The past few days have coughed up some hairballs in the news. They’re weird, they’re worrisome, and they make you wonder if something even worse might come out next. Let’s take a quick tour of all the news that’s fit to make you have a fit or, at least, to want to gnaw your fingernails down to the second knuckle and go hide under the bed for a week.
We’ll get started right in the heart of the world’s Former Greatest DemocracyTM, Washington, DC.
Is Donald Trump the Missing Link?
No, probably not. However, we may have been premature when we bestowed the sobriquet “Smirking Chimp” on George Bush the Lesser.
Dan McAdams, a psychology professor at Northwestern, has an article in The Guardian today titled “It's an alpha male thing: what dominant chimpanzees and Donald Trump have in common.” The good professor takes a look at the behavior of the Popular Vote Loser from a social psychology and anthropology perspective and delivers the conclusion that Trump acts an awful lot like a dominant chimpanzee.
No, Trump hasn’t been swinging from the White House’s chandeliers or pounding his chest gorilla-style (at least as far as we know, but … you know, leaks … so who knows what may dribble out next?). Nevertheless, McAdams sees distinct similarities in the social behaviors of Feckless Leader and our simian cousins.
An especially effective dominance mechanism for the alpha chimp is the charging display. The top male essentially goes berserk and starts screaming, hooting, and gesticulating wildly as he charges toward other males nearby. Pandemonium ensues as rival males cower in fear and females grab their little ones and run for cover.
Once the chaos ends, there is a period of peace and order, wherein rival males pay homage to the alpha, visiting him, grooming him, expressing various forms of submission.
Trump’s incendiary tweets are the human equivalent of a charging display. Designed to intimidate his foes and rally his submissive base, these verbal outbursts reinforce the president’s dominance by reminding everybody of his wrath and his force. When the alpha chimp charges, you cannot help but take note – with your ears and with your eyes.
He further notes that the jaw-dropping weirdness of Trump’s first Cabinet meeting appeared to mimic the displays chimps use to keep their social order harmonious. Lower status chimps may pet and groom their alpha male and bow or bend to show their submission and keep him happy and calm; Cabinet members didn’t stoop quite low enough to offer to pick lice from the President’s fur but they did obsequiously pet and pamper him with fawning praise and adulation, one by one, as he went around the table calling on them.
Sadly, McAdams’ article isn’t a satire or parody. It’s an actual serious look at how the Worst Dealmaker Ever governs his public and private life in a way drawn from our primitive instincts — provoking chaos and fear — rather than from our more evolved manner, which solicits respect and authority by demonstrating skills and qualities that benefit our personal social circle and the larger society around us.
Perhaps Chuck and Nancy can put this to their advantage in their next White House meeting. They can enter the Oval Office with knees bowed, arms open and swinging wide, downcast eyes, and offer Trump a gift of a big bunch of bananas. The smugly satisfied alpha Chimp-in-Chief might give them everything they ask for.
Folks, we’ve reached the point where Jane Goodall is the expert authority to analyze the President of the United States. Like Lloyd Bridges’ character in Airplane!, I think I picked the wrong week to give up smoking, drinking, amphetamines, and sniffing glue.
Thank FSM he didn’t do something really horrible, like put ketchup on it
Our next stop on today’s journalistic tour of Bizarro World is at Berkeleyside, a news site in the People’s Republic of Berkeley, California. Now, one might think that this cultural hotbed of America-hating anti-imperialism and Marxist political correctness — or whatever Fox News is calling this university town these days — would be a place where injustice would be frightened to raise its ugly head.
But, fear not, the world has not yet turned topsy-turvy so even in a socialist communist heathen (but not Kenyan) utopia we can still count on good old-fashioned police corruption and abuse to manifest themselves when the Boys In BlueTM encounter the Broke Or PoorTM.
In the article “University of California police ‘looking into’ viral hot dog vendor video”, Emilie Raguso reports about a confrontation between police and an unlicensed hot dog vendor. The vendor, known so far only as Juan, was hawking his illicit wiener-wares across the street from a stadium hosting a football game. Police officers approached as Juan was slipping a doggie into a bun for a customer, catching this dangerous criminal in the act.
The cops could see that this vicious underground relish-fest imperiled the safety and well-being of the community and issued Juan a citation. To be sure he would not simply restock his condiments and encased meat products and resume the felonious frankfurter trade, they rifled through his wallet and confiscated the $60 they found, asserting it was evidence of “suspected proceeds of the violation.” Hmm, if $60 was the proceeds from the single violation they caught him in then I’ve been getting a HUGE bargain when buying my street weenies.
Just to be sure, apparently, that Juan would be left with zero funds to restart his business — or to pay his fine — the cops also took Juan’s debit card, according to the related story on Techdirt. That’s some pretty thorough policing, I’d say.
Now, before you yammer about priorities and overreacting by authorities, just consider this: scientific studies have proven that 0.0000083467% of all terrorists began their lives as mad mayhemists by illegally squirting mustard on sesame-seedless buns. It’s how they get started! Won’t someone think of the children?
Sadly, libtards have flocked to the defense of this street-vending monster, sharing video of his encounter on Twitter and denouncing what they call police abuse all over the internet. They’ve even raised over $30,000 to help Juan pay his fine and restart his business, aiding and abetting yet another Dangerous Criminal Who Is Coming To Get Us All.
It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world … and I’m not referring to the wacky movie of 1963.
Psychic detectives — nope, it’s not a new TV show
Our final destination is that exotic foreign country where mysterious non-Americans who are not eligible for the Presidency are born: Hawaii. Tim Cushing of Techdirt explains in his story, “Court Says 'Possible' Just As Good As 'Probable;' Lets DEA To Keep Evidence From Warrantless Search”, how the government is now equating guesswork with actual evidence or proof.
As good liberals — yes, conservatives, those terms are not mutually exclusive — we all know about that pesky Constitution and its requirement that police obtain search warrants based on probable cause. Well, that’s a bother for law enforcement sometimes. Even if there are exigencies, police generally need to have probable cause before executing a warrantless search, as they did in this story.
My, my, what to do? Wait … wait … I’m thinking … wait … I’ve almost got it … wait … aha! We can just change the meaning of probable cause! I’m a friggin’ genius, I tell you.
This story deals with a drug case, which frequently seems to bring out the worst in police, government agents, prosecutors, and even judges sometimes. At least it wasn’t about terrorism, which seems to turn all involved into babbling terrified howler monkeys.
In most ways, it’s pretty run of the mill. DEA agents suspected some dudes were doing drug deals, dudes were arrested, dudes were convicted, dudes appealed, blah blah blah. We’ve seen it a zillion times before.
What makes this case stand out far from the madding crowd is that much of it seems to have been based on belief … or psychic powers … or something. This isn’t a case of much-ado-about-nothing; the dudes were actually caught in possession of methamphetamine. It’s how they came to be caught that may make your eyes roll around in your head a bit.
The agents observed some things that they felt were suspicious or evidentiary of criminal activity, like shopping at Costco. They intercepted some text messages with cryptic and clearly malevolent exchanges about buying food or tools or going to a restaurant.
Well, hell, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes in order to figure out that means “I gotta pound of crack, wanna buy it?”
As if that wasn’t evidence enough, the DEA agents observed the dudes and saw them not meeting. F*cking-A, that nails it, case closed!
Now with solid evidence like consumer activity, purchasing food, eating in restaurants, and not meeting one’s alleged partners in crime, the DEA felt they had sufficient probable cause … if one just substituted whatever the hell one wanted for all those things. So they decided that talking about “food” really was talking about drugs, that when they missed seeing two of them meet it was because they must have done their deal prior to observation by the agents, and so on.
Their testimony was filled with a lot of “I believe X happened” instead of what it should be, “I saw/witnessed/heard X happen.” So the probable cause was mostly based on faith, on believing in whatever the agents imagined, or perhaps they have psychic powers that told them what was really going on instead of their lyin’ eyes and ears?
In other words, when you got nothin’, just make shit up. It’s kind of like writing “news” for Infowars or the National Enquirer.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the case, which had challenged the grounds for the search. That court, which is usually pretty liberal, seems to have gone a bit off its rocker on this one, sustaining the government’s side. In a cutting dissent against his colleagues’ decision, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote,
Here’s what this case boils down to: Officers had a hunch that a drug transaction was going down. They saw nothing obviously suspicious, but got tired of waiting, watching and wiretapping. They then jumped the gun by executing a warrantless search. Until today, this was not enough to support probable cause, but going forward it will be. This is a green light for the police to search anyone’s property based on what officers subjectively believe—or claim to believe—about someone’s everyday conduct. That puts all of us at risk. Accordingly, I dissent, and I’m off to Costco to buy some food.
On a personal note, Dear Reader, I implore you to turn off your computer after reading this and cancel your internet service for the next month or so, until this blows over. Trust me, you do not want your spouse exposed to the new reality created by this appellate decision.
Spouse: You monster! I want a divorce!
You: Wut???
Spouse: I spent three hours outside the No-Tell Motel yesterday and I did not see you go in there with [Jane/John]. That’s proof that you two were doing the hokey-pokey there at another time when I wasn’t watching.
You: Homina, homina, homina …
Spouse: And I saw that message on your phone, “The 21st will be fine, please arrange it.” I believe that really means “I will come to your place at 7PM tomorrow so we can make whoopee!”
You: Actually, that was a text to our travel agent to book a Caribbean cruise for our second honeymoon.
Spouse: Oh. I’m guessing that isn’t going to happen now?
You: Yup.
Faith-based drug enforcement, what could possibly go wrong? No, wait, please don’t answer that. I want to sleep tonight.