may be rude

analord is where richard achieved initiation into a higher musical reality. post-analord stuff is the work of a master.

what's going on with impeachment is the administration's stonewalling of subpoenas left congress with the need to enforce them through the courts. basically pelosi and nadler are anticipating that the federal courts and appeals courts will find that, of course, the executive branch should not be free from oversight, and therefor congress should be able to conduct investigations, so the subpoenas should be enforced. once the courts establish this for one case (mcgahn), the precedent will be applied to the others and then the democrats will be able to do the public hearings that will provide the most clear justification for impeachment to the public. the reason they are waiting to declare official impeachment poceedings is because a significant number of house dems live in trump districts and are reluctant to put themselves on record as being for impeachment, without having the backup of having the case laid out before the american people and the momentum being in motion. pelosi is, of course, cognizant of the fact that they could lose dozens of house seats if they play this wrong. if they go into full impeachment mode too early, what that does is it invites the propaganda machines to lambast the libs with endless lies and partisan rhetoric, all while they wait for weeks and months to be able to lay out the maximum evidence possible for the public, to give all house dems as much cover as possible. it is entirely consistent with good strategy for pelosi to do this. they would be opening themselves up for attack while they are forced to wait, otherwise. nadler said the mcgahn case could be through appeals in october. this is nadler's baby. he took the job of having the responsibility to take down an unfit president, and he will do what he's supposed to. pelosi indicated in her remarks after the mueller hearing that she intends to allow a floor vote on impeachment, but they are waiting until their hand is strongest, and she specically said they will not wait forever. nadler said, if the mcgahn case is out of appeals in october, then proceedings could play out through november and articles of impeachment could be ready for a vote as early as december, but he also suggested that it could spill into next year. i anticipate house floor votes for impeachment proceedings and for articles of impeachment to both pass. they are even getting new articles to add, all the time. trump dangling pardons while directing crimes is classic impeachable offense. so is the personal enrichment that the judiciary committee is currently investigating. the judiciary committee came back from summer break weeks early. they are not idling. and they are trying to do this right. i hope.

really digging collapse a lot, a year later. very strong ep. the no stillson tracks are also really good.

just saw this. i guess warren is for medicare for all

please be careful not to whitewash the conman's damage. i don't have time to prepare a list right now but one item that deserves more appreciation is that he fired good public servants comey and mccabe while publicly assaulting their characters in order to try to get away with his crimes and send a message to servants of justice about what happens when you try to hold trump accountable for his crimes. that is drastic, dramatic, core damage. mccabe is practically a hero. he led the manhunt for the boston marathon bombers, which resulted in their capture. he got the underwear bomber to flip on al-awlaki, resulting in intel that helped take him out. he did that with the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group that he helped create, following obama's outlawing of torture. he helped catch the bengazi attack's ringleader. he was fired 2 days before retirement, accused of corruption, and trump called his wife a loser. coincidentally, he was involved in the russia investigation. as bad as the injustice to mccabe was, the more significant part is that this pattern of obstruction of justice and tacit threats becomes the new norm if the criminals are not held accountable. what we're talking about is the mechanisms of justice getting deliberately broken so that the government can become more corrupt. these are the mechanisms by which the country remains free. the house has to impeach. impeachment is the only check against a malignant executive, aside from voting them out. let the senate vote no. that is its own issue, and those dudes submitting their votes for history, to shield a malignant executive, will help to remedy it.

that is interesting. i think it's for a good reason. healthcare is one of the big issues, and warren has plans for almost everything except that. this is strategic. warren doesn't stake herself to one solution or another on the really difficult issues, like immigration and healthcare. i appreciate that. when trying to solve really difficult problems, it makes sense not to enter the conversation with demands, by staking out a position that presents difficulties to others. you would want to approach the task of solving the problem in a receptive way, so that you can collaborate with the other players, and maintain the flexibility that is often crucial to the success of these high-level system architecture choices. it's not an easy issue and the best path forward isn't necessarily apparent. popular plans like single payer, medicare for all, a public option, and fixing ACA all upset different groups for different reasons. one could argue that those other candidates, acting like they know how to fix this immense, challenging, political issue... and betting that the solution they like is the one that can happen, are the ones acting less serious about the issue. bernie, asked in the first debate how he would go about achieving medicare for all, answered horribly. he said "When tens of millions of people rise up, that is how it will be possible" (to paraphrase, but that's pretty close). that, to me, was a face-plant for bernie. on the one hand, i like that he alluded to the fact that it's really up to congress to send a passed bill to the white house to sign. that's the elephant in the room at these debates, these dudes all talk about what they would do, and don't mention that they don't have the power to do those things as president. congress has to send them a bill to sign. but, on the other hand, bernie declined to describe what he would do to achieve this lofty ambition of medicare for all. that was disappointing, for me, as a bernie fan. he seemed to falter and fall back on "i have a big following, that's how." i get that he has a decent following, but i don't know if it will deliver him a medicare for all bill.

not trying to get into a debate, but i should say that i disagree. i think warren is running a really interesting campaign really well. while she is not dumb to the fact that winning will mean appealing to bernie supporters, i don't see her campaign as characterized by that. it seems like only one of many dynamics that warren is paying attention to.

warren has been warren for a while. she didn't "reinvent herself as bernie lite." her and bernie have been friends because of their like-mindedness for a long time. also their states neighbor.

the spy. sacha baron cohen can act!

fucker is lucky the storm didn't hurt anyone on the east coast. hurricanes ride a coast. him indicating it was going to jump over to the gulf coast from the east coast would cause people on the east coast to be less prepared. at the point that trump was doubling down on his suggestion that the hurricane could hit alabama, there was real concern of it making landfall as a category 5 or 4 on the east coast. for those that missed it, after trump received backlash for broadcasting a doctored NOAA hurricane map, the NOAA was instructed not to contradict him. from Top NOAA Scientist Calls Out Agency for Backing Trump in Dumbest White House Controversy Ever

house judiciary committee to vote on formalizing impeachment proceedings

i think maynard had been receiving recordings and working on stuff as they were working. his work is all very good and very fitting to the songs.

bernie's going to be 100 and he's still going to be running for president

not sure if this is a marketing device or it's just because dickspork is awful don't need to wonder with anthony boitano. can we crowd-source getting him to stop? just stop, anthony

good interview

hehe. yeah, maynard is great. AJ, too. cc trip is surprisingly awesome. i could go for an album of just that.

yeah... what a treat. i can see why danny laid down his tracks for the whole album first thing. danny is always changing the way he plays songs, and there are a lot of little touches. very appropriate that it was mixed and mastered to have the drums in the forefront, instead of getting buried. the bass on this album finally does justice to justin's live sound. danny and justin are kind of the core of the band, and you can tell that they spent 10 years sharpening their tools and working on music. just got my physical copy. wow! the packaging video is a full-bore video with a long ambient track. gorgeous packaging/art.

musk at an AI conference the other day said we have not found aliens yet. "trust me i would know." timestamp link. i guess, if sightings are real, then the us government doesn't know what they are, either. this is consistent with what other governments have said. they are aware of a phenomenon of sightings, but don't know what it is.

i think a zipped flac we could host here. lossless is the preference for everyone except spiral.

@digit are you still stuck on that midi bug?

As FEC Nears Shutdown, Priorities Such As Stopping Election Interference On Hold it'll be fine

danny programs a nice modular song. Plan B Toolbox Modular Synthesizer, built for Danny Carey of Tool

what is this thing

i like it a lot.

i've been hoping the pig statue may be brought down with a combo including a financial revelation punch. all along it seemed like something stinks in those financials, and likely to do with russia. now it looks like we will have proof that trump is owned by putin's oligarchs. other banks stopped giving him loans, but DB kept doing it, even without getting paid back for previous loans. it looks like that's because trump got himself involved in russian organized crime. russian oligarch rybolovlev bought trump's florida mansion valued at under 50M for almost 100M in 2008. trump was fawning over putin as early as 2013, at his moscow pageant. at a 2008 conference, Trump Jr. said, "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets." Trump Sr. had to later disavow that statement. it makes all the stuff later with flynn, manafort, carter page, sater, etc more concerning if you consider that trump started out with his balls in putin's fist. flynn lied to the fbi about discussing sanction relief with kislyak manafort passed polling data to the russians carter page visited moscow in 2016, after having already been cultivated by russian spies and brought into the trump campaign, and was unable to tell mueller the purpose of the trip, or who he met with sater tried to set up a secret back-channel between the campaign and the russian government (the erik prince / felix sater / kirill dimitriev meeting in seychelles). good article on that here. it's also gone over in Episode VI of the podcast series The Report here's a list of things trump has done to help russia, since being president arguing to let russia back into G7 (after they were removed for forcefully taking crimea) ending intermediate nuclear weapons treaty (like nuclear powered cruise missiles with nuclear warheads that could fly under the radar around the world) lifting sanctions on russian oligarch deripaska leaving iran deal (iran is RU's ally and iran's adherence to the deal constitutes iran entering the fold of the western alliance) reducing troops in afghanistan (RU's backyard) leaving syria (assad is a russian puppet) not countering election disinfo/hacking tarif trade war, weakening US economy and isolating US (RU benefits from a weaker US) spreading propaganda and disinfo within US (RU benefits from a weaker US) attacking justice institutions of the US (RU benefits from a weaker US) leaving paris accord (russia's big revenue source is oil) offered to pay france to leave EU (a weaker europe is in RU's interest) applying leverage against May's brexit deal (a weaker UK is in RU's interest) congratulating vlad on winning reelection (legitimizing a fixed election) ending war games in SK (russia's backyard) negotiating lifting sanctions against russia not enacting new sanctions congress mandated (link: Trump declines to implement new Russia sanctions) calling nato obsolete, other actions and statements weakening strength of the coalition whose main purpose is to counter the russian threat suggesting the US would not abide by Article 5 of NATO (coming to the aid of allies) hollowing out the state department and appointing the guy with a "friend of russia" award as the sec of state. (a US with virtually no anti-RU diplomacy for 4 years is very good for RU) i'd like to see a trumper make a list that long of things he's done to help the US. sure, he wouldn't mind doing a tower in moscow. he had cohen lie to congress about those negotiations ending. cohen later testified that the negotiations never ended, and trump wanted him to lie. but we shouldn't assume that trump is only corrupt to the level of wanting a business deal after he leaves office. honestly that seems more like a cherry on top and a distraction. trump simply seems to be in bed with the russians and, to some extent, at their mercy. i legitimately wonder if trump has flipped, and is cooperating with US intelligence, to draw the russians into a honey pot. i legitimately wonder if putin has trump compromised so thoroughly that he is coaching him on how to topple the US. i guess i've been watching too much of the liberal media.