The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
Four Bits About Trump
Posted: May 6, 2016 Filed under: America Since 1945, politics, presidents 1 Comment1) Trump as Tim Ferriss
screenshot from Ferriss’ page here: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2007/08/08/the-7-commandments-of-blogosphere-and-life-self-defense/
Does the best analogy come to us from Tim Ferriss, who has written about how he won his weight class 1999 (US) Chinese kickboxing championship by exploiting anomalies in the rules? From Wiki:
Chinese kickboxing
Ferriss has stated that, prior to his writing career, he won in the 165 lb. weight class at the 1999 USAWKF national Sanshou (Chinese kickboxing) championship through a process of shoving opponents out of the ring and by dramatically dehydrating himself before weigh in, and then rehydrating before the fight in order to compete several classes below his actual weight – a practice known as “Weight cutting”.
Ferriss has acknowledged using anabolic steroids, specifically “a number of low-dose therapies, including testosterone cypionate,” under medical supervision following shoulder surgery, as well as using “stacks” consisting of testosterone enanthate, Sustanon 250, HGH, Deca-Durabolin, Cytomel, and other unnamed ingredients while training.
Shoving wasn’t part of the Chinese kickboxing game apparently, it was just assumed you wouldn’t shove. If you have no stake in the integrity of Chinese kickboxing turns out nobody can stop you once you start shoving.
Now, knowing no more details than how Ferriss tells the story, what Ferriss did sounds like clever if devilish fun with no real victim except maybe the guy who came in second or people really vested in the USAWKF.
Trump seemed like that too for awhile. Can’t deny taking pleasure in it. But it’s one thing to make a clown show of the 1999 national Sanshou championship, even the Republican Party primaries. But it’s a whole other category to make a clown show out of the United States.
An amazing move right now for Trump would be to bail. That’s what I would legit advise him to do. Would be hilarious. Republicans would pass out with relief and then maybe even beat Hillary. Meanwhile Trump goes out undefeated, can enjoy adoring crowds for the rest of his life without ever having to be President.
Some suggestion Trump does think of all this as no more than a fun competition:
“I have to tell you, I’ve competed all my life,” Trump said, his golden face somber, his gravity-defying pouf of hair seeming to hover above his brow. “All my life I’ve been in different competitions—in sports, or in business, or now, for 10 months, in politics. I have met some of the most incredible competitors that I’ve ever competed against right here in the Republican Party.”
No suggestion yet he thinks it’s best to stop here.
2) Anonymous Intelligence Analyst Weighs In
Our friend Anonymous Intelligence Analyst has been dead on in his Trump predictions for some time. He wrote me back in February with some thoughts, as well as a Master Plan that I think is well worth considering:Caveat: please remember that I am not endorsing Trump. I’m not voting for him but I am fascinated by the whole thing.
- Sanders & Trump tap into the same frustration: middle to lower-class Americans have not seen their lot improve in a long time
- Sanders claims that large banks and corporations have captured the regulators and we should basically blow up our economic system and become socialists. At the core, he’s right about the regulatory capture.
- Trump claims that our trade and immigration policies have been a screwjob on Americans. I am rabidly pro-trade and pro-immigration but I do believe it’s benefited elites while not being a good thing for a lot of people in the bottom half.
- They both pitch that the parties are trying to screw the people, which is totally true. I mean the people are calling for Trump and the GOP is trying everything they can to sink him. The people are calling for Bernie but Hilary already bought all the super-delegates. The fix is in.
- I agree with you that a core attraction of Trump is that he says tons of stuff that no other politician would say and that’s refreshing. He is also authentic. He is definitely a giant douche, he speaks like a douche, and you are convinced he believes in his own bullshit. That’s so attractive! I like Bernie despite his crazy economic policies because I can tell he basically believes in them…I can respect that.
- Instead of debating Trump, here’s my master plan for defeating him. The establishment on both sides hates him so much. Republicans should cede the nomination to him as he has rightly won it. Then jam whoever they love (Rubio?) on him as VP. First day in office, conspire with the Dems to impeach Trump! President Rubio takes over. It’s a layup and would be incredible drama as well — can you imagine the look on Trump‘s face!
That’s great. Would be a hilarious prank on Trump.
What Is The President’s Job, Exactly?
Summarized in a not very long part (Article II) of the Constitution:
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
SECTION 3
He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information on the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.
SECTION 4
The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
That’s pretty much it. Tl;dr for “what is the President’s job” might be:
to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
That’s what it says in the Oath of Office laid out back in Article II, Section 1:
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:-“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Well, ok, say what you want about Hillary Clinton.
She is definitely a part of the problem of regulatory capture AIA identifies above. It’s cool that Bernie keeps putting her feet to the fire on that.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders takes the stage for a campaign rally outside his childhood home (rear) in Brooklyn on April 8. Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters
But I do think she would be better than Trump at all the above President jobs.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton greets Haibao, the mascot of the Shanghai World Expo 2010, while touring China’s Pavilion in Shanghai, May 22, 2010.AFP PHOTO / POOL / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Also Trump is a straight up jerk, unreal that this is even a conversation.
Constitutional Mischief
from this great blog, Process and Preserve, of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, this post by Matt Shoemaker, don’t see more info about the photo: https://processandpreserve.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/what-constitutes-a-physical-copy-of-the-u-s-constitution/
The Constitution, re: The President, specifically says He. Would be funny* if Trump claimed it was unconstitutional for Hillary to be President.
*also unfunny all Trump stunts now tear further at American constitutional cohesion and make the United States and Earth a weakened and more unpleasant place to live.
Cinco de Mayo
Posted: May 5, 2016 Filed under: Mexico Leave a comment
Shoutout to my Dad for reminding me not to miss Cinco De Mayo. Every year I have to look up what it celebrates – unlikely victory over the French invaders at the Battle of Puebla.
Let’s all have a toast to the hero Zaragoza
Dead of typhoid when he was 33. The house where he was born is now in Goliad, Texas, how about that?
Billy Hathorn for Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Zaragoza#/media/File:House_where_General_Zaragoza_was_born_IMG_0998.JPG
Bum Philips had a ranch in Goliad.
Manet painted the end of the French (I guess you could say Austro-Bavarian) emperor Maximilian in this painting now at Boston’s MFA:
Maybe you prefer Manet’s Olympia:
or this portrait of his sister in law Berthe:
Or Gypsy with a Cigarette:
There’s a pretty interesting photograph of the execution of Maximilian, maybe not for everybody but can be seen here.
Many more tales of Mexican history and heroes can be found in my upcoming book THE WONDER TRAIL (Amazon link).
Feels like a fake name
Posted: May 3, 2016 Filed under: the California Condition, Uncategorized Leave a comment
It’s not tho.
A play by play man and newscaster who made the cover of Time and died 1942 at St. Luke’s at the age of 53.
Groovy opening
Posted: May 3, 2016 Filed under: adventures, film, Italy, movies, music Leave a comment
Andrew Sullivan back
Posted: May 2, 2016 Filed under: America Since 1945, politics Leave a comment
Sobering take!
And so those Democrats who are gleefully predicting a Clinton landslide in November need to both check their complacency and understand that the Trump question really isn’t a cause for partisan Schadenfreude anymore. It’s much more dangerous than that. Those still backing the demagogue of the left, Bernie Sanders, might want to reflect that their critique of Clinton’s experience and expertise — and their facile conflation of that with corruption — is only playing into Trump’s hands. That it will fall to Clinton to temper her party’s ambitions will be uncomfortable to watch, since her willingness to compromise and equivocate is precisely what many Americans find so distrustful. And yet she may soon be all we have left to counter the threat. She needs to grasp the lethality of her foe, moderate the kind of identity politics that unwittingly empowers him, make an unapologetic case that experience and moderation are not vices, address much more directly the anxieties of the white working class—and Democrats must listen.
More to the point, those Republicans desperately trying to use the long-standing rules of their own nominating process to thwart this monster deserve our passionate support, not our disdain. This is not the moment to remind them that they partly brought this on themselves. This is a moment to offer solidarity, especially as the odds are increasingly stacked against them. Ted Cruz and John Kasich face their decisive battle in Indiana on May 3. But they need to fight on, with any tactic at hand, all the way to the bitter end. The Republican delegates who are trying to protect their party from the whims of an outsider demagogue are, at this moment, doing what they ought to be doing to prevent civil and racial unrest, an international conflict, and a constitutional crisis. These GOP elites have every right to deploy whatever rules or procedural roadblocks they can muster, and they should refuse to be intimidated.
And if they fail in Indiana or Cleveland, as they likely will, they need, quite simply, to disown their party’s candidate. They should resist any temptation to loyally back the nominee or to sit this election out. They must take the fight to Trump at every opportunity, unite with Democrats and Independents against him, and be prepared to sacrifice one election in order to save their party and their country.
For Trump is not just a wacky politician of the far right, or a riveting television spectacle, or a Twitter phenom and bizarre working-class hero. He is not just another candidate to be parsed and analyzed by TV pundits in the same breath as all the others. In terms of our liberal democracy and constitutional order, Trump is an extinction-level event.
Artwork by Peter Arnold, Inc./Alamy found at http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/mass-extinction/
This bit made me think of what Larry McMurtry said about glamour and Charlie Starkweather.
One of the more amazing episodes in Sarah Palin’s early political life, in fact, bears this out. She popped up in the Anchorage Daily News as “a commercial fisherman from Wasilla” on April 3, 1996. Palin had told her husband she was going to Costco but had sneaked into J.C. Penney in Anchorage to see … one Ivana Trump, who, in the wake of her divorce, was touting her branded perfume. “We want to see Ivana,” Palin told the paper, “because we are so desperate in Alaska for any semblance of glamour and culture.”
HOMER, ALASKA, AUGUST 06 2010: The day after she went fishing on the halibut boat Bear, Sarah Palin helps sort out the fish on the docks in Homer, the world’s halibut fishing capital, from where it will be taken to a local fish processing plant (photo Gilles Mingasson/Getty Images).
Bucky with the good chair
Posted: April 28, 2016 Filed under: Boston, New England, people Leave a comment
(spent more time than I’d like to admit trying to find pictures of Buckminster Fuller in interesting chairs)
One of the better gravestones:
in good old Mount Auburn Cemetery
which is the place I’m picturing when I hear:
Ted Cruz
Posted: April 28, 2016 Filed under: actors, politics Leave a comment
Kind of reminds me of Otani Oniji III in the Role of the Servant Edobei by Sharaku.
Yakko Edobei is a villainous rogue who plots to steal money from the servant Ippei. Otani Oniji’s leering face, shown in three quarter view, bristling hair, and groping outstretched hands capture the ruthless nature of this wicked henchman. The eye-catching costume pattern of yellow stripes on brown adds a stylish touch expressive of the times., Inscription: Japanese inscription on the side, and Repository/Location: National Museum of Fine Arts (Valletta, Malta)
Photo: Jim Cole, STF
Also:
Tyler Cowen is a king
Posted: April 22, 2016 Filed under: heroes, music Leave a comment
I think his “dirty little secret,” if you will forgive the pun, is that once you get past the first album he wasn’t much of a true Dionysian, but rather a playful polyglot who assumed various poses. Most of all I was impressed by his urge to create, and how strong and how internal that drive seems to have been.
Fault Fun
Posted: April 20, 2016 Filed under: books, the California Condition Leave a comment
Very happy with this purchase of David K. Lynch’s Field Guide To The San Andreas Fault.
Good charts. 
Plus, fun style.
Didn’t know we barely nick the top ten ever in the US!
Reading up on author David K. Lynch I am delighted to learn:
Back in the 70’s, he was proclaimed “Frisbee Immortal” by the Wham-O company. Dave’s recreational activities include playing the fiddle in assorted southern California bands, camping, collecting rocks and rattlesnakes and reading the New Yorker.
You wish! Can’t wait to hit the road and start looking for scarps. 
Will definitely check out Lynch’s Color and Light In Nature.
Jackie smoking pregnant
Posted: April 17, 2016 Filed under: America Since 1945, Kennedy-Nixon, New England, presidents 1 Comment
Trying to learn what brand of cigarette Jackie Kennedy smoked (no clear answer) I came across an evocative picture of Jackie Kennedy smoking while visibly pregnant, which you can see here.
I couldn’t and can’t find the source for it. Google Image searching leads me in an endless looparound of Tumblr and Pinterest. Maybe it’s in an old magazine. Maybe some Kennedy guest or family member took it and it got on the Internet somehow. Maybe a British tabloid published it, they go crazy for Kennedy goss.
Public domain pic of Jackie, August 31 1963, by Cecil Stoughton, found http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHP-ST-C283-50-63.aspx
Not mine to “print” I guess on Helytimes — we take sourcing semi-seriously. (But is it that different to link to it?)
Public domain photo of Robert and John Kennedy with Marilyn Monroe, taken by Cecil Stoughton. Found here: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/9jndTasee0CsvxnFg6IWxg.aspx
This home movie footage, on the other hand, is in the public domain and online at the Kennedy Library. Some of these movies feel almost too private, too intimate — you can for instance see our current ambassador to Japan, then age six, jumping on the bed in her swimsuit with (possibly) the future first lady of California?
Here are two clips.
Jackie smokes:
The President’s golf swing:
If you know anything about golf would love to hear takes on JFK’s swing.
England forever!
Posted: April 16, 2016 Filed under: everyone's a critic, Uncategorized, writing Leave a comment
From the Times Literary Supplement, this remarkable sentence in Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s review of Christopher Hitchens posthumous book of essays:
Born to a dyspeptic, reactionary naval officer and a mother whose Jewish origins Hitchens only discovered after her tragic suicide, he was educated at a modest public school and Oxford University, where he delightedly embarked on a double life – radical agitation by day, sybaritic lotus-eating by night – which set the tone for the years to come.
Jerry The Dog
Posted: April 15, 2016 Filed under: animals, family Leave a comment
My pal and former Office co-worker Owen Ellickson is one of the greatest Twitterers in the game right now IMO, on track to become a legendary Dad Humorist.
Owen and his lovely wife used to be my neighbors, so I oft visited with Owen’s dog Jerry, who was, to be blunt, not always a pure joy to encounter. Nonetheless I was fond of Jerry and sad to learn of his recent passing. Owen wrote a tribute to his dog that I found very refreshing and tender and with permission I reprint it here for Helytimes readers:
We put our dog Jerry down yesterday. Jerry was somewhere between 13 and 15, and had lived with me for over a decade. Everyone has been very nice about it; in truth, few will mourn his loss. Jerry was a bad dog.
We like to think of dogs as paragons of kindness, bottomless pits of furry empathy that remind their owners what they aspire to be. In this “Marley & Me” framing of dogdom, even the worst things our little friends do are adorable, the kind of benign bloopers rom-com protagonists commit. Marley’s big sins were things like “chewed up a bra,” and “pooped somewhere silly.” Jerry’s sins were things like “bit a person,” and “bit a dog,” and “bit another person.” Over the ten-plus years Jerry was with me, he bit four dogs and six people. He bit residents and visitors; he bit men and women; he bit inside and outside. He bit me. He bit my wife. Owning him made me feel angry and nervous and guilty and negligent. Yesterday was a long time coming… the subject of putting him down was on the table for the majority of our time together. Jerry wasn’t a (charmed coo) “bad dog.” He was a (frightened whisper) “BAD dog.”
Jerry had bounced around Los Angeles pounds in his youth – ours was at least his fourth home, Jerry at least his fourth name (previous monikers included Frowly, Donut and Buster). He’d gotten smacked around a bit at his previous stop, and maybe before that too; whether that was the sole cause of his demons wasn’t clear. What was clear, a month or two in, once he started getting comfortable: Jerry was a little nuts. He flew into rages when anyone tried to enter our house. He had an unquenchable thirst for screaming like a lunatic at dogs he encountered on the street. And he didn’t like sharing me with anyone: if I kissed or hugged my girlfriend (now wife) in front of Jerry, he’d let out this piercing whine. It made us laugh, but, I mean, that’s crazy, right?
Simply put, Jerry had problems. We gave those problems names (separation anxiety, border aggression, stress-induced colitis, psychogenic polydipsia) and plenty of attention (heavy exercise, chicken-flavored Prozac, a litany of trainers and experts and behaviorists, including a man who called himself the Dog Whisperer’s protégé, although I never got documentation on that, although how could you, really, I guess), but we never solved those problems. At best, we managed them. At worst, he bit. If our goal was to make him a good dog, we failed.
But I don’t think it’s fair to say that HE failed. I don’t think there was some beatific, Upworthy version of Jerry that he simply refused to become. He was who he was; he gave what he had. Jerry wasn’t a perfect soul, a living vision of kindness. He was just another asshole, like the rest of us. He was aggressive and neurotic and selfish and flawed. He was still my couchmate, my hiking buddy, my pillow, my eater of last resort. He still animated our home with his grumpy-old-man noises, still made us laugh when he stared at apple-eaters like a weird drooling Sphinx, still licked my head fanatically after basketball. He still made me happy every day that I owned him, even if he made me feel all sorts of other things too.
Jerry was a bad dog. But if I could go back in time and pick a different dog from the tens of thousands that littered 2005 Los Angeles, I wouldn’t. And, with apologies to the various creatures he bit, if I could go back in time and change Jerry into a good dog, I wouldn’t. I didn’t love him because he was good. I loved him because he was Jerry.
Bad name!
Posted: April 12, 2016 Filed under: food Leave a comment
sent in by our Boston correspondent.
Like a Hockney painting
Posted: April 9, 2016 Filed under: America Since 1945, art history, Kennedy-Nixon, the American West Leave a comment
JFK checking out a missile test at White Sands, New Mexico.
Trip to Western States: White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico
Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
Uncomfortable giant bunny
Posted: April 8, 2016 Filed under: animals, New England Leave a comment
An anonymous correspondent sends us this one with text:
maybe drunk but thought video was funny
http://wpri.com/2016/04/06/rescue-a-pet-demi/
The California Condition
Posted: April 7, 2016 Filed under: the California Condition Leave a comment
Deep California sentence in this Vulture interview with Marcia Clark:
Obama kowtows to yet another foreign leader!
Posted: April 6, 2016 Filed under: politics Leave a comment
When you look at an old photo of a boxing match
Posted: April 4, 2016 Filed under: the California Condition Leave a comment
It’s like what the hell is going on?
Came upon the Fitzsimmons Corbett fight while reading about local history. The film of the fight is sometimes said to be the world’s first feature film. Thomas Edison himself said Corbett was the first film star (which is extra interesting because spoiler alert guess who is the winner and who the loser?)
You can watch it yourself on YouTube, I can’t say it gripped me completely:
This movie was directed by Enoch Rector. Should not all documentarians honor their forbearer? Yet there is little to read of this man online. Let me share some choice things then from his NY Times obituary when he left this Earth-existence on January 27, 1957 at age 94:
Born near Parkersburg, W. Va., Mr. Rector attended the University of West Virginia, but an urge to travel caused him to leave before graduation. He qualified as a transit theodolite operator and worked with a surveying crew on the transcontinental right of way for the Northern Pacific Railroad.
Mr. Rector arrived in Seattle with $200 and invested $150 in passage on a sailing ship that took him around Cape Horn. Landing at Buenos Aires he became engineer in charge of surveys for a railroad that runs through Bolivia.His inventions included a kerosene carburetor that was used successfully on Fifth Avenue buses but was abandoned for economic reasons.Surviving are a daughter, Mrs. Anne Rector Duffy, wife of Edmund Duffy, a political cartoonist.
You’re gosh-darn right I’m gonna show you the work of Edmund Duffy! Let’s see the three times he won the Pulitzer Prize:
An Old Struggle Still Going On (1931):
California Points With Pride (1934):
The Outstretched Hand (1940):
Huge props to Brian Cronin over there at Comic Book Resources for writing up about those Duffy cartoons. I hope he doesn’t mind that I reuse here as long as I credit him and thank him.
Incredible story on the middle one in particular, which depicts the lynching of two (white) kidnap-murderers in St. James Park in San Jose:
Oh and what’s that? Jackie Coogan was one of the lynchers? You mean this guy?:
(that day did he look more like this guy?)
California man. Always interesting.
Kudos to Lawry’s
Posted: April 3, 2016 Filed under: good work, the California Condition Leave a comment
One of the finer restaurant newsletters in the game. 
Damn if I’m not gonna learn everything I’ll ever know about Diamond Jim Brady from a steakhouse newsletter.
Understanding politics
Posted: April 3, 2016 Filed under: America Since 1945, politics Leave a comment
The American people were so disgusted with the political process that they vomited up Trump. That’s why he’s orange. He’s barf.
that from the incomparable Dan Greaney:
(here’s how he got mixed up in it)
If the political work degrades in a dysfunctional joke, soon enough people demand it at least be an entertaining dysfunctional joke.
A reaction to finding a disgusting process may be to make it more disgusting, visually , so that at least there is no trick or lie . The process will then be honest about its true repulsive character.
those both from Björn Skövde’s post about “Understanding Berlusconi and the European Future” (“Förstå Berlusconi och europeisk framtid“) published on Folket i Bild online, April 2009. Translated it myself using Google so may be a little wonky.
Grey old scolds from Vermont can generate excitement with the young, who yearn so for wisdom that they find it in every crusted Yankee pronouncement.
from reporter/novelist Vivien Kent’s sassy 1964 Life mag piece on:
which is unforch not online.
Helytimes 
