Like self-driving cars, some things are best not 100% automated - sales and use tax is one of those things.
As sales tax outsourcing has grown in popularity, I sometimes see situations where the "service provider" (I use that term loosely as these are generally software firms that try to provide service) is misaligned with the requirements of the client.
One of our biggest challenges as a business is trying to educate our market. You have read this before in my blogs, but there are tremendous misunderstandings about transactions tax and what it requires to stay in compliance with the laws.
Ensure solid execution of your outsourcing transition by managing common challenges.


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Bauma China to proceed as planned
July 9, 2020 282 views0
By Tunneling admin
It has been announced by the show organizer Messe München that Bauma China will take place as planned 24-27 November, 2020, at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC), China.
A host of construction equipment shows have been delayed this year due to the impact of Covid-19, but Messe München has mentioned that they expect more than 3,000 exhibitors at Bauma China.
Compared to many other countries around the world, China's economy has recovered quicker from the impact of Covid-19, and the country's GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is predicted to grow by 1% in 2020. This figure is much lower than in previous years, but most countries are expected to see their economies contract, some by double figures.
The growth rate of China's construction machinery industry will reach 10% this year, according to Shanghai Securities Co.
The show organizers have repeated that the safety and health of visitors, exhibitors and partners will continue to be the top priority.
Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce have published the guidelines and notice of controlling and preventing the epidemic on organizing exhibition. In addition, Shanghai Convention & Exhibition Industries Association will be strictly followed during the show, the various prevention and controlling security measures will be impressively implemented to ensure the safety of the exhibition.
It is expected that more than 3,000 exhibitors present their products and services on an exhibition area of 300,000 square meters.
Source: KHL
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Automatically run a command on start up? I was kindly helped on this forum a few months ago to fix my Wifi. Only problem is I have to run the command in the terminal at the start of every session.Each time I need to run-
sudo modprobe -v brcmsmac

How can I make this process run automatically?
Many thanks!

A: Try add command to rc.local file with nano or gedit. It runs commands, when startup process was ended. Do nothing by default. You can find it in /etc/rc.local

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Resources and FAQs
Return to Clinic Main Page
Therapy is available to children, adolescents and adults and is provided for a broad range of problems including anxiety, depression, family problems, stress, child behavior problems, relationship problems, anger issues, ADHD, sleeping disorders, and adjustment to chronic health problems.
The CPC does not provide emergency appointments, psychiatric evaluations, medical supervision, chemical dependency treatment programs, treatment for serious mental illness or child custody evaluations. Because the CPC is a training facility, some selectivity is involved in accepting clients for treatment. For individuals who cannot be seen immediately, every effort is made to refer them to an alternative service provider.
Psychological assessments are available on a limited basis. Evaluations of learning and attention problems are most frequently requested. Fixed fees are charged for evaluations and vary according to tests administered and the examiner.
Presentations and in-service training are available to University departments and community organizations through our Speakers Bureau.
Who provides services?
Most of our therapists are clinical psychology graduate students who are working toward their doctorate in clinical psychology. They work under close supervision of faculty members who are licensed psychologists. Some faculty members also see clients or conduct group therapy in the Center.
Where is the CPC?
University Center Bldg A, Suite 116; 1100 E. University Dr; Tempe, AZ 85287-7404
phone: 480-965-7296; fax: 480-965-2972
Where do I park?
There are parking places in the lot near the CPC. The fee for parking is $3.00 per hour, paid at the parking kiosk.
The CPC is open 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Thursday, and 8 am to 4:00 pm on Friday. Evening hours are variable. There are no weekend hours.
Fees are determined on a sliding scale basis that takes an individual's income and family size into consideration. Fixed fees are charged for evaluations.
How do I make an appointment?
Contact us by telephone at 480-965-7296 or via email at clinic@asu.edu. Emails are read by the office staff and are not secure; discretion is advised.
Where can I find information on mental health related topics?
National Institute of Mental Health
Mental Health Organization
Please download the HIPAA Release here
Crisis Phone Lines
If you are experiencing a life-threatening emergency, dial 911
Veterans Crisis Line: 800-273-8255
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233
LGBTQ Crisis Line: 866-488-7386
National Child Abuse Hotline: 800-422-4453
Central Arizona Crisis Line: 800-631-1314
Maricopa County Crisis Response Network: 602-222-9444
EMPACT Suicide Prevention Hotline: 480-784-1500
Arizona Coalition to End Sexual & Domestic Violence: 602-279-2900
Arizona Child Abuse Hotline: 888-767-2445
Arizona Senior Helpline: 602-264-4357
Arizona Teen Lifeline: 602-248-8336
ASU Student Crisis Line: 480-921-1006
Warmline (peer support for callers who just need to talk): 602-347-1100
American Psychological Association Help Center: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/index.aspx
National Institute of Mental Health: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml
National Institute on Drug Abuse: https://www.drugabuse.gov/
National Alliance on Mental Illness: https://www.nami.org/
U.S. Government Mental Health Resources: https://www.mentalhealth.gov/
Mental Health America: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: https://www.samhsa.gov/
Arizona Psychological Association: https://www.azpa.org/
Community Information and Referral Services: https://211arizona.org/
Agency on Aging: https://www.aaaphx.org/
Teen Lifeline: http://teenlifeline.org/
Arizona Coalition to End Sexual & Domestic Violence: http://www.acesdv.org/
National Alliance on Mental Illness – Arizona: http://www.namiarizona.org/
National Alliance on Mental Illness – Maricopa County: https://namivalleyofthesun.org/
Mental Health America of Arizona: http://www.mhaarizona.org/
Return to main clinic page


County officials plan to use the general fund to correct a tax allocation error that shorted two Ottawa County accounts more than a half-million dollars.
County commissioners will formally make their recommendation Thursday to the county excise board which will make the final decision on how to reconcile the county's financials.
The sheriff's department and the �highway half-cent sales tax� accounts were shorted a portion of sales tax revenue, due to a miscalculation.
The error, which shorted the two accounts a total of $550,323.92 over the past five years, originated in the county treasurer's office during the 2003-'04 fiscal year.
County commissioners will suggest that the shortfall be repaid over a period of three years - a gesture that will deduct more than $183,000 annually.
Officials have not yet addressed the $550,323.92 overpaid to two additional tax revenue dependent accounts.
The rural firefighters' tenth-of-a-penny tax allocation was overpaid as was the county's trust authority overseeing the construction of the county courthouse.
Ottawa County Excise Board Chairman Rob Kimbrough was in attendance of Monday's meeting of the county commission.
Kimbrough recommended that the county treasurer, Brenda Conner, provide commissioners with a monthly report detailing the breakdown of Oklahoma Tax Commission Collections.
Thursday's planned joint meeting of the commission and excise board is scheduled to begin at 1:15 p.m.


So I couldn't find the old one, and I decided it was about time for a new one.
What is this about? Basically to thank the staff for being the amazing hard-working patient staff they are!
For me personally as a person with many questions it means: Thank you for listening to my ideas. Thank you for listening to me and my thought process and all the 31, 00000 times I've messaged with a question. (that's not an exact number just a humorous estimate. ) Thank you for being patient with me while explaining, and thank you for kindly telling me when you didn't have the time right now but would get back to me.
Staff works hard. Staff has duties and pressures outside of Narniamuck, (as do players, I realize) So just wanted to take another quick moment to thank the staff for Narniamuck for being amazing.
Honestly, staff, you guys rock. There's so much work that goes into this game and you nail it. You're also super cool people, in general.


Virtual private networks, or VPNs, tend to get a bad rap as being difficult to set up, erratic in performance and a questionable deterrent against possible security breaches.
All of which, incidentally, are true.
But that doesn't mean that your business should avoid implementing VPN technology for your remote users or to connect remote locations. Think of a VPN as an insurance policy: Sure, most of your online communications will take place with no one electronically eavesdropping. Just as you may rarely, if ever, call in your car insurance policy, you may never actually need the security afforded by a VPN. It's that one instance — that one car crash, that one electronic eavesdropper — where you desperately need the insurance afforded by a VPN to avoid a huge loss in confidential and valuable data.
Most larger businesses have already adopted VPN technology on some level, though given the explosion in wireless networking, there are many others that should be looking at some kind of VPN implementation. But in the SMB world, the story is different: Fewer than 500,000 SMBs have adopted VPN technology, according to market-research firm AMI Partners. Considering the millions of SMBs out there, the lack of implementation on this level is truly staggering.
First, a short explanation of VPN technology if your company doesn't yet use it. A virtual private network sets up a secure connection between a remote computer (or a remote network) and an existing network using the public Internet as a transport level. But the connection is more than just an Internet connection: Users also have access to applications on the network just like any other user connected via wire.
Users are usually exposed to a VPN when they try to dial in for their e-mail only to discover that the VPN is either down or misconfigured, but VPNs can also be used to connect remote networks communication via Frame Relay, ATM, X.25 or wide-area network (WAN). Using a VPN isn't the most secure way to connect networks — a private leased line keeps data from the outside Internet — but it can be a cost-effective method.
A VPN manages a "tunneled connection" between two machines. The metaphor isn't great, but we'll go with it anyway: Through encryption and authentication tools, the connection is not subject to any eyeballing from others on the Internet. Most Internet connections go through a variety of other machines (and thus can be compromised by someone observing the network traffic), but the VPN's tunneled connection closes the connection to outsiders, making it more secure than the average communication.
When connected, the remote computer looks just like another wired node to the wired network, with all the same permissions and applications. Contrast this to Web applications like Webmail, where the SSL security in a browser is being used to forge a secure connection. Using the Internet, widens the access methods available to users: The alternative is maintaining an 800 number for slower dial-in connections or forcing users to dial long distance into a company server.
Several VPN software technologies and packages are available on the market, though the most secure are offered from third-party vendors. (This leads one to a worrisome issue in the VPN world: Implementations of the same "technology" are not always compatible. For instance, support of IPSec among different vendors can be spotty.) We're not going to get into the specifics of VPN protocols, like L2TP, SOCKS and IPSec. Implementation of these protocols tend to be more vendor-specific than the vendors like to admit.
There is one way to tackle the VPN issue without actually worrying about the configuration and installation: using a firm that offers managed VPN services. There are usually hidden costs associated with VPNs, and working with an outside vendor can help your firm better identify total costs.
There are several advantages to this approach: no or little investment in VPN hardware is required and your overworked IT guy doesn't need to tackle the care and feeding of the VPN. However, there are few ISPs that offer standalone VPN services, and most offer managed VPN services as part of a wider array of network services.
A VPN isn't the most glamorous of network technology, but in this day and age of telecommuting workers and road warriors needing full network access, it is an essential tool for any firm wishing to protect valuable and essential data.


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Girls go cold, lose to Ledford
Published 12:57 pm Thursday, January 5, 2023
Junior Lauren Colamarino heads to the other end with the ball.
Enterprise Record
The Davie varsity girls basketball team's time in ecstasy lasted five games and 13 days.
The War Eagles played rock-solid defense against Ledford in the Davidson-Randolph Christmas Classic championship game on Dec. 29, but their defense wasn't enough to overcome 25-percent shooting. The result was a 46-37 loss to Ledford.
The War Eagles came out on fire. Kenadi Gentry hit a 3-pointer. Peyton Spaugh hit two free throws. Malayka Rankin got a steal and hit a streaking Spaugh for a layup. When Somer Johnson nailed a 3, Davie had a stunning 10-0 lead against an opponent that was 10-1. The Panthers did not convert their first field goal until the 2:25 mark of the first quarter.
But after the superb start, Davie missed five straight shots, went 0-4 at the foul line and only led 10-8 at the end of the first.
Davie had a 23-21 lead at halftime, but it was unfulfilling because it missed seven of 11 free throws and could have had Ledford in a larger hole.
After falling behind 27-23, Davie came to life for one more charge, an 8-0 run vaulting it to a 31-27 lead. Gentry stole a pass and went down for a layup and a 33-31 lead. Ledford closed the third quarter by hitting a halfcourt prayer at the buzzer, but Gentry hit a 3 to give Davie a 36-34 lead with 6:26 to go.
Alas, that was the end for the War Eagles' hopes. They hit a drought and scored one point in the last 6:26. It was full sputter as 13 straight shots refused to fall. By then, the Panthers had absorbed the early blow, figured things out and were playing like an 11-1 team. They scored 12 of the final 13 points.
"They are an offensive team for sure," coach Lindsey Adams said. "They have a lot of offensive threats. I told the girls we can't let a team like that get hot. We did a good job of mixing up the defenses and kind of keeping them out of a rhythm."
But Davie (7-6) needed the shooting form from recent nights to go with the defense. It wasn't there. It missed 36 shots, missed nine of 17 free throws and scored 25 fewer points than it averaged (62) during its five-game winning streak. On top of that, Rankin and Lauren Colamarino both fouled out.
"And then we didn't really have an inside presence after that," Adams said. "And we couldn't figure out how to score against their 1-3-1. That was a big game-changer in the fourth quarter. Malayka fouled out with seven minutes to go, and Lauren fouled out halfway through the fourth. Malayka and Lauren are our leading rebounders, so it was really hard not to have them."
Gentry had 14 points, six steal and five rebounds. Spaugh had eight points and four rebounds. Johnson had four points. Rankin had four points and six rebounds. Colamarino, who missed the previous two games with ankle injuries, had four points and five rebounds. Bailey Aderhold had three points.
Gentry and Johnson made the all-tournament team.


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I Will Knock Joshua Out Within Two Rounds – Tyson Fury Boasts
"I don't believe he's (Joshua) as good as people crack him up to be, or he doesn't believe he is in his own self," Fury told Sky Sports.
Tyson Fury says he can knock out rival Anthony Joshua inside two rounds due to his recent form.
Fury insists the fight would be a no contest.
"He's got a confidence issue. He's coming off two shaky performances and boxing is all about who is in form and who isn't. In his last two fights, he's not in form.
"On mine, I am, so momentum is with me and I just believe take him out early, very early, maybe even one round or two rounds."
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Fury is optimistic about the fight, which would be one of the biggest in British boxing history, will take place as soon as possible.
Potential hurdles in the way of the super-fight include Joshua's WBO mandatory challenger Oleksandr Usyk and another possible meeting between Fury and Wilder.
Fury, 32, said now was the time for Joshua to back up his words by finally fighting him.
"Whenever the world gets back to normal, whatever normal may consist of after this pandemic, then that's when this fight is going to happen," he said.
"This fight has been brewing for a long time. They've been avoiding me for a long time and now it's finally got to happen.
ALSO READ PDP Chair, Iyorchia To Probe Use Of Party Funds Under Previous Regimes
"They either run away from the fight and announce it publicly or they take the fight. Either way, it's a lose-lose situation for him."
Tyson Fury believes there is an imperative for the fight to happen sooner rather than later, comparing the bout to the one between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao that finally took place in 2015.
Mayweather won it on a unanimous decision.
"Boxing is one of those sports where rarely do you see the best fight the best," said Tyson Fury.
(SOURCE: Completesports.com)
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A team off professionel hunters, which helps you around in the steep mountains, and are aware off where the game is.
Very physical hunt, saw numerous mature animals, beautiful scenery, a true adventure. Guides worked very hard to get me in right position. Staff very friendly. Food was excellent.Enjoyed seeing the sites of Baku after the hunt.


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TEMPO and HUP
A Blog for Civil Debate on Political Philosophy
Collusion Collision
January 13, 2021 by Alan Bernstein 6 Comments
Attack on the Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021.
The invasion of the Capitol on January 6 fused the interests of the violent mob with those of the demagogue who incited them. In my post of January 9 ("No Surprise"), analyzing the factors behind the events of the 6th, I referred to collusion between President Trump and the invaders. Now I wish to say more about that. This collusion was not only the result of Trump's incendiary words at the rally on the Ellipse. It also involves the convergence of more general pressures from above and from below. Let's take them one at a time.
Right wing extremist groups produce pressure from below. Many newspapers and magazines and websites cover currents within the American right wing systematically. The Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Leadership Center have long tracked the activities of militias, Christian nationalists, white supremacists, QAnon believers, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, and others. We've seen the fanatical, murderous actions in Jonestown, Oklahoma City, Waco, Pittsburgh, El Paso, and elsewhere of these and similar groups. Since the rise of social media, alert reporters can quote their exact language. The symbols on their flags and badges and tee shirts carry coded messages. Perhaps the most obvious is the Confederate flag. The rioters harbor nostalgia for the slave-holding, secessionist South and for their demagogic President who refuses to condemn that cause.
Their websites indiscriminately lump together Democrats, liberals, progressives, leftists, socialists, and communists. They also revile journalists, politicians, academics, experts, anyone they smear as elitist, and ordinary government employees of what, in their paranoia, they call the "Deep State." The federal bureaucracy actually serves the public, but they consider its employees enemies. Then, wrongly appropriating language from the Second Amendment, they call themselves militias and proclaim themselves patriots. Fashioning themselves as "defenders of freedom," they express their hostility to American mainstream institutions with militaristic language. Leaving aside overt references to civil war or "the Storm," the idea of "taking back our country," used almost universally on the right, is a military metaphor that evokes an armed troop recovering a lost vantage point by force.
President Trump exerts pressure from above. It has been clear since long before the Republican nomination debates of 2016 that Donald Trump is a vicious bully. Demands of fidelity characterize his relationship with subordinates. One might have thought that, as head of the FBI, James Comey would be autonomous. But no, he could be fired. Similarly dispensable was Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had been the first senator to endorse Trump as candidate. To Trump, everyone is expendable.
After he fired a very long list of senior officials in top agencies, the President's appointees (often only acting secretaries) purged the ranks of their respective organizations. The Republican desire to shrink government served as a cover for this operation. In the Executive Branch, new cabinet department secretaries or agency heads retained only personnel presumed loyal to the President. Trump's appointees have not only purged obvious organizations like the EPA that he targeted during his campaign, but also the Global Media Agency (home of the venerable Radio Free Europe), the Department of Justice, the Defense Department, and the Department of Homeland Security set up to improve coordination of intelligence gathering after 9/11. When Covid-19 hit, he also purged the FDA, the CDC, and the NIH to prevent advocacy of cures he did not favor or the publication of reports contrary to his own pet theories.
Trump has turned the upper echelons of our government into a hostile workplace environment where insecurity undermines its function. Fealty to the President, like a vassal's to a lord, permeates the administration. There is a party line, and those who depart from it get forced out. One result was that just "a day before rioters stormed Congress, an FBI office in Virginia issued an explicit warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and 'war'." How could such intelligence be ignored?
Given the deference Trump demanded throughout the government, it is easy to see how security personnel would react to unwelcome news. Developments threatening law and order must be reported from local agents upwards. But the screening system in the Executive Branch made it imperative that no harsh facts reach the top.
How can even a responsible government official alarmed by the increasingly hostile rhetoric and numerous outbreaks of armed, threatening demonstrations of Trump's base present the situation to a boss and his immediate associates who agree with the militants? It's even less likely that ambitious, insecure, opportunistic personnel now in mid-level administrative posts would risk offending their superiors or blowing the whistle. Their boss has been stoking those emotions since before his election.
And what emotions? These people assume and sometimes assert that demonstrating whites, even those fearful of being "displaced" by minorities, are somehow more orderly than supporters of Black Lives Matter. They think whites who plan protests against the legal succession of presidents do not require surveillance. They are better behaved, it is assumed, by virtue of their racial superiority. This bias is manifest in the remarkable laxity of the intelligence community which failed to develop official threat assessments to warn of the true dangers in the demonstrations summoned by Trump for January 6 to protest the "theft" of his supposed electoral victory. Why did they fail? In her brilliant reporting on the subject, Dina Temple-Raston quotes R. P. Eddy, "a former U. S. counterterrorism official and diplomat who now runs Ergo, a private intelligence firm." Eddy explains why the threat was invisible to the intelligence community. "[I]t was very hard for these decision-makers and these analysts to realize that people who look just like them could want to commit this kind of unconstitutional violence and could literally try to and want to kill them." How could pro-Trump protesters, people who support the police and attack BLM demonstrations in defense of "law and order," themselves turn violent? How could they have even worse goals? This blindness comes from systemic racism.
Here is an argument for diversity. A more diverse corps of intelligence gatherers and analysts would not have made the same naïve assumptions about white power marchers.
If you don't think they're marching for white power, consider the photo above. Its slogan, "Come and take it," alludes ostensibly and quite legally to the Second Amendment. But it is a Confederate flag, indicating their sympathies, and an AR-15-type assault weapon, indicating their intention.
To sum up. Trump himself puts the top and the bottom in conspiratorial conjunction. That's the essence of populism: resentment and insurrection disguised as patriotism. Watchdog groups knew where these populist, militant, apocalyptic beliefs were heading. They reported them to the FBI, which took no action. With Trump's censorship of bad news in place, intelligence reports get buried, there is little preparation, and only an inadequate defense against the rioters. Trump and his people get their way. The Capitol is breached. Collusion collision.
The Barr-Trump Monarchy
September 17, 2020 by Alan Bernstein 3 Comments
Unchecked power is the defining goal of Donald Trump's presidency. When he accepted the Republican party's nomination on July 21, 2016, he declared, "I alone" can fix "the system." The words evoke intolerant, absolutist, political concepts, particularly monarchy. "Monarchy" means rule by one. During the twentieth century, we called this dictatorship or authoritarianism. But Trump and his allies have cloaked their view of the President's immunity, his superiority over the law, in a religious garb that springs from deeper and more sinister roots. What support could the political evocation of such themes find in the United States of America? Two speeches by William Barr, the current Attorney General, shed light on that question.
First, there's Barr's exaggerated notion of presidential power. In his speech to the Federalist Society (Nov. 15, 2019), the Attorney General deplores the weakening of the presidential office. The Founders, he argues, rejected England's notion of "an overweening Parliament" or a king limited by a royal council. Instead, the Founders established "a strong Executive, independent of, and coequal with, the other two branches of government." Independent, yes, but not isolated from, and not superior (remember: "co-equal") to the other branches. Having set out the problem so well, he proceeds to ignore its fundamental premise: equilibrium in conflict. Barr argues instead that, by Executive power, the Framers meant more than just "carrying into effect the laws passed by the Legislature." Indeed, the president should have "essential sovereign functions" such as foreign relations, meeting emergency situations like a plague or a natural disaster, and, dramatically, the prosecution of war. In his haste to elevate the Executive, he omits Congress's unique ability to declare war.
Next, he itemizes what he sees as encroachment on the Executive first by the Legislature and then by the Courts. In his opinion, the Executive should have the ability to use executive orders to bypass congress and initiate something like Donald Trump's travel ban against primarily Muslim countries. But there are exceptions. For example, in Barr's view, Barack Obama had no right to implement DACA, thereby "refusing to enforce broad swathes of immigration law." The independence of the president vis-à-vis congress seems to depend on who occupies the office.
The courts also encroach on the Executive when they interfere with the debate that should take place between the President (who has veto power) and the legislature. But why would the Executive, if it is "independent" as Barr defines it, even need to debate with congress ? Besides disrupting the dialogue between the president and the congress, Barr says, the judicial branch also interferes with the President's "prudential judgment." The courts are mired in bothersome evidentiary standards such as the preponderance of evidence or guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Some decisions draw on deep qualities of personal character: prudence, humility, empathy, foresight. It is therefore wrong for the courts to employ their desiccated formulae to undermine the personal judgment of the president who, alone, can make these judgment calls. Note that when Mr. Barr was making these remarks the president was Donald J. Trump. One would have to believe absolutely in rule by one to assign this much discretion to the presidential office when one of them could be a person like Trump. Barr abuses the concept of office to excuse the failures of the man who holds it.
At the same time that the Attorney General exaggerates the Executive he disparages the state. His reasons are not political but religious. In his speech to the Federalist Society, Barr contrasts "so-called progressives" to "conservatives." Those on the left treat "politics as their religion" and "seek an earthly paradise." In Barr's view, progressives are deceived by a false, secular religion. "In pursuit of an abstract ideal of perfection," their "deific end" justifies "whatever means they use." Typically, Barr stigmatizes all liberals with the excesses of history's worst examples: those who resort to "any means." His description may fit Leninists or Stalinists, but not left-of-center Americans. In contrast to leftist, Machiavellian ruthlessness, conservatives, he intones, seek the "proper balance of freedom and order necessary for the healthy development of natural civil society and individual human flourishing." For Barr, therefore, everything depends on your ultimate goal. Do you "seek an earthly paradise" or pursue a heaven properly located in the other world? So stark a dichotomy is wrong. The Attorney General deliberately ignores the large numbers who seek to improve conditions on earth (some call it "repairing the world") such as the climate or the distribution of wealth or opportunity, nutrition or healthcare— ethical goals that religious leaders of many faiths have advanced for centuries.
The Attorney General elaborates on his contrast between secular and religious aims more explicitly in his speech to the Law School at the University of Notre Dame (October 11, 2019). Presenting what is actually a top-down argument, but pretending to build from the ground up, Mr. Barr asserts that the founders removed control over citizen behavior from the government and left it to the character of individual citizens. "If you rely on the coercive power of government to impose restraints [on individual rapacity], this will inevitably lead to a government that is too controlling, and you will end up with no liberty, just tyranny." Still, "unless you have some effective restraint, you end up with something equally dangerous, licentiousness . . . another form of tyranny."
To escape the tyranny of licentiousness, Barr invokes moral law which he claims is based on natural law, the visible manifestation, in his view, of divine law. This would serve as the foundation for the absoluteness of his conception. Any abandonment of the moral law, as disseminated by religion, harms society. Human freedom, then, would be subject to authoritative interpretation of divine law, not by the people or by their representatives, but by experts in religion. Consequently, he attacks what he calls "modern secularists" for their "moral relativism," which, by definition, is not absolute. Individuals who deviate from the moral law should, in his opinion, have to suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, secularists do not allow individuals to pay the price of their wrong behavior because, he says, the state cushions them. By weakening moral restraint, the state actually enables bad behavior. Therefore, in Barr's view, the state acts against the moral law which flows downward like grace from God, not, as the Founders saw the system they established, upwards from the sovereign people. If we did not have popular sovereignty why would the Framers have guaranteed the people the freedom to seek redress of grievances against the government and reserved to the states and the people all powers not specifically assigned to the federal government as specified in the First, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments? Barr is wrong about our constitution. His hierarchy of moral, natural, and divine law is not political philosophy, it is theology. Worse, it is also political.
When China's Xi Jinping got himself voted president for life, Trump joked (March 3, 2018), "I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day." Later, on July 22, 2019, in China, and pretending to be the only president ever to tackle delicate trade issues, Trump joked "I am the Chosen One." Following the "I alone" statement, this pattern is not random. These are not jests—especially to the Evangelical component of his base that is prone to believe in them. The President can later deny that he meant them, but receptive ears hear them with gratitude and faith. Always credit the President's rapturous exclamations over his later efforts to walk them back. They are far closer to his actual meaning than the revisions scripted for him by a circle of advisers in charge of damage control. Nor is Trump alone in his belief that he is chosen. Caleb Parke of Fox News wrote two articles (May 13 and June 25, 2020) that identify religious leaders such as Franklin Graham, who either share the President's delusion or helped foster it in the first place. Widespread among Evangelicals is the idea that God appointed Trump to save the country. Parke lists prominent members of the government who agree, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Energy Secretary Ben Carson, and former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
How does this relate to William Barr? The hierarchy of moral to natural to divine law did not spring from his own head. It dates from the Middle Ages and includes an element not even he dares acknowledge. Without saying so, Barr is reading royal theocracy, better known as the divine right of kings, into our constitution. Here is the theory. Just as the universe has one Creator and one providential Ruler, just as reason rules the soul, and the heart the body, so should one divinely guided power rule the world: the emperor (in the early days) or the king. Less scholastically, there was this maxim: "The law of the land is in the breast of the king." This unitary principle does belong to our constitution when applied to the carefully defined Executive, but not when carried any farther, as Barr does. When blended with Trump's so-called jests about being unique and ruling for life and exploiting the religious overtones of being the chosen one, the threat of a supposedly divinely guided monarchy gets way too loud for this American's ears. If you want to know what spirit animates our country, let's go back to Thomas Paine: "In America, the law is king."
Has this monarchist infection gone beyond the inner circles of Trump's cabinet or the very committed Evangelical base? Consider what happened in July, 2020, when the Republicans abdicated their responsibility to define a program for the coming administration, should their candidate win the election. The pandemic prevented the Platform Committee from meeting in person, but not from deliberating. Instead, like faithful serfs to a lord or like good subjects of a sovereign, they said that if had they met, the RNC "would have undoubtedly unanimously agreed to reassert the Party's strong support for President Donald Trump and his Administration." Really? "Undoubtedly unanimously?" This is intellectual bullying. It allows no room for dissent or even doubt. The party assimilates its goals to the notions of its head, like the limbs of a body. This is monarchy, especially when the president is assumed to be an instrument of God or, as Barr puts it, a defense against godless, secular, moral relativism.
Since we, the people, have the power, we should employ it against this monarchical threat to our republic and vote these deluded people out of office.
Not Too Nice
August 19, 2020 by Alan Bernstein 2 Comments
[Information learned after posting has been added at end.]
During the run-up to the First Gulf War, when the U. S. led an international coalition to force Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1990, James Baker advised George H. W. Bush that he could ignore the disfavor his rescue of Kuwait might arouse among America's Jews, because "they don't vote for us anyway." Although the Secretary of State's cynical attitude addressed only Jewish Americans at that time, now, under Donald Trump, the Republican category of despised others has expanded to marginalize all minorities, especially when they tend to be Democrats.
It is interesting that Trump never or rarely refers to people of color as such, which is hardly remarkable for someone who made his reputation ridiculing political correctness. "People of color" (a term of art, it would seem, used only by academics, journalists, and other elites Trump scorns) belong to the groups Trump wants to send back to what he calls "the shithole countries." They are brown and black, Muslim, and female. And opponents — those he terms "low IQ," "horrible," "weak," "nasty." They are "animals."
President Trump and his supporters seek to diminish these people they despise. Exploiting the well worn dog whistles of populism, he charms his base using his and their racism to assure them that, being white, they are superior to these "others," the people Trump calls "losers." By this strategy, he seeks to boost the ego and consolidate the in-group bonding of stereotypical white Americans – especially those left unemployed by globalization (exporting jobs), affirmative action (they think), and every other current in the present culture they don't like: women's reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, religions other than their own (all religions but one being evil), and recipients of public funding, like everyone who receives food stamps or Medicaid or any other "handouts" to "parasites." This is the classic strategy of the ruling class: divide and conquer. They flatter underpaid, under-educated whites, who also lack adequate medical insurance, with the illusion that they are superior to equally persecuted people of color to prevent an alliance that would be irresistible. It must be a thrill to hear them complain, as Arlie Hochschild reports (Strangers in Their Own Land, 221), "There are fewer and fewer white Christians like us."
Because that strategy has worked so well, now the ruling class has only to prevent people of color and their liberal allies from voting. Trump made this goal explicit on March 30, when he said on Fox news that high levels of voting (not just mail in, but all voting) would mean "you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again." This strategy builds on long-standing gimmicks dating back to the Jim Crow South that have now spread wherever Republicans control the statehouse: have fewer polling places in strategically chosen areas (inner-city zip codes), limit the hours polls are open, restrict early voting, enforce voter ID laws with abusive strictness. If citizens wish to vote from home, cripple the postal service to prevent voting by mail — or try to.
These measures are shocking enough because they so clearly attack democracy, but the appearance of the coronavirus gave this unscrupulous, vindictive, authoritarian bully of a president a new opportunity. He chose to downplay the virus and allowed it to hit those already exploited, vulnerable populations. As early as April 12, 2020, Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced that in Michigan, "Some 14 percent of Michiganders are African-American, yet more than 40 percent of COVID-19 related deaths in Michigan are African Americans." It was not only Democratic governors who made this analysis. A story in the Wall Street Journal of April 8, 2020, had already observed the problem as big-city mayors began to take action. In another Journal article of April 22, 2020, Dr. Lauren Weber of Meharry Medical College analyzes the causes of this situation: those people disproportionately dying from the virus live in multi-generational households, hold essential jobs that put them in close contact with many others. They are more prone than whites to have underlying conditions that derive from the environments in which their poverty forces them to live (in crowded, urban areas, near polluted, industrial zones, or, even in the country, near the open air lagoons of factory farms). The same holds for whites who live in similar circumstances, but Blacks live there in disproportionate numbers. If essential workers were paid a living wage, this situation would change. Given the erratic, state-by-state implementation of Medicaid, the availability of health insurance falls unevenly on people of color. The Kaiser Family Foundation has published a graph detailing the "Percent of Nonelderly Adults who are Uninsured, by Race/Ethnicity, 2014." Of the nonelderly adults with no medical insurance, 11% are white, 16% are Black, and 27% are Hispanic. So, even if these patients recover from a bout of Covid-19, they will not be able to handle the resultant medical bills. The inequity that these figures make predictable continued for at least four months. As of August 8, 2020, adjusting for age difference in race groups, 3.6 times more Blacks and 3.2 times more Hispanics have died, nationwide, than whites. Moreover, the absolute numbers (as opposed to ratios) are astonishing. Between April 15 and August 15, 2020, Covid-19 infected 4,726,003 and killed 141,386 Americans. The chronology here is vital. By mid-April at the latest, the disproportionate impact of the pandemic was clear. If outsize harm, especially for the most vulnerable, was to be averted, immediate action was needed.
WHAT ACTION? TESTS!
The dangers deriving from the novelty of this unknown virus were apparent early on. Some early tests used in China were inaccurate up to 47% of the time, but even in this country, even now, the tests are inadequate in number, in reply time, and in accuracy. Supplies such as swabs for collecting samples have been in short supply. Chemical ingredients have been impure. Given the resulting disorder, only patients with symptoms could get tested. Tragically, though, infected people do not manifest symptoms until about the fourth day, so they could still transmit their disease before their illness manifested itself. In crowded conditions, these circumstances were a recipe for great suffering and, indeed, death. In July the CDC circulated a paper by Le Chang, et al., based in Beijing with this advice: "As more asymptomatic cases occur, screening donors for viral RNA with high-sensitivity assays, as we are doing in Hubei Province, will be critical to ensure blood safety." That means testing even people with no symptoms. In China, they began that policy by January 25, according to these authors. Drawing on information from Johns Hopkins University, as early as March 9, the Wall Street Journal explained the problem of asymptomatic incubation periods and the need for quarantines. These facts make extensive testing imperative. The need was clear by mid-March at the latest. In this country it was not done.
The disadvantages people of color endure make them likely to vote Democratic. 83% of Blacks, 63% of Hispanic voters are or lean Democratic, whereas, among whites, 53% are or lean Republican and 42% Democratic. That is one reason President Trump has ordered the U. S. Census takers to end their data collection a month early. If there are "fewer" of them, they will have less representation. It would also follow that, as Reuters put it on August 13, Trump used (or tried to use) the new coronavirus relief bill to block "Democrats' effort to include funds for the U.S. Postal Service and election infrastructure" and so "to block more Americans from voting by mail during the pandemic." The two policies reinforce one another:
REDUCE THEIR VOTE, REDUCE THEIR NUMBER.
Given the evident inequity that afflicts our most vulnerable populations, Trump's despised losers and Democrats, it is hardly surprising that he offered no comprehensive initiative to combat the infection's spread. Neither Donald Trump nor Howard Baker is the first Republican strategist to aim at a given minority group. In 1981, when describing Richard Nixon's famed "Southern Strategy," Lee Atwater, an advisor to Ronald Reagan and chair of the RNC under George H. W. Bush, approved abandoning explicit use of the N-word in shaping policy and instead recommended more neutral-seeming measures such as cutting taxes: "economic things, and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites."
Trump also had his own priorities. In order to allow business to continue as usual and avert the economic costs of sheltering in place, and because he thought its predictions were too negative and its scientific judgments contradicted his own intuitions, Trump purged scientists he considered disloyal to him and effectively crippled the CDC. In this weakened state, the CDC now proposes measures not as mandates but only as "recommendations" because they are contrary to Trump's dream of a smoothly functioning economy not distracted by the health needs of the population. Besides, the racial minorities or ethnic groups disproportionately affected by the virus generally vote for his opponents. So Trump continued to ignore the virus or deliberately underestimate its impact. "It's just like the flu." "It will just disappear." He offered no centralized, federal plan to distribute needed equipment (testing supplies, respirators, PPE). He allowed the pandemic to spread knowing it would disproportionately impact people of color, his target. This calculated policy of inaction during the first 6 months of the virus's presence in the U. S. was achieving the desired result:
Here are the measures the Trump administration took or deliberately did not take with devastating disregard to the injury that would follow. He withdrew from international organizations, thus reducing the extent of global scientific cooperation. He left the American seat on the World Health Organization's executive board vacant until May, 2020, when that "lapse" became too embarrassing. He removed "disloyal" staff from CDC. He dismantled "The Global Health Security and Biodefense Unit" in charge of national pandemic preparedness set up under Obama by Susan Rice as part of the National Security Council. And, as the keystone of his efforts to expose the very poor and unemployed to whatever illness might strike them, Trump dismantled Obamacare, as far as he was able. He has encouraged or pressured Republican governors (Abbot, DeSantis, Doucey, Edwards, Kemp, for example) not to order their states to wear masks, practice social distancing, and close businesses like bars and restaurants that involve close personal contact. He has actively opposed the expansion of diagnostic tests because he thinks tests embarrass him by revealing cases. Consistent with his xenophobia, Trump's bans on immigration have deprived us of health caregivers. "The Trump administration's policies have exacerbated the problem by reducing the influx of immigrants, who make up a quarter of long-term caregivers." This goes with a neglect of public health administration because, as Ed Yong puts it, Americans view "health as a matter of personal responsibility rather than a collective good." Indeed the Republican scorn for the word "public" feeds into this prejudice, as does the belief that the government should be as small as possible. These attitudes call for budget cuts and the reduction of staff responsible for public health. The reasons for these disparities follow from other policies favored by Trump and the Republicans. Don't just scorn them, let them die. "They don't vote for us anyway."
How can people like those in Trump's base, who object fiercely, on grounds of conscience, to being forced into complicity (through government payments for medical care that funds birth control and abortion) force us into complicity, against our conscience, with a policy that causes disease, suffering, unknown long-term consequences, and death for their living fellow citizens? Trump and his faithful accuse us of "cancel culture" for removing statues while he himself tries to cancel segments of our population. Our military proudly displays its promise to "leave no one behind" and heroically rescues those in trouble. We might expect this ethical system to spread and benefit all Americans, but rather than "leave no one behind," we get efforts to "push them behind," with the weight of the administration, like the knee of Derek Chauvin on the neck of George Floyd, to hold down persons of color, women, liberals, Democrats, and all those despised "others." Some ascribe this indifference to Trump's callousness, his lack of empathy. These results, they say, are indirect, collateral damage resulting from his obsession with the economy to the neglect, as the Constitution puts it, of "the general welfare." That analysis is inadequate. We all navigate between the pursuit of health and wealth, but Trump places the wealth of a few over the health of the many. This is not just negligence. Remember how Trump advised police not to be "too nice" to suspects as they arrest them; not to bother shielding their heads as they put them into squad cars? In our country, arrestees, suspects, are innocent until proven guilty. No harm should come to them until sentenced by a jury of their peers. Given the racial makeup of police arrests in this country, winking at rough treatment encourages it. There is a word for this de facto, systematic mistreatment of large populations. I hate to pronounce or even write it, because it is happening in my own country. Before the coronavirus, it was "merely" persecution. Now, with widespread death in the picture, it is more than criminal neglect. It is genocide. OK, maybe only murder.
NEW INFORMATION.
Update 1. August 23, 2020. As many as 215,000 more people than usual died in the U.S. during the first seven months of 2020, suggesting that the number of lives lost to the coronavirus is significantly higher than the official toll. And half the dead were people of color—Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and, to a marked degree unrecognized until now, Asian Americans. . . . People of color make up just under 40 percent of the U.S. population but accounted for approximately 52 percent of all the "excess deaths" above normal through July, according to an analysis by The Marshall Project and The Associated Press.
Update 2. August 29, 2020. In testimony first before the Senate and then the House, on August 21 and 24th respectively, Donald Trump's new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, promised that changes he wishes to effectuate in running the USPS would not be implemented until after the election. Today, however, the San Francisco Chronicle's Lauren Hernandez reports that 6 mailboxes have been removed from their accustomed places in downtown Oakland. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports even more systematically distributed issues in its metropolitan area.
Update 3. Sept. 5, 2020. Paul Weyrich, key political advisor to Republicans, founder of the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and, with Jerry Falwell, the Moral Majority, clearly understood the need for voter suppression. He had this to say: "I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down. " Not "voters," but "voting populace."
Update 4. Sept. 9, 2020. Donald Trump's taped interviews with Bob Woodward, revealed an hour ago, establish that, by February 4, the President was fully cognizant of the danger the virus posed. Already then he understood the implication of its being airborne. This shift in chronology is crucial. The longer he knew and the clearer his knowledge, the more deliberate his inaction and the more certainly he is guilty of murder by omission.
Update 5. Oct. 3, 2020. Two days ago, Thursday, Oct 1, at about 1:00 AM East Coast time, the White House announced that President Trump had tested positive for Covid-19. But today, Saturday, Oct. 3, Dr. Sean Conley announced at Walter Reed Hospital that the President had first tested positive "72 hours ago." That would put the date of the positive test on September 30, about 36 hours before Mr. Trump's condition was publicized. No statement by the White House on this situation is accurate. The Trump people have concealed when he last tested negative, whether he gets tested daily, as they have repeatedly said, or how serious a case he has. Because a person can be contagious before symptoms appear, it is possible that the President was infected at the time of his debate with Joe Biden in Cleveland on September 29th. Then, because he and his entourage refused to wear masks, he and they could have spread the disease to the Biden party, who did wear masks. Most important: on Thursday, Oct. 1, even knowing that he had already tested positive for Covid-19, Trump went to a fund-raiser for wealthy donors at his golf course in Bedminster, NJ and mingled with influential, wealthy people from around the country. This is not negligence; this is reckless endangerment. Whatever the crime (homicide, manslaughter), it is wrong for an infected person to knowingly expose others, especially others who had gathered to offer him their support. Matt Friedmann of Politico quotes Peg Schaffer, a local Democratic leader, who calls Trump's behavior "unfathomably selfish." Note that some accounts, such as in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post go with a slightly different chronology. In this schema, it was only Hope Hicks who had already tested positive before Bedminster, and the President would have tested positive only on Thursday evening, possibly after Bedminster, with the announcement coming at about 1:00 AM on Friday morning.
Update 6. October 5, 2020. Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman of the NYTimes report today that President Trump's first got a positive reading on a "rapid" test in the evening of Thursday, Oct. 3, after Bedminster. Later that night, a more sophisticated PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test was done that was also positive. Soon thereafter, the President tweeted out the result. It seems, then, he did not test positive prior to his fund raiser at Bedminster, but he did go there knowing that his close associate Hope Hicks was already showing symptoms and had isolated herself on the plane ride back from Cleveland. Kayleigh McEnany (not known for her honesty) asserted that the President did not learn of Hicks's positive test until Thursday, just as he was about to board the helicopter to go to New Jersey. As for the President, "the first positive test he received (i.e. the rapid one) was after he returned from Bedminster." A chronology published today by Christina Morales and Allyson Waller of the NYTimes also states that although Hope Hicks had been obviously ill on Wednesday, her positive test results were known only on Thursday "as Mr. Trump left the White House by helicopter around 1 p. m." to go to Bedminster. This implies that it would have been too late to call off the trip. However, Hicks had clearly been ailing for much of the previous day while traveling in close connection with the President, who was therefore exposed in close quarters over an extended period to a symptomatic person.
Shortchanged !
July 4, 2020 by Alan Bernstein 9 Comments
Those who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 have not got what they wanted. Between their hopes and his performance, there is a great disconnect. The coalition that backed 2016 candidate Trump falls into five sometimes overlapping categories. Let's consider them one-by-one.
Business conservatives measure the country's strength by its economy and its openness to entrepreneurial creativity. They seek to provide goods and services, to employ others, to gain profit, accumulate wealth and pass it on to their children. Many favored Trump as a fellow business owner and assumed he would think as they do. Yet Trump is a negative example. He ridicules expertise, rejects information contrary to his intuitions, and lies. Who would hire such a man?
Trump poses as a friend to business, but he is not. He opposes open competition, promotes his own family's interests, those of his donors, and some industries over others. He manipulates markets with arbitrarily imposed tariffs (a hidden tax) and mistakenly identifies the country's well-being with the stock market thereby favoring short-term over long-term thinking. His myopia incurs tremendous costs. The country will benefit most from industries geared to succeed in markets that are open, not manipulated to reward a select few. Investors avoid uncertainty, but he governs arbitrarily.
Trump's tax policies are counter-productive. Yes, his 2017 reform simplified tax filing (almost doubling the standard deduction), temporarily lowered tax rates for each bracket, and increased the child tax credit until 2025, but permanently reduced the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, increased the allowance for tax-free inheritance from $11 to $22 million, and continued a 20% "pass through" or "carried interest" deduction that favors larger businesses. These regressive policies deny opportunity, squelch creativity, and reduce competition. What's more, since the tax cut and before the coronavirus arrived, the GDP and corporate tax receipts surged momentarily and have since declined. Fiscal conservatives should be concerned.
Libertarians see taxes as a "taking" by the government, whose size must be minimized. Individual rights are their core value. Obligations cannot be imposed, rights not removed. Guns may be owned, consciences protected, expert recommendations for health (such as in the current Covid-19 pandemic) ignored, because each citizen is autonomous—free from the nanny state. Yet this individualism weakens the ties between neighbors, between employers and employees, vendors and their clients, citizens and their representatives. Moreover, freedom is not absolute. Free speech is limited as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes illustrated with the example of crying "Fire!" in a crowded theater. The law prohibits deceptive advertising and requires accurate labeling. Appeal to conscience cannot promote discrimination because discrimination violates the rights of others.
There's a point where individual rights collide. Wearing face masks in the present pandemic is an excellent example. If you exercise your freedom not to wear a mask, you may infect me; but I have a right to my health. There are times when everyone should hunker down in cooperation with everyone else. By ostentatiously refusing to wear a face mask, the President promotes not libertarian, individual rights, but infection. His action undermines libertarian thought by reducing it to the absurd.
Respect for the individual rights might be Trump's strongest suit were it not for his idiosyncratic abuse of the principle. In a president whose function our constitution delimited very carefully, his rejection of norms is destructive. His demands of personal loyalty, vindictive treatment of critics, repeated lying, and self-contradiction weaken the ideal. He said so himself at Mount Rushmore last night as he falsely projected his own crimes onto his opponents: "driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission . . . [are] the very definition of totalitarianism." Libertarian principles require critical thinking, not obedience. Trump's use of the bullying tactics he pretends to deplore, exposes in him the very tyranny against which libertarians consider themselves the most stalwart defenders.
Patriotism connects citizens as individuals to the country as a community. Yet Trump debases those bonds. We should take pride in our achievements without putting others down. Disparaging countries with lower standards of living as "shitholes," characterizing Latin American immigrants as "drug dealers, criminals, and rapists," using the crimes of a few to smear all Muslims as terrorists, while —at home— praising violent bigots as "very good people" undercuts our reputation. Certainly, we must, as a people, define our own identity. "You can't have a country without borders," a conservative told me. Right. But if we are the country that the most outspoken, self-declared patriots claim it to be, we will bond among ourselves according to exemplary principles.
Those principles are already enshrined in the constitution, specifically in the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, that abolish slavery, provide due process, equal protection, and voting rights. The constitution is a complex web of provisions —not just the Second Amendment, as the President seems to think. It is also an agenda. We still need to correct some of its initial compromises on women's rights, the horrible legacy of slavery, and our oppression of native Americans. With these wrongs corrected, our patriotism will be more easily exportable and our pride will shine brighter.
Our advancement of science, innovations in medicine, technology, the arts and education, are areas where, especially in the post-war period, we have stood out among nations and even in world history. Sadly, the President disparages these achievements. He encourages a mindless anti-elitism that lowers our goals and saps our national ambition. Even if libertarians and business conservatives wish to reduce the federal government, its personnel should still be an all-star cast, an Olympic team. Yet Trump and his cabinet members (often temporary and therefore not vetted by the Senate) have silenced or expelled from agencies that formerly provided leadership for this country and for the world experts and scientists who question erroneous beliefs cherished in the White House or pushed by top interest groups. OSHA is one example. They have made its coronavirus guidelines for workers in close quarters mere recommendations that can be ignored with impunity. They have weakened the once prestigious Center for Disease Control to the point that, as of today, leading medical schools can no longer rely on its reports. Consequently, our efforts against the coronavirus dramatically lag behind those of other countries. Under Trump, our national reputation suffers.
National defense is perhaps the principal job of the Commander in Chief. Patriotic fervor marches in step with military success and national security. Coming of age in the 'fifties, with relatives and teachers and cherished older friends who were Word War II veterans, I once knew this feeling. In the meantime, many presidents have erred, but perhaps none so egregiously as Donald Trump. He has undermined resistance to Russia, made a secret and therefore unenforceable deal with Kim Jong-un, and delivered our friends the Kurds to Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan. Like these despots who share his own authoritarian personality, he discounts the advice of his defense and intelligence institutions. America is no longer first among nations.
Religious conservatives are vital to Donald Trump's support. They respect moral purity in the sense of correct sexual behavior and therefore resisted divorce and premarital sex. Now they oppose same-sex marriage and abortion. To implement these prohibitions, they invoke the First Amendment and stress the freedom clause over the establishment clause. But how can they deny the symmetry the Founders instituted between those two tendencies? "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or infringing the free exercise thereof." The two —designedly— oppose each other like the constitution's other checks and balances. Their insistence ignores the threat the Founders feared most: imposition of a single, official religion on their new nation. If that's what they wanted, they had a king. Yet Donald Trump courts the support of dogmatic backers whose sole interpretation of what is right should be, they say, the law of the land. Libertarians and others who appeal to conscience should reject such an infringement of our liberties.
Although religious conservatives don't stress it much, religious teachings also encompass correct behavior towards one another. "Love your neighbor as yourself." Of the Good Samaritan, Jesus commanded: "Go and do likewise." The New Testament enjoins generous behavior towards "the least" among us. Judaism and Islam similarly elevate care for others as a moral obligation. The rabbinic sages as well declared that "the righteous of all nations have a portion in the world to come," thereby sensitizing the community to outsiders of good will. These injunctions impose on all of us an obligation to care for others. But, in courting opponents of abortion rights, Donald Trump backs those with the most limited view of religion, sexual purity. That's actually very funny.
Here religious and business perspectives go in the same direction. Just as religion prescribes care for the stranger, so business rewards the objective evaluation of every individual's talents. But Trump's anti-immigration policy discourages precisely the kind of people business conservatives should welcome: daring, enterprising people willing to endure hardship and tackle the unknown. Acceptance of these immigrants would elevate both entrepreneurial and religious values. But, erecting barriers of ethnicity, race, religion, and class, Trump says "no."
Constitutionalists. Many of the 2016 Trump backers hoped to limit government to increase their own freedom of action: to conduct business, to bear arms, to exclude undesirables, to prohibit immorality. They were tired of "legislation from the Bench." The appointment of conservative judges and Supreme Court justices would support these goals, they thought. Although he invoked "the law of society and nature" at Mount Rushmore yesterday, he has consistently violated the rule of law. Ignoring the 10th Amendment, he declared "When someone is president of the United States the authority is total," hoping to combat the coronavirus pandemic by dictating to the states' governors. In opposition to long established procedures of inquiry, his obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation was so consistent that Robert Mueller could only conclude that he could not be exonerated. The president's authoritarian personality directly opposes the Supreme Court's motto: "equal justice under law." The president is a citizen, not a king. In choosing Trump, constitutionalists got shortchanged.
Conclusion. Trump has therefore betrayed all these voters. Millions have donated, invested even, in this no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is, non-conformist, often-bankrupt billionaire. They expected reinforcement of their worldview and possibly an improved economic outlook. But no hoped-for personal, financial, or ideological benefit should outweigh the duty to protect our constitution and our country. Patriotism, constitutionalism, faith, and allegiance to country should mean more than loyalty to one party's leader. Fortunately, our constitution allows us to dismiss this self-serving, vindictive, autocratic, incompetent president. Given his authoritarianism, if we do not replace him now, we may never have another chance. Therefore, on this Fourth of July before the 2020 election, I urge Trump's 2016 voters to repudiate him and begin as soon as possible to work for his defeat in November.
ON ADDING COMMENTS
Substantive Wrongs
Static Action
Race: How We Got Here
Sanctuary for Immigrants
Conscience and Citizenship
Tackling Socialism
The Amygdala Between Kindness and Cruelty
Charity and Taxes
Altruistic Living Kidney Donation
Altruism in Cells
Two Rescues: A Tale for TEMPO
G7 Remarks
Radical Restraint
Introducing TEMPO and HUP
Business Friendly, Friendly Business?
Liberalism is Conservative
On Conversation
Reflecting Broad Spectrum
Leaning Right
AynRand.org
Leaning Left
Compassion and Altruism
Stanford CCARE
Effective Altruism
Alan Bernstein on Collusion Collision
Katie Jasper on Collusion Collision
Jeff Kelley on Collusion Collision
Véronique Plesch on Collusion Collision
Text Danehower on Collusion Collision


text:
Dog owners held responsible for riding accident ordered to pay €815,000
Sarah Radford 11 March, 2019 07:04
Two dog owners in France have been ordered to pay €815,000 (£743,000) in compensation and costs after they were held responsible for a serious riding accident — despite the fact their pets did not come within 10m of a horse.
One rider — referred to only as Audrey E — suffered brain damage in a fall while out hacking with a friend.
The French court of appeal ruling described how two dogs suddenly ran out in front of the horses, causing one of them to spook.
The dogs' owners took the case to appeal, arguing they would only have been responsible if they had an active role in the accident. They also said that the dogs had not gone near the horses or behaved in an unusual or aggressive way.
The claimant's counsel countered that the actions of the dogs had been sufficient to cause one of the horses to panic and bolt — an argument supported by the court, which said the experienced rider would not have fallen had the dogs not run out in front of the horses.
The "big dogs" were running free off-lead and had appeared in front of the riders without warning — leading the court to conclude that there was a "casual link" between the dogs' behaviour and the accident.
"Dog owners must make sure that their dogs do not scare animals or people encountered on a public path," the ruling said.
The compensation and costs are expected to be met by the dog owners' insurance policies, under their responsabilité civile cover.
Hannah Bradley, solicitor at The Equine Law Firm, said the French court had set an "extreme precedent" and a similar decision was unlikely in the UK.
"French legislation regarding dog ownership has been, in recent years, robustly amended as a result of increased political pressure following a series of fatal dog attacks and apparently so as to encourage the requirement for careful policing of dog ownership," she explained.
"French legislation categorises dogs by breed, and imposes certain requirements on owners in accordance with the category. Owners also have an obligation not to allow their dogs to stray more than 100m from their property."
Ms Bradley said that in the UK, injury and damage caused by dogs is regulated by the Animals Act 1971 and that because dogs are categorised as "non-dangerous species", owners would only be liable for damage in specific circumstances. Claimants would need to show that:
– The damage suffered was of a kind likely to be caused unless the dogs were restrained, or was likely to be severe if caused by the dogs
– The likelihood of the damage is due to the characteristics of the dogs which are not normally found in dogs, or not normally found except in particular times or particular circumstances
– The characteristics were known to the keepers of the dogs.
'My hat saved me': rider trampled in dog attack
The hat was 'totally smashed' as it did its job of protecting the rider from a kick to the head
Filly missing ear after suspected dog attack makes 'marvellous' recovery
'It was only later we discovered she had lost the bottom of her tongue which was why she couldn't feed'
"The exact circumstances of how the dogs were acting is not clear, but it is possible that if the dogs were simply running across the road, or even barking when the incident happened, the owners of the dogs would be able to argue that the behaviour demonstrated was normal for their species, and successfully defend the claim if it occurred in the UK," Ms Bradley said.
She noted that biting does not fall under behaviour UK courts considered "normal" for a dog.
"Keepers of animals will usually be able to protect their position by securing a policy of insurance with a reputable insurer. However, cases which seemingly widen the scope of potential liability for accidents (which will be closely followed by insurers) are likely to increase the premiums which animals owners are required to pay," she added.


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Published December 8, 2022 3:44 PM
Brian Brohm to serve as Purdue's interim coach for bowl game
By MICHAEL MAROT
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) — Purdue offensive coordinator Brian Brohm will serve as the Boilermakers interim coach for their Citrus Bowl game against No. 17 LSU. Athletic director Mike Bobinski made the announcement shortly after Brohm's older brother, Jeff, left Purdue to become the new head coach at Louisville. Co-defensive coordinator Mark Hagen will call the defensive signals on Jan. 2. Bobinski says he's already begun searching for Jeff Brohm's replacement. He says he'd like to keep Brian Brohm and Hagen on staff. He wouldn't say whether either will be interviewed for the top job.


Learn to design and code your own mobile app & see it live on your phone! Apps are everywhere! But have you ever wondered what goes into the making of an app? In this course, students will learn how to use human-centered design to build a game/animation (mobile) app using App Inventor 2 platform. App Inventor is an intuitive, visual programming environment that allows everyone - even children - to build fully functional apps for smartphones and tablets. Deploy the app on their own phones & empower them with the potential to impact the world! Keepin' it Short & Snappy For kids ages 10-13 8 weeks 2h/week (16 hours in total) Design, Code & Deploy your very own app No pre-requisites, but we recommend completing Scratch levels 1 and 2 before joining this workshop. Open Source Tools: Continue the learning at home "My kids had a blast & came home armed with knowledge & information which they were excited to share with us." - Joanne, Parent "There's an app for that!" The world 10 years ago was real different. There were phones... but no smartphones just yet (real popular ones I mean). Would we have imagined that now entire businesses are built on apps? It's become an essential part of our lives, impacting us in so many ways. Spotify, Uber, Pokemon Go! (ok, maybe not the last one for me) Now imagine if anyone, even kids, could go from playing with your phones, to creating their own apps & making that same lasting impact on your lives. Wouldn't that be awesome? The good news is... it's easy to get started & you'd be amazed at what kids can build. This is the App Inventor 2 coding editor. App Inventor 2 is like Scratch - a visual programming language that allows kids to drag, drop and connect code blocks together to build their own games & animations. Instructors walk students through the fundamental programming concepts of developing the mobile app such as datatype, loops, conditionals, logical sequencing. In addition, instructors also go through popular apps like Google Map and Flappy Bird to help students understand what makes a great mobile app. In this Mobile App Development course, kids combine User Centered Design theory and techniques with more advanced programming concepts to build mobile apps that are fun, engaging and intuitive. See how easy that was? It's almost... magical. We can't wait to see the apps that your kids can come up with. Oh! The Stuff you'll learn! Introduction & History of the mobile app Getting started on App Inventor Design & Wireframing the User Interface Using cameras, sensors of the phone Working with databases Share & Present... on your phone Life Skills Learnt Logical Thinking Problem Solving Design Thinking Presentation Skills Pedagogy No lectures. No memorisation. No ONE right answer. Like real life, we're all about trying things out, failing, figuring what went wrong & trying again. These are the skills & mindset that will last a lifetime. Let's get kids to learn how to learn. Because the kids who learn to learn become curious, inventive, resourceful human beings who solve real world problems to make meaningful impact. Parents love us "...and for the first time he is not running to play other people's creations but his own... I am absolutely delighted in the 'mindset' change in my son's attitude." - Emma, Parent "Thank you for a wonderful and exciting enrichment program that is so much more than academics.. it's fun but for me as a mum, an important future skill set for my son."- Rachel, Parent Got more questions on this course of awesomeness? Read our FAQ section below! Call us & we'll call you back! +65 3159 0980 Email us! hello@saturdaykids.com Frequently Asked Questions 1. My child is new to computers & programming. Will he/she be able to follow? Although there are no pre-requisites for the Mobile App course, we recommend kids complete levels 1 and 2 of Scratch before joining this workshop. 2. My child is younger than 10. Can he/she join? The Mobile Madness! Make your Magical App course is recommended for kids who are 10 and above. Get in touch with us if you'd like a recommendation for your child. 3. I've enrolled my child, what will he/she need to bring? We'll provide all equipment and materials, but you may want to bring a jacket and light snacks in case he/she gets hungry. Please note: This workshop will proceed with a minimum of 4 tickets sold. We will inform you in advance if the workshop is cancelled. Refunds will be made accordingly. Unless otherwise notified, the workshop will go ahead. We will be filming and taking photographs of the children in our workshop. By registering a child's attendance at this workshop, parents/guardians grant Saturday Kids a perpetual licence to use the student's work, photographs or videos of the student, and other materials for purposes such as publicising or promoting our workshops/events and the students' accomplishments on Saturday Kids' website or on our partners' websites.
Sorry, you missed Mobile Madness! Make your M... at Saturday Kids @ Bukit Timah.
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The conference takes place at the Conference Center Orthodox Academy of Crete which is located near Kolymbari village, ca. 40 Kilometers from Chania airport.
Please inform the conference organizers about your arrival and departure details, in order to arrange some transfer from Chania airport / city.
Participants being in Chania, are kindly requested to go to the airport in order to use this transfer.
Alternatetively the public bus service from Chania airport to Chania city can be found in the page KTEL bus info (airport-Chania).
From the Bus station in Chania city to Kolymbari village, regular bus connections exist, see last Line in the page KTEL bus routes from Chania city.
A taxi drive from Chania airport to the venue should cost around 60 Euros.


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Showtime Anytime app, now with Live TV
Christian Zibreg on July 30, 2013
If you watch cable on your iPhone and iPad, you're probably aware of the Showtime Anytime iOS app which gives subscribers on-demand access to every single episode of a dozen exclusive Showtime TV shows, plus championship boxing and 60 Minute Sports.
But Showtime fans have long been yearning for the ability to watch live television programming on their iPhone, iPod and iPad devices and now their prayers have been heard…
The new Showtime Anytime version 2.0 has surfaced today on the App Store, bringing with it a major new feature: Live TV. If you're a cable subscriber, you can now use the software to tune in and enjoy currently airing live Showtime programming on your iOS device.
This release also includes minor bug fixes as well as improved stability and performance.
if you're subscribed to cable through AT&T U-verse, Comcast Xfinity, DirecTV, Optimum and Verizon FiOS, download the new Showtime Anytime free of charge.
App Updates
HBO GO picks up support for Single sign-on and Apple's new TV app
TV provider Cable ONE & ESPN/WatchESPN apps gain support for Single Sign-On feature
You can now stream Facebook videos to your TV while browsing your News Feed


LUMINA is run entirely by graduate student volunteers of the Sarah Lawrence College MFA Writing program. We are passionate about placing emerging writers together with established writers, and creating a space for experimental writing to be showcased next to the traditional. Donations from our supporters help us continue our mission.


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10 That Changed America
Web Exclusive: Monticello, Charlottesville, VA
Clip: Season 1 Episode 2 | 3m 30s
Watch Full Length
Geoffrey Baer interviews an expert on architectural archeology to learn about the restoration of Monticello's Mulberry Row, which served as the industrial hub of the otherwise bucolic estate. Photo credit: Jonathan Hillyer.
10 that Changed America is made possible, in part, by The Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation. Major funding is also provided by Joan and Robert Clifford, The Walter E. Heller Foundation, and other generous supporters.
WTTW Website
Explore the series with original stories, video extras, quizzes, photography, behind-the-scenes adventures and more.


Our Applie Cherry wine is carefully crafted using estate-grown sweet apples perfectly blended with Wisconsin Montmorency cherries resulting in a pleasurable sweet wine. Suggest serve chilled or try warmed in a mug on a cool autumn day.
Service Area: Kenosha, Eau Claire, Oshkosh, Brookfield, New Berlin, Rockford, Naperville, Cedar Rapids, Neenah, Oak Creek and surrounding communities.


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What about my experience, I know that here you can find explanation why homework does not have to be hard. it may be helpful at least for students and teachers.


Umbria, a small region with great tastes, satisfies all palates: the best dish for meat lovers is pork, masterfully treated by Umbrian butchers who turn the meat into delicacies like sausages, tasty hams and salami, like those of Norcia, to eat with unsalted bread that brings out the taste.
The best of Umbria's cheeses are mature pecorino sheep's cheese and fresh or ripe goat's milk cheese.
The lentils of Castelluccio di Norcia, a tasty ingredient for soups, main courses or side dishes, were awarded the PGI mark by the European Union (Protected Geographical Indication).
This rich array of dishes goes hand-in-hand with the genuine quality of the products, including the truffle, the most precious of all. The most common variety is the black truffle, very popular with pasta or with game, especially in the area of Norcia and Spoleto, but more valuable white truffles can be found as well, particularly in the Tiberina Valley, Orvieto and Gubbio.
Everything is seasoned with the golden and fruity olive oil produced in this region, which enhances any dish without upstaging the flavor; Umbrian oil of high quality is awarded with a PDO quality mark (Protected Designation of Origin).
For dessert, you must try the typical Umbrian cake, panpepato, and other regional desserts made according to centuries-old recipes.
Finally, Umbria is particularly suitable for wine growing, and its mild climate gives this land top-quality white and red wines, including, among the many well-known labels, Assisi Grechetto and Sagrantino di Montefalco.


Whenever I make my favorite, garlic-ridden hors d'oeuvres I glean the added benefit of protection from every vampire in the tri-state area courtesy of the garlic that inevitably stays under my nails for weeks. No matter how much I scrub, I can't seem to conquer the smell. Rubbing your hands with salt or baking soda is a tried-and-true remedy, but for another quick fix, look no further than Crate & Barrel's Rub Away Bar, $7.50. Incorporating simple chemistry, the stainless-steel bar reacts with odors on contact to banish them for good, and the clever soap-shaped design is dishwasher-safe for easy cleanup. Stainless steel silverware will also do the trick, but as many happy reviewers note, the small investment might be a useful addition to any wedding gift. — Sarah C.
I was recently gifted the gorgeous Irish linen tablecloth that my great-great grandmother hand stitched. It's flawless — no stains, no tears, no fraying in any bit of the meticulous handiwork. Though honored with the heirloom, I was hesitant to accept it, especially after my mom's conditions for possession: I had to use it. I was dizzy envisioning the inevitable accidental splash of a latte or merlot, until my mom shared her secret for removing stains out of delicate vintage linens: denture tablets. Simply dissolve 5-10 tablets (depending on the size of the item) in a warm bath and soak your delicate fabrics until they are white and stain free. Rinse gently, air dry, and press, and it should be as good as new! It should be noted that this only works on white fabrics, please don't try this with colors! I'm proud to report I'm enjoying the tablecloth and won't let any fear of stains keep it hidden away anymore! — Megan B.
I had a moment of clarity yesterday that struck me as sort of funny. For the past few years I've been covering the drip pans underneath my stove burners with aluminum foil so, when liquid boils over or drips from a spoon, it lands on the foil and the burnt mess easy to clean up. What I discovered, though, is that because I know in my head I can just recycle the foil later, I'm less likely to thoroughly clean up the drips after they happen. I just wait until the foil is sufficiently dirty, take it off and put new foil on. Uh, that's just laziness! It's not like my burner pans are not doing the job… I just don't want to clean them! It's time to stop that nonsense and do a better job picking up after myself. Funny that in my effort to reduce cleaning effort, I just got lazy! Do you have neatness tips that have backfired on you too? — Rebecca F.
post off: do you reap the benefits of a clean bedroom?
Here's the story: You're working on a huge project at work and have been traveling more than usual. Those side projects are moving along as scheduled but your nights and weekends are suddenly mystifyingly busy and by the end of the week you open the fridge and the lay of the land is tipping the scales strongly in favor of condiments. Sound familiar? Well, this is my story right now, and in the ebb and flow of a busy period it's easy to feel like your life, and by default, your home, is a mess. That feeling is amplified in my tiny bedroom, where life's residuals seem to pile up even faster. And every time I have a week that has me crawling over a pile of stuff just to get into bed, I think of the many articles I've seen touting the benefits of going to sleep, and thus waking up, in a clean bedroom. An article over at Apartment Therapy served the latest reminder, and I have to ask: Do you make a point of going to bed in a clean room? Do you make making your bed a ritual? Sound off! – Sarah C.
In this photo: A gorgeous bedscape from the old but invaluable Apartment Therapy post 8 Tricks to Make Making The Bed a Habit.
Now Zip-it! Zip-it good! Sorry — as a big DEVO fan, I had to. But seriously, can we talk about how brilliant the Zip-it is? As someone who seems to shed her abundant long hair as much as our long-haired cat does, our drains slow down often, even with mesh traps and lots of careful cleaning. I'd even taken to unfurling a wire hanger and using it to fish out the nasty stuff that gets down in our shower drain. It took a while, and it seemed to only KINDA make it better. So when I spotted the Zip-it at my local Home Depot for about $3, I figured I'd give it a test run on our sluggish shower drain. Lo and behold, one rip of the Zip-it, and the scariest, grossest tangle of hair goo came up with it, and my drains have been clear ever since. Heck of a lot better than caustic chemicals! And if you don't believe me, take a look at the many photo testimonials on the site (for those blessed with a strong stomach). Find them at your local hardware store, or online, at Amazon. — Megan B.


This is when OSHA conducts its investigations, making sure that the agency's regulations are being followed. If they are not, the company may be accused of violations and cited for them. Worse yet is when OSHA decides that a worker's death could have been prevented, had the company been following these mandates. This is what happened recently after an investigation conducted by the federal regulator was initiated due to the death of a worker in December 2012. According to reports, the man was killed when he was struck by a broken band saw blade.
The OSHA investigation resulted in 17 citations against the company whom the worker was employed by. One of the citations was willful, according to investigators, meaning that the employer either disregarded regulations or was plainly indifferent to the safety of its workers. The citation was issued because the company failed to use control procedures for hazardous energy when un-jamming, cleaning and removing debris from machinery and equipment. This violation allowed many employees to be exposed to dangerous circumstances that could have resulted in more deaths. Along with 14 serious safety violations, this likely contributed to the death of the worker late last year. If you have suffered an injury at work or a loved one has lost her or his life to a job, speak with an experienced attorney on the matter to see what can be done.


They are not running out of money.
This law has been hyped up a lot. I wonder what will happen if the Constitutional Court repeals it.
Not running out of money? Yet there is a budget deficit.
"The shortfall for the 2016-17 fiscal year is estimated at 11.5 billion dinars ($38 billion) or a massive 30 percent of gross domestic product"
A budget deficit does not equate to running out of money. They government is generating less money than it usually does.
Has any major, or even minor, public project been suspended, delayed or cancelled? Did loans and grants to foreign nations stop?
In monetary terms they are not getting the same price for oil as they did previously sending everyone into budget cut mode. Anyways, not my country I'm not going into a debate.
Gee, I guess factors like rising pollution in those areas don't factor in to house sales. Or constant construction (major projects) on the roads. Or higher cost of living/downsizing. Or the fact that Government houses aren't maintained.
There are a lot more factors for the housing market than people being "fraudulent" about their nationality.
All Bidoons were mandated to take DNA testing about a decade ago - at the cost of 85KD per man/woman/child/infant. That is a LOT of money for people who can't get papers to work, to marry, to drive... So, they took the tests. Where are the results??
My personal belief is that things are getting so restrictive and the cost of living is becoming so high that people are selling at profit so that they can move elsewhere (in the country or outside). The areas mentioned have a high Bedouin population. Bedouins usually have very large families. It might be that the children are grown and they are trying to find smaller homes.
So, let's talk about the "fraudulent" side of things: What is DNA testing going to do? Where are most Kuwaitis from? They didn't just pop out of the Earth. The majority of Kuwaiti families originate from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran. There is no such thing as a "pure" Kuwaiti. "Pure" Kuwaitis were nomadic and/or fishermen. So? They had to come from somewhere else. What good is a DNA test?
Yeah... but let's just continue the blame game so that other issues are overlooked. That usually works.


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Q: Superlative: Correct way to use mix "most" and "-est" adjectives/adverbs? To create a superlative, when multiple adjectives/adverbs are preceded by most*, but the latter adjective/adverbs should normally be written with the -est suffix, which one of the two following forms is correct/recommended:

The most incredible and easy path

vs.

The most incredible and easiest path

Here, easy is meant as easiest, not just easy.

A: Because you are linking the two adjectives with and, the most applies to both and you have ended up with most easiest, which is incorrect. "The most incredible and easy path" is correct. While "most easy" is awkward, because it's combined by and with "incredible," it's not only acceptable but the only acceptable expression.
Because most easy is awkward to the point of being wrong, if you were to reverse the order of the adjectives you would need to move most as well:

The easiest and most incredible path

To use easiest and keep incredible first, you need to eliminate the and so that the applicability of most is restricted:

The most incredible, easiest path

Any other adjectives, where they easily form superlatives, must fit the same pattern:

The most incredible, simplest, easiest path
  The most incredible and simple, easiest path

Where an adjective doesn't form a superlative with -est, you have a choice:

The most incredible, magical, simplest path
  The most incredible and magical, simplest path
  The most incredible, magical and simple path

Of these, the first is probably to be preferred.


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Guineas fodboldlandshold er fodboldlandsholdet i Guinea, kontrolleret af Fédération Guinéenne de Football. De har aldrig kvalificeret sig til VM, og deres bedste resultat til de afrikanske mesterskaber er en andenplads (1976).

VM-historie
 1930 til 1962 – Deltog ikke
 1966 – Trak sig
 1970 – Deltagelse ikke godkendt af FIFA
 1974 til 1998 – Ikke kvalificeret
 2002 – Diskvalificeret af FIFA i kvalificeringen
 2006 til 2010 – Ikke kvalificeret

Referencer

Fodboldlandshold i Afrika
Sport i Guinea

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia