poses to peace and prosperity on the island. They don’t believe the UK government has given any serious thought or priority to the issues and are not about to do their homework for them. Being lectured by the DUP on what can and can’t happen was the last straw.

The reality is that any re-erection of a hard border on the island of Ireland is political poison for the Fine Gael led Government and a political godsend for Sinn Fein. It will cause huge upset to border communities and a lot of damage to the Irish economy both North and south. There is no way an Irish government is going to take ownership of the consequences. If the DUP want Brexit as much as they say they do, then they had better be prepared to pay a price, and that price will have to include an acceptance that N. Ireland won’t simply be an integral part of the UK for customs and immigration control purposes.

What the Irish government is signalling is that it will not simply green-light a Brexit agreement that includes a re-enactment of border controls on the Island. It is up to the UK government to manage DUP expectations and attitudes in that regard. The Irish Government will not risk a re-creation of sectarian tensions by declaring open war on the DUP. That would simply lead to a re-entrenchment of defensive sectarian attitudes. There is no point in giving the DUP motivational material to put on their canvassing cards and electoral posters. Whatever proposal ultimately emerges will have to be sold to the DUP as a British led one, but one that is acceptable to the Irish Government.

In this regard, the recent UK Government decision that it will look for a “transition period” of up to three years post Brexit where existing arrangement will more or less apply is an interesting one. No where in the extensive British media coverage of the issue have I seen an acknowledgement that any such extension of the A50 period would require the unanimous, not weighted majority, agreement of all EU27 members. The UK government may yet have to decide what it needs and wants more: DUP support or a Brexit extension. It won’t get both if it is still talking about rebuilding border controls within the island of Ireland.

I don’t like Peggy Noonan, nor her opinions about most things, especially her weird ideals of manhood.

But when she turns her poison pen on Trump it’s very satisfying. And Mika reading it aloud on MSNBC is entertaining as hell.

The original article is https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-is-woody-allen-without-the-humor-1501193193

the MSNBC segment is at http://juanitajean.com/thank-you-peggy-noonan/

The president’s primary problem as a leader is not that he is impetuous, brash or naive. It’s not that he is inexperienced, crude, an outsider. It is that he is weak and sniveling.

Noonan’s adjectives hidden behind the paywall include “weak” (repeated), “whiny”, “self-pitying” and “limp”, which Mika gives extra emphasis to.

Here’s one reason to impeach the president:

Amid pleas from Republicans and Democrats for the parties to begin work on a bipartisan health care bill, President Donald Trump and White House officials on Friday doubled down on his call to put off any action until Barack Obama’s 2010 law fails.

Here’s another reason to impeach the president:

There was no paper statement issued signaling the president’s preferred next move on an issue that was central to his 2016 campaign message. But Trump weighed in during the wee hours of Friday morning — and endorsed only one path for addressing health care.

“As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal,” Trump tweeted at 2:25 a.m. Friday. He then ended the tweet with what seemed like a guarantee: “Watch!”

Likely to the chagrin of Republican and Democratic lawmakers, a White House official on Friday said the president’s tweet represents the administration’s preferred path ahead on health care.

“I’d stick with the tweet,” the White House official told Roll Call, adding a more nuanced description could be coming at some point.

Here’s a third reason to impeach the president:

Pitching a scenario under which GOP lawmakers and the White House would stand by and let the 2010 law to continue sputtering — forcing Democrats to beg him to cut a deal to fix it — has been a steady drumbeat for Trump. And, just like early Friday morning, the president always brings it up without being prompted — suggesting that has been his Plan A even as Senate Republican leaders struggled to find one of their own.

If he does any of the following, they would provide additional reasons to impeach the president:

The president has more than one way to nudge Obama’s law toward failure: Trump could opt to stop paying subsidies to insurance companies; he can order agencies to cease enforcing its requirement for most Americans to obtain health insurance; and he could undermine its markets by stopping all federally financed advertising urging folks to enroll under the law.

Deliberately killing American citizens by undermining our health system is an impeachable offense, and if anyone tells you otherwise, please set them straight.

Nick Penzenstadler and Steve Reilly of USA Today have a piece that will be seen in nearly every hotel, including Trump’s, in the entire country. It details the eleventy-billion ways that Donald Trump is made vulnerable by Robert Mueller’s investigation into his business practices.

It’s interesting to realize that Mueller could be perusing Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns right now, as well as Trump Corporation’s emails, without the president even being aware of it. I guess I had envisioned that Trump would be tipped off that Mueller was heading in that direction, but it appears that it can all be done through judges’ orders and without the need to go to Trump’s lawyers and accountants.

Knowing how Trump has run his businesses in the past, I know for a fact that he doesn’t dot his i’s or cross his t’s, so he must be losing his mind at the idea that the FBI is under his hood peaking around. He must be thinking “I’m the most powerful man in the world and I can’t even send my pitbull lawyers after my adversary!”

I think he’s basically in panic-mode at this point, and there might even be a small part of him who is worried about others beside himself. Like his children.

His desperation to get Mueller dismissed is obvious, as is his sense of urgency. But, so far, all he’s done is build an obstruction of justice case against himself and tip off Congress so they can block him from making any moves. He can’t do anything but fume as the wheels of justice churn closer and closer.

If he saw a way out, he wouldn’t be acting this way. But how long will we have to wait to see what is in store for the president?

People close to Secretary of Defense James Mattis say he is “appalled” by the president’s decision to make a shift on transgender policy on Twitter. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is on the verge of resigning, mainly out of frustration with the president and his staff. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry is in charge of our nuclear weapons and was duped into spending a half hour with a Russian phone prankster who he thought was Ukraine’s prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman. Trump wants to fire his beleaguered Attorney General who is pissed at him. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke just alienated the senator with the most influence over his department by threatening her state with petty retribution for her vote against Trumpcare. Trump’s first press secretary just quit in disgust, which came shortly after his second communications director quit in disgust. Trump’s new communications director just said that his chief of staff is a “paranoid schizophrenic,” that his top advisor “sucks his own cock,” and that he wants “to kill” the rest of Trump’s staff for leaking. Trump’s “paranoiac” chief of staff is preparing to exit.

Trump’s campaign chairman is quite possibly going to jail and is likely in plea negotiations to avoid that fate. Trump had to fire his first National Security Advisor who is quite possibly going to jail and is likely in plea negotiations to avoid that fate. Trump’s son was nailed dead to rights for talking to Russian spies about getting dirt on Hillary Clinton, turned in essentially by Trump’s son-in-law who also met with Russian spies. They both have lawyers, as does Trump’s daughter. Trump has a growing army of lawyers, none of whom he listens to at all.

And this (and much more) was happening before Trump’s push to repeal Obamacare died in the Senate last night, and before Special Counsel Robert Mueller announces a single indictment of anyone in Trump’s inner or outer circles. As I’ve been saying, the real problems haven’t hit yet. Wait until the Republicans discover that they can’t raise the debt ceiling and the country is about to default on its debts and cause a global recession. Wait until the Republicans can’t pass a budget or can’t pass a continuing resolution and the government shuts down. Or, more accurately, watch what happens to the party when its leaders need to go to the Democrats for help and get no help or cover from a White House that has no understanding of practical reality. Wait until we’re asked to follow Trump’s leadership during a crisis on the Korean peninsula or he inadvertently starts a crisis there by making careless tweets.

The failures so far have been spectacular, but they’re just the warm up act. The real consequences are just on the horizon, and all queued up to hit us between Labor Day and Halloween.

Trump has no yet begun to lose, and we’re all going to lose with him unless something preemptive is done by people in responsibility who currently show no signs of having any wisdom or any guts.

I learned a long time ago not to put my hope in John McCain, but I did always have it in the back of my mind that he’d be the kind of guy to know that revenge is a dish best served cold. He could have ended this from Arizona without coming back at all, but he showed up in person, voted to let the charade proceed, kept everyone needlessly in suspense, and then shivved the president with a smile on his face:

“There is nothing Trump can do any more that will get to McCain. Battling an aggressive form of brain cancer, the maverick was willing to vote ‘no’ on the ‘skinny repeal’ amendment so that other GOP colleagues who were also opposed to the measure could vote ‘yes’ to save face with the conservative base. To this day, Trump has never apologized for saying that the former fighter pilot was not a war hero because he got captured in Vietnam. It gets less attention, but the president also besmirched the Arizona senator’s character by repeatedly accusing him of not taking care of other veterans. McCain has never forgotten.”

Given that he caused needless stress to millions of Americans and set up Mitch McConnell to look like the biggest ass in the world, a desire to hurt Trump in the most theatrical fashion possible is the only real explanation for why he had things play out this way.

It was good theater, though. It was theater for the ages.

And it left the president sputtering:

3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2017

In reality, McCain did his colleagues a giant favor. I took criticism for saying their plan was doomed because some thought I’d discourage people from phoning their representatives, but I didn’t see how the Republicans were ever going to bridge their differences. Playbook calls the idea a “fantasy,” and that’s how I felt along along:

Talk to Hill Republicans and the big problem is this: House Republicans do not believe Senate Republicans can pass anything substantial — period. And the idea that a bi-cameral negotiation — called a “conference committee” — would have somehow produced a compromise was also a bit of a fantasy.”

I didn’t see it playing out quite this way mainly because I thought it was so obviously in the Republicans’ interest to give up and stop hurting themselves that they’d find a way to put the effort to bed long before McCain did it for them. But they wouldn’t stop punching themselves in the face and taking needlessly damaging votes that wasted precious legislative time that they couldn’t afford to lose. If McConnell had prevailed last night, the agony would have been prolonged into the fall and done even more damage to the rest of their plans and their ability to meet their most basic responsibilities.

Of course, maybe the plan all along was to have the House just rubber stamp the skinny Senate bill. But that may appear to have been a closer call than it ever really was in reality. Last night, it seemed as real as a heart attack, but McCain’s vote was a cover for others who were opposed and just didn’t want to have to say so. And it’s not at all clear that Speaker Paul Ryan would have had the votes or the gall to go back on the promise that he would let the bill go to conference. Either way, I said all along that the only way anything would pass is if the conservatives caved to the moderates on Medicaid. They did eventually cave, and it still wasn’t enough.

One result of this is that there’s about a trillion more in revenues serving as the baseline in the budget than if their original repeal plan had worked, and that means that the Republicans will need to find a trillion more dollars in savings in order to enact the tax reform they want. They’re not taking away your home mortgage deduction or jacking up your capital gains tax rate, and stealing your local and state tax deduction won’t come close to paying for it. If they’re going to do tax reform now with 51 votes, they’re going to have let those cuts sunset after ten years because otherwise it won’t meet the requirements of the budget reconciliation process. For the Democrats, this was like killing two birds with one stone.

The Republicans have also demonstrated that their go-it-alone plan to ram home their agenda without any compromises or Democratic input is a dead end. And they fouled the bed in the process, making it exceedingly hard for them to come to the Democrats with any credibility or good will. McConnell had the risible effrontery last night to blame the Democrats for not helping him and not contributing their ideas after he precluded them from doing either. He’ll be back making the same case on the budget and the debt ceiling and the appropriations, and he won’t be any more convincing in those instances.

If Trump wants these things done, and if he wants tax reform or an infrastructure bill, he’ll need to get down on his knees and beg the Democrats for forgiveness and help. But his first reaction is to threaten to sabotage the entire U.S. health care system.

You can predict how that will go for him.

UK’s PM Theresa May is on a three weeks’ holiday … she held on to her beliefs of a “hard Brexit”.

The Conservatives are suggesting to postpone the start of Britain’s life after Brussels and being on its own two feet by what’s called a “transitional” period.  

Hammond says UK will seek Brexit transitional deal for up to three years | The Guardian |

Britain’s relationship with the EU may look similar to its current one for up to three years after Brexit, with free movement, access to the single market and an inability to strike trade deals with other countries, Philip Hammond has said.

The chancellor confirmed multiple reports over the past week that the cabinet had agreed to seek a transitional period of about three years, ending before the next election, which is due in 2022.

He said there was broad consensus in the cabinet that such a period would be necessary to cushion the impact of leaving the EU.

The agreement was made last week but not announced by Theresa May, who has left the UK for a three-week holiday. Instead, the news has seeped out from other cabinet ministers, and was confirmed by Hammond on Friday morning.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the chancellor conceded that “many things will look similar” the day after Brexit officially takes place in March 2019. A three-year transitional period would have to be agreed by the rest of the EU, and only after that would the UK have a completely new immigration system, its own trade deal with the EU, and be able to strike trade deals with other countries.

Tough times for sitting leaders of nations …

LIVE: Supreme Court disqualifies Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in unanimous verdict

Supreme Court Justice Asif Saeed Khosa started the court’s announcement of its verdict on the Panama Papers case shortly after 12:00pm.

Apologising for the delay, he gave the podium to Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, who headed the apex court’s implementation bench following its April 20 order on the case, to announce the judgement

Justice Khan said the bench had recommended that all material collected by the JIT would be sent to an accountability court within six weeks, and that cases would be opened against Captain Muhammad Safdar, Maryam, Hassan and Hussain Nawaz as well as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. A judgement should be announced within 30 days, he said.

One judge will oversee the implementation of this order.

The prime minister was additionally disqualified from holding his office. The judges ruled that the prime minister had been dishonest to parliament and the courts and could not be deemed fit for his office.

The judgement was unanimous.

This is the third time the prime minister has been unable to complete his term in the chief executive’s office. It is unclear as of the moment who will be appointed to take over the post till the next general elections, which are scheduled for 2018.  

○ The Panama Papers and a Microsoft font could bring down the government in Pakistan | LA Times – July 17, 2017 |

Those Who Are (and Are Not) Sheltered From the Panama Papers | Stratfor – April 2017|

On April 3, the Panama Papers hit media outlets around the world, and the fallout was swift. A prime minister lost his job, and other global leaders are under mounting pressure to account for their actions. But the effects of the leaks are not evenly spread; the documents contained far more information about the offshore activities of individuals in the developing world than in the developed world. Whatever the reasons for the imbalance, it will likely limit the papers’ impact. In the developing world, long histories of corruption have dulled the public’s sensitivity to scandal, and repressive governments leave little room for popular backlash.

So although less information was released on Western leaders, it is already doing more damage. Iceland’s leader has left his post, and relatively minor revelations have had a disporportionately large impact in the United Kingdom and France. Meanwhile, in the developing world, the Panama Papers’ effects have been most strongly felt in the former Soviet Union, a region in which political tensions were already high. The leaks’ results have been more mixed in China, where they have provided new targets for the anti-corruption drive already underway but have also implicated figures close to the administration’s upper ranks.

This is only the beginning. The Panama Papers are the largest information dump of their kind, and the information that has been released so far appears to be just the tip of the iceberg. They are also the latest in a string of public leaks that seem to be happening more and more frequently. As revelations continue to surface, calls for greater global transparency will only get louder.

Trump will now try to destroy the American health care system.

3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 28, 2017

He will find fewer and fewer congressional allies in that fight.