Month: February 2024

I’m glad that Ankush Khardori decided to do some research on what life in prison will be like for Donald Trump. He’s predicting that Trump will wind up at a minimum security federal prison in Pensacola, Florida. Khardori has determined that the Secret Service prefers this kind of arrangement because it would be the easiest setting for keeping the disgraced president safe, and it’s generally preferable to house prisoners at least somewhat near where they will eventually be released. In that sense, a Florida prison would work.

If it does turn out to be Pensacola, Trump will be able to sunbath, play volleyball and basketball, and otherwise enjoy the sunshine offered by the Sunshine State. He’ll also get to watch a ton of television, possibly including Fox News. But he’ll have no internet access and only rudimentary access to email. He’ll also have to find some kind of employment which will pay him less than a dollar an hour. And he won’t necessarily get released at all, since the recommended sentence on just his January 6 conviction is likely to be 20 years of incarceration or more. Trump could easily die in this Pensacola prison.

Now, everything Khardori discusses makes sense and is backed up with sources. And he’s not so sure Trump will not wind up in some kind of house arrest situation, including possibly at Mar-a-Lago. The Secret Service would dig that arrangement, supposedly, since they’re already providing this service to the orange shitgibbon. And some folks think it would avoid needlessly antagonizing Trump’s tens of millions of fervent and potentially violent supporters.

And that gets me to part of my problem with this thought piece. Prisons are not just for keeping people in, but also for keeping people out. We may not worry about Trump escaping, a la Pablo Escobar, but who’s to say some of his nuttier fans might not have other ideas? And why are people so confident that opponents of Trump won’t seek access to the prison in order to cause him harm?

One reason to put Trump in a SuperMax prison with Timothy McVeigh, Zacarias Moussaoui and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is because we don’t want the problem of nut job supporters trying to spring him or victims’ families trying to exact revenge.

Now, imagine Trump serving his time in the Florence, Colorado SuperMax prison. CNN described the place in a 2015 article:

Many of the more than 400 inmates spend as much as 23 hours a day alone in 7-by-12-foot concrete cells. Meals are slid through small holes in the doors. Bed is a concrete slab dressed with a thin mattress and blankets.

A single window about 42 inches high and 4 inches wide allows some natural light but is made so prisoners cannot see beyond the building. Cells have unmovable stools and desks made of concrete. Solid walls prevent prisoners from seeing other cells or having direct contact with other inmates.

“The architecture of the building is the control,” Hood said.“You’re designing it so the inmates can’t see the sky. Intentionally. You’re putting up wires so helicopters can’t land.”

This is where the Unabomber spent his last decades, and he wasn’t half the prick that Donald Trump is, but more to the point it doesn’t require some Secret Service magic to keep a prisoner safe when he never sees the other prisoners for more than an hour a day.

Now, Khardori wrote his piece at least in part to prepare people like me to be disappointed. He’s saying that I should not expect to see Trump go to a SuperMax prison. And I think he’s probably right about that.

It’s just that he’s wrong to rationalize it. Trump is the most dangerous criminal our country has faced since the 1860’s. He should be treated that way.

The polls on the Biden-Trump rematch are incomprehensibly bad for Biden. They’re even more incomprehensibly good for Trump. That’s certainly true of the latest national poll from NBC News, which has Trump leading on a host of issues including competence and effectiveness, mental and physical health, the economy, foreign policy and America’s standing in the world, and crime, immigration and the border.

Biden’s approval numbers are at a new low in the NBC poll, which is consistent with other polls. It’s completely unclear why this is the case. The economy is performing spectacularly, especially when you consider where it was when Biden took over from Trump. And, yes, I know that inflation turned the American people on Biden, but they are beginning to recognize that things have turned a corner and yet they give Biden no credit for it.

Some of these results are preposterous, like the idea that Trump has good mental health or would improve America’s standing in the world. But I am not in the business of waving off poll numbers I don’t like or don’t understand. Right now, Trump should be considered a moderately strong favorite to beat Biden. Yet, it’s hard to believe these types of numbers will hold for Trump.

In the new NBC News poll, Biden holds the advantage over Trump among Black voters (75% to 16%), women (50% to 40%) and white people with college degrees (50% to 42%).

Trump, meanwhile, has leads among white people without college degrees (62% to 29%), men (56% to 34%) and independents (48% to 29%).

The two men are essentially tied among Latinos (Trump 42%, Biden 41%) and voters ages 18-34 (at 42% each). Among the youngest slice of voters measured, those ages 18-29, Biden has a narrow advantage (Biden 46%, Trump 38%).

Is Trump really going to win the Latino vote? Will he really tie Biden with voters under 35? Is there a chance he’ll carry 16 percent of the black vote? Can Biden possibly get barely more than a third of men? And will women only give Biden a 10 point edge?

That’s what these groups are saying right now in these surveys, but that would be a mind-blowing collapse of the Democratic coalition, to put it mildly. And all in favor of a person like Trump?

I’m very worried because these numbers are getting confirmed enough that there must be something to it, but I just can’t for the life of me understand why this is happening or what to do about it.

Hello again painting fans.

This week I will be continuing with the painting of the Cape May, New Jersey scene. The photo that I’m using (My own from a recent visit.) is seen directly below.

I’ll be using my usual acrylic paints on a 5×7 inch canvas panel.

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 now gone further with the roof on the house to the left and refined the house to the right.

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.

Have you ever heard of the city of Merv? It doesn’t exist anymore but at one time it was probably the most populous city in the world, bigger than medieval Baghdad and Constantinople. And that’s surprising because it was located in the Karakum desert of what is now Turkmenistan. At the beginning of the 13th-Century roughly a half million people lived there, as it was an important stop on the Silk Road.

A trader arriving from Bukhara to the north-east or from Nishapur to the south-west would once have been relieved at the sight of Merv. Crisscrossed by canals and bridges, full of gardens and orchards, medieval Merv and its surrounding oasis were green and richly cultivated, a welcome reprieve from the bleakness of the Karakum desert.

The city’s enclosing walls ran in an oblong circuit of five miles, interrupted by strong towers and four main gates. Its streets were mostly narrow and winding, crowded with closely built houses and occasional larger structures: mosques, schools, libraries and bathhouses…

…Merv was famous for its exports, especially its textiles. “From this country is derived much silk as well as cotton of a superior quality under the name of Merv cotton, which is extremely soft,” noted the 12th-century Arab geographer al-Idrisi. Robes and turbans made from Merv cloth were popular around the Islamic world.

So too were Merv’s much-loved melons. “The fruits of Merv are finer than those of any other place,” wrote Ibn Hawqal, a 10th-century Arab chronicler, “and in no other city are to be seen such palaces and groves, and gardens and streams.”

The city may have had as many as ten libraries and was known as a center of learning. It was referred to as the “capital of the eastern Islamic world.” So, what happened?

In the mid 12th-Century, the territory around Merv started changing hands. The Seljuk Empire was weakened after a split among heirs and Merv was successfully sacked by Turkmen nomads. Subsequently, the city was briefly ruled by the Ghurid Dynasty before they were soundly defeated by the Khwarazmians in the early 13th Century. And that’s when everything went badly wrong.

The leader of the Khwarazmians, Shah Ala ad-Din Muhammad II, made one of the most consequential mistakes in history.

A small spark — an insult, a show of disrespect — is sometimes all it takes to ignite a war. Among the many tales of retribution echoing through history, one stands out for its scale and brutality: the tale of Genghis Khan, the Mongol leader who united the tribes of Central Asia and carved out history’s largest land empire, and his decision to wipe out the Khwarazmian Empire.

It should be noted up front that Genghis Khan was rather busy in the 1210’s conquering much of China. His attention only turned to the West after he was severely provoked. There are some variations in how the story is told, but it’s agreed that the trouble began in 1218 in the Khwarazmian city of Otrar. It was there that a Mongol-sponsored caravan was seized and its members massacred by the local governor, a man named Inalchuq who accused them of being spies. Reportedly, one survivor was allowed to bring news of what happened back to Genghis Khan.

At that point, Khan sent a delegation to Muhammad II demanding satisfaction.

Outraged by the unjust treatment of his merchants, Genghis Khan sent a diplomatic mission to the Khwarazmian Shah, Muhammad II, to seek redress for the incident. He demanded that the governor of Otrar be punished for his actions and that reparations be made for the loss of life and property. However, the Shah not only refused to comply with Genghis Khan’s demands but also added further insult by beheading the chief envoy of the diplomatic mission and sending the head back to the Mongols.

Obviously, this wasn’t the kind of response Khan was looking for, and he responded by ordering a full-fledged invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire. And once the Mongols started moving West they didn’t stop. They established the Ilkhanate Empire and seized Baghdad in 1258. Interestingly, they were only stopped in the Middle East in what is now the Gaza Strip.

As for the cities of the Khawarazmian Empire, their fate was terrifying. Merv was virtually wiped off the map.

In 1221, Merv opened its gates to Tule, son of Genghis Khan, chief of the Mongols, on which occasion most of the inhabitants are said to have been butchered. The Persian historian Juvayni, writing a generation after the destruction of Merv, wrote

“The Mongols ordered that, apart from four hundred artisans. .., the whole population, including the women and children, should be killed, and no one, whether woman or man, be spared. To each [Mongol soldier] was allotted the execution of three or four hundred Persians. So many had been killed by nightfall that the mountains became hillocks, and the plain was soaked with the blood of the mighty.”

Some historians believe that over one million people died in the aftermath of the city‘s capture, including hundreds of thousands of refugees from elsewhere, making it one of the bloodiest captures of a city in world history.

Ever since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel launched by Hamas from the Gaza Strip, I keep going back to the history or Merv in my mind. It comes to me in a variety of contexts. There’s the idea of a weaker party insulting a stronger one, only to suffer merciless retribution. There’s the history of the Middle East and Central Asia which is a story of empires replacing empires as far back as we have records. There’s the lesson of unintended consequences both for the conquered and the conquerer. There’s the quite modern idea of human rights in which Khan would be defined as one the world’s worst monsters.

And I wonder, what would have happened if Shah Ala ad-Din Muhammad II had turned Inalchuq over to Khan and made appropriate restitution? Would the Mongols have eventually made a western expansion anyway? Or, maybe not? How many millions of people died because of one caravan? The development of the entire modern world from China to Africa to Europe, all radically changed by the rash decisions of a couple of reckless Khawarazmian men.

Today Merv is an abandoned ruin. Which of today’s cities will soon suffer the same fate?

And, be honest, how much of this history did you learn in school?

As much as I might occasionally joke that I’d like Texas to secede from the union, they’re not allowed to do that. That’s a principle the North fought for in the Civil War, and the North was victorious. Now, do you remember which state started the Civil War? Yes, kids, it was South Carolina, the home of 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley. You may have heard of a place there called Fort Sumter. Here’s a reminder.

When Abraham Lincoln took office, the nation was breaking apart. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had already seceded. In his inaugural address on March 4, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln asserted that secession was unconstitutional, that the Union of the states was perpetual, and states could not leave it at will.

As the first states seceded, they seized most forts, arsenals, and federal property inside their borders. On April 10, 1861, Brigadier General Pierre G.T. Beauregard, in command of the provisional Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the U.S. garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Garrison commander Major Robert Anderson refused.

On April 12, the Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, which was unable to reply effectively. At 2:30 p.m., April 13, Major Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter, evacuating the garrison on the following day. The battle had started at 4:30 a.m. and ended 34 hours later.

As an aside, President Donald Trump’s first Attorney General was named Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III in honor of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and Brigadier General Pierre G.T. Beauregard.  He turned to be too committed to the rule of law for Trump’s taste.

This Civil War history shouldn’t be too difficult for people to understand, but to fill out the picture, there was an 1869 Supreme Court case that clarified things.

However, in 1869, in the Texas v. White case in the immediate wake of the Civil War, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the United States is “an indestructible union.”

“…The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible states,” the majority wrote.

“When Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation,” the justices wrote.

Of course, we don’t have to consider all this stuff settled. Why should we honor the sacrifice of 1.5 million casualties and over 600,000 American deaths?  We could just decide for a do-over. Maybe this time we’ll be better prepared:

Approximately one in four soldiers that went to war never returned home.  At the outset of the war, neither army had mechanisms in place to handle the amount of death that the nation was about to experience.  There were no national cemeteries, no burial details, and no messengers of loss.  The largest human catastrophe in American history, the Civil War forced the young nation to confront death and destruction in a way that has not been equaled before or since.

Too easily people forget, or they rewrite history to make themselves look less stupid and evil. I am not sure quite how to define Nikki Haley.

Texas has the right to secede from the U.S. if its citizens decide to do so, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley argued on Wednesday — a controversial view that contradicts centuries of established history and precedent. Similar secession efforts infamously led to the Civil War.

But “if Texas decides they want to do that, they can do that,” Haley said in an interview with the radio show “The Breakfast Club.”

“If that whole state says, ‘We don’t want to be part of America anymore,’ I mean, that’s their decision to make,” Haley said, though she also noted, “Let’s talk about what’s reality. Texas isn’t going to secede.”

Asked if she still believes that states generally have the right to secede, a sentiment she expressed on camera during her initial run for governor of South Carolina, Haley said that “states have the right to make the decisions that their people want to make.”

“I believe in state’s rights, I believe that everything should be as close to the people to decide,” she said.

Maybe Haley believes this, but maybe she’s just saying it because the Republican Party long ago stopped being the entity that destroyed the Confederacy and is now the party that represents the Confederacy’s values. Either way, it’s obnoxious and disrespectful to all the people who died and suffered in the Civil War, and all those who accepted the outcome and helped put the country back together when it was over.

I hope we don’t have to reanimate William Tecumseh Sherman for another March to the Sea, but it does seem like some hard lessons need to be reapplied.