"But as he visited the small Ohio town of East Palestine on Wednesday, former President Donald J. Trump sought to hammer home a message just by showing up..."

"... that his successor and the man he’s seeking to replace, President Biden, had been ineffective in responding to a domestic crisis after a train derailed and spewed toxic chemicals early this month. Mr. Trump had arrived on the ground before either Mr. Biden or the transportation secretary to a train derailment many Republicans have turned into a referendum on a lack of federal concern with the needs of red-state America.... [Trump] suggested the administration had shown 'indifference and betrayal' and he talked about how truckloads of his name-brand water would be distributed to residents.... Shortly before Mr. Trump’s visit, federal officials announced that the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, planned to visit East Palestine on Thursday.... He previously said he did not want his visit to be a distraction and would wait until the federal response in East Palestine moved past the emergency phase."

The NYT reports.

Buttigieg had said "he did not want his visit to be a distraction"? That didn't work when George W. Bush said it about Katrina (and it was more believable that he would indeed have been a distraction).

Is Paul Ryan a "scumbag" for lying about his marathon time?

That's the sort of thing lawprof Tung Yin is seeing on Facebook. 

He's assuming it's a lie, because how can you misremember something like that? On the other hand, why would you lie about something that's not going to be believed and therefore is only going to make you look bad?

But these people who are excoriating Ryan for lying about sports... what did they say about Bill Clinton back in the old lying-about-sex days? Yin has 3 reasons why Clinton's lie was worse, and I think it obviously was.

So does that mean people who excused Bill Clinton need to shut up about Paul Ryan's marathon time? I have 3 answers:

1. You're never going to get people to stop characterizing the evidence to help or hurt whomever they are inclined to help or hurt. Like a semen stain on a blue dress, it has permeated the fabric of our politics.

2. Bill Clinton was cornered and compelled to speak. His lie was self-defense under attack, and he was trying to keep his presidency from collapsing because of something only tangentially related to the presidential enterprise. Paul Ryan volunteered information, boasting about something that wasn't true in an effort to win our favor. Very different motivations, and we should judge them with particularity and with a subtlety beyond crude epithets like "scumbag."

3. Paul Ryan is currently running for Vice President, and we need to examine him from all angles. He'd better be great, regardless of whether somebody else is less great. Bill Clinton's Lewinsky debacle occurred long ago (though it retains currency to the extent that his party, especially at a convention where it will preen about its service to females, employs him as a mouthpiece*).
________________________________________

* Yes, I did intend to put that image in your head.

"As part of the health care reform, we have to ask you for your race."

Tung Yin finds something else that's obnoxious about Obamacare. "Obnoxious" is his word.

"You're free to decline to answer," [the hospital receptionist] said, and added that it used to be really hard for her to ask this question.

I said that I was, quite obviously Asian, but apparently that was not precise enough for the requirements of the new health reform act. It was necessary for some reason to classify me as not just "Asian" but "Chinese."

Is this meaningless bureaucratic collection of information, possibly useful for medical reasons, or something more nefarious?

"You cannot be serious."

Things not to say in/on court.

About that Christmas tree.

I said it's okay — and green enough — to get an artificial Christmas tree. Then Professor Yin came in with some scary stuff about lead, and Professor Bainbridge says don't get a tree at all, and don't even get presents — give it all to charity.

What's the best solution to the Christmas tree problem?
	A real tree, a cut tree. Follow tradition!
	A nice new artificial tree. The lead problem is solved, right?
	Some sort of potted tree, that you reuse or replant or something.
	No tree at all!
pollcode.com free polls

Glomming.

Reacting to a NYT story about the problem women outnumbering men at various universities these day, Tung Yin writes:

... I went to Caltech for college in the mid- to late 1980s, where the male-female ratio was 8-1. From a social standpoint, it wasn't clear that 8-1 was better than infinity. I learned the term "glomming," which described the phenomenon of 6-8 guys standing around a single woman, usually with only one of the guys actually talking to her, and the rest just nodding their heads.

Glomming... it checks out in Urban Dictionary.

Glom is a funny word. I've always mixed it up with grok. Only grok is a Martian word.

It's Let's Talk Like Rahm Emanuel Day!

Come on, everybody! It's exciting. It's liberating.

Somebody not talking straight to you?

"Take your f***ing tampon out and tell me what you have to say."

Dog getting under foot?

"I’m going to kill that f***ing dog."

(Those 2 quotes are from this Ed Driscoll piece, where I arrived via Instapundit.)

What's worse, the tampon remark or threatening the dog?
	Threatening the dog, because I love pets.
	Threatening the dog, because death is horrible.
	The tampon remark, because it implies that women are inferior to men.
	The tampon remark, because it's so odd and icky.
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: Tung Yin notes a semi-scientific test that might explain the connection between Rahm's way of talking and his success. It's all about pain.

"I thought is was important for me to get up on that rock and supervise."

We hear Martin saying that, in voice-over on "The Apprentice," right after Frank says, everyone but Martin dug in and helped. Earlier, introducing himself, Martin offered to give Donald Trump a hug if he'd "let him go to the bathroom." Eee-yikes! To be fair, Trump had, a moment before, given a hug to another contestant, a woman who was a three time Olympian, with a gold, silver, and bronze medal. But, still... Martin... what are you thinking? Does it ever work on "The Apprentice" to play the fool? But at this point -- yeah, I guess I'm simulblogging -- Frank is way more annoying than Martin. He thinks he's showing leadership, but he's bossing everyone around so much that he causes Trump to lean out the window of his mansion and tell him to pipe down. Trump, you should know, has a mansion that overlooks the building that houses the Apprenti.....

Teams are chosen by the two leaders who emerged in the first segment (which was about erecting a tent). The leaders are the incredibly annoying Frank and the not-yet-really -noticed Heidi. Now, they're sent out to wash cars, and Heidi starts to gel as a character. She says: "We're here in West Hollywood, which is a homosexual area... so we hired two guys to stand on the street and hold signs...." The signs look like hell. Who would trust them to do a deluxe "hand wash" on their car?....

"You're going to have to wash your teeth and face and whatever the hell you do. I have no idea nor do I give a damn, okay? Whatever you do, it's going to be outside," says Trump as he lets the losing team know they have to live in a tent until they win....

We see the winners going to dinner with Trump at Spago, and the food looks less than glorious. Meanwhile, the losers are camping out and eating together outdoors overlooking LA. It's beautiful, and they have each other. Why don't they revel? They're acting like it's "Survivor." But they're in LA! And they've got a spectacular view. And they don't have that gasbag Trump interrogating them. I know it's all in the editing, but I despise them for not loving life.

Martin figures out that he needs to direct all the negativity at Frank. Martin -- who's a lawyer and a professor -- does a damned good job of identifying one bad thing about Frank and making it stick in everyone's head. (It's the dreaded failure to establish a "price point.")...

"Are you a lawyer?" "I am an attorney, sir." Mmmm... doesn't that make you want Mr. Attorney to go home? This is a lengthy boardroom struggle, with Frank fighting desperately for his life, and Martin -- Mr. Attorney-- sitting back and hoping Frank will implode. Much as I found Frank annoying as hell in the first half hour (of this 2 hour show), I'm rooting for Frank now.

And Frank wins! The man on the rock goes home.

ADDED: Tung Yin is following the new season. Jacob at TWOP is recapping but not happy.

Men in shorts?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's the short answer about shorts. Men in shorts? No such thing. If you are in shorts, you are not a man. I'll make a small exception for certain sports, or if you are staying at home or in your own yard. But if you're going out in public in a non-sports capacity, put on some pants! This includes the postman!

This outburst was provoked by Prof. Yin, who wrote this, about what a lawprof ought to wear:

The specific question about jeans isn't relevant to me, since I don't own a single pair of jeans. While I do show up in shorts and a T-shirt on the typical summer day (and truth be told, even right now, since I am on pretenure leave and therefore not teaching at all this semester), during the regular school year I tend to wear slacks, a button-down shirt, and a tie.

Well, at least he doesn't teach in shorts. I recently attended a talk led by a male lawprof who wore shorts (with a T-shirt and sandals). He stood up too, putting his boy-clothes on full display.

This isn't just some special, quirky little view of mine, guys. Women are on record on this one. I've posted on this topic before — here. Please don't make me tell you again.

Just when I thought I was out...

I watched "The Apprentice" again! I had stopped watching it. Prof. Yin even blogged about how I'd stopped watching it! Well, it was kind of interesting last night. Maria was nutty. Per Entertainment Weekly:

As Maria slowly but surely lost her mind, I got legitimately giddy. Like, Al and I kept pausing the DVR so we could make weird pointing gestures with our hands just like her and so I could write down the completely psychotically bizarre things that were coming out of her mouth. A couple fan favorites: ''Give me bitchy or give me death. '' Oh, or how about, ''If sexy is wrong, I don't wanna be right!'' Or, wait, my favorite: ''It angers me to be called a control freak, because I'm just quite simply not.'' Blink-blink. Blink-blink. BLINK-blink. Bli-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni. Blink-blink....

The word "ass" was said about a thousand times -- call the FCC! -- as the contestants made up an ad campaign for Levi's jeans and Trump excoriated the losing team for not fully appreciating how jeans are all about "ass" -- a word he says in a uniquely unattractive way. The winning team's reward was, as it often is, torture. This time: spending time with Billy Joel, which motivated the EW recapper to write this song parody:

''What's the matter with the show I'm watchin'?
(Can't you tell that it's out of touch?)
Will the P.M. ever not get fired?
(Don't you think that you ask too much?)
Nowadays you can't be too sentimental.
The best characters are gone, and everyone is mental.
Blond chicks, Trump's tricks, who picked these big —
Anyway, it's still rock & roll to me-heeeeeeee....''

UPDATE: Tung Yin has a long recap of the show, and somehow it doesn't include the word "ass." I don't get it. If I had a one word recap of the show it would be: Ass. And I'd say it like Donald Trump: ey-ess.

Is Stacie J. the new Omarosa?

After finally getting around to watching this week's "The Apprentice," Prof. Yin asks:

[W]hat is it with Mark Burnett's casting of African-American women, anyway? I realize that two data points are hardly conclusive, but doesn't it seem suspicious that each season of "The Apprentice" has had exactly one African-American woman, and each time, she's been completely nuts? (You haven't really [forgotten] Omarosa, have you?) Compare that to the one African-American male cast in each season (Kwame in season 1, Kevin in season 2), who seem like normal, likeable guys.

Here's my theory. Remember the show is edited after all the footage has been produced. Like Burnett's MTV show "The Real World," the editors look through all the raw footage and find story lines they can shape into narratives. The editing we're seeing on the show in any given week is part of a longer story arc that extends into other episodes. In the first two episodes, the black woman, Stacie J., has been presented in a way intended to lure us into thinking she's the new Omarosa. Fans of the show got a big kick out of Omarosa, and the editors know they can get us thinking about Omarosa if they show anyone acting strange, and maybe isolated clips of almost any of the contestants could look strange enough to jog us into thinking: Ooh, this looks good ... this might be weirdness of Omarosan proportions. So they do it with Stacie J. and it's especially easy because, like Omarosa, she's the only black woman.

But I will just bet some other contestant else turns out the real New Omarosa. They are just toying with us at this point in the story arc for this set of characters. Everyone ganged up on Stacie J. this week, and that was actually more Omarosan than anything Stacie J. actually did. (And the extended version of the show reveals that she wasn't as weird as she originally seemed. She didn't decide to call for temp help on her own. She asked the team leader and was told to go ahead!)

Like Prof. Yin, I think it would be rotten for the producers to pick "another Omarosa" to be the only black woman in the cast, and that's why I think they didn't do it. They are just generating interest and story line by making you think that they did. I bet Stacie J. ends up doing just fine.

UPDATE: Chris has this observation in support of the theory that Stacie J. is being edited to seem Omarosa-like:

Another thing to note is how in the premier episode they had this whole thing of showing Stacie "freaking out" and accusing people of ignoring her and being against her, without showing any background leading up to it. We were supposed to conclude that she started acting like this for no reason, completely unprovoked, but it looked very suspicious in that the scene began with the point at which she starts acting strange.

Simulblogging The Apprentice. Gordon decided to join me and Prof. Yin by blogging The Apprentice, but he ups the ante--note clever gambling theme--by simulblogging it. Simulblogging is a good idea, I think, because shows usually aren't interesting enough to warrant full attention. Writing at the same time is one way to keep from losing interest. Like a lot of people, I sometimes play a video game (like Mah Jongg solitaire) while watching a show (like, say, Meet the Press or Road to the White House--how can you just look at that?). Knitting is ideal, but I can't knit. Knitting would let you keep your eyes on the screen. Oh, a treadmill or situps or something like that would be ideal, really. I recommend that to readers.

But anyway, for The Apprentice, I like to keep my eyes fixed on it, because I love the photography and the editing (as I've written before). It is really beautiful. It does go over the line and reveal who is going to be fired though, I believe. Watch and see who gets all the extra interviews edited in, interviews where the person talks about how other people are faltering and focuses on one other person. Oh, they will be wearing a distinctive item of clothing in the interview. Remember Omarosa leaning against the wall by the window? Remember her scarf? Last night it was Katrina in the hairy off-the-shoulder sweater--the hairy off-the-shoulder sweater of doom.

Gordon, watching for the first time, I think, is impressed by Bill and Amy. Amy said she thought Bill was her toughest competition. I don't get the Bill thing. What has he ever done? He seems to be just hanging around trying not to get into trouble. That hasn't been a good strategy. For some reason, I've always thought Troy was going to win. But he went into annoying huckster mode last night. Generally, they always seem too desperate at some point. That may be the editing, but I don't like when they just start accosting customers and begging them to come over. The casino milieu last night was particularly unpleasant. They were acting like circus showmen, and their targets were elderly Atlantic City gambling types. They can voice-over the term "high rollers" all they want to try to make Trump's Taj look glamorous, but the target customers on this show were the least glamorous on the show yet.

Solving the Jon Peter Lewis mystery. Prof. Yin wrote:

I actually kind of like Jon Peter Lewis' performance, but I don't think there's a chance he'll get through.

Then, it turned out we saw that the li'l guy outpolled even the clearly best person (Jennifer Hudson). Here's Shack's rebuke at Television Without Pity:

You voted spastic dork Jon Peter Lewis into the finals.

Well, I laughed through Lewis's performance and would never have voted for him, but (with hindsight) I understand why he won the vote of the people. The people in question, the ones who speed dial hundreds of times in the alloted two-hour period, are young girls. Personally, I'm not a young girl, but I once was, and I remember very well how I felt about idolizing singers. I was interested in male singers who seemed to be boys, not men. I wrote a few days ago that the group Them wasn't quite what I liked at the time. This was the reason: Van Morrison sounded like a man. For the same reason, I wanted nothing to do with something like, say, Percy Sledge singing When a Man Loves a Woman. Young girls are interested in a singer who is an idealized boyfriend. That's why they liked Clay Aiken so very much. That's why we loved The Monkees.

Is Mayor Newsom like Judge Roy Moore? Rod Dreher at The Corner poses a question with an easy answer--and not the easy answer he implies is the easy answer:

What I don't get is this: why was it wrong for Judge Roy Moore of Alabama to unilaterally declare federal law wrong, and defy it by installing a Ten Commandments monument in a courthouse rotunda ... but it's okay for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to unilaterally declare state law wrong in prohibiting same-sex marriage, and defy it by issuing marriage licenses to gay couples? I mean, I know why the media was outraged by the former episode of grandstanding and not the latter, but as a legal matter, what's the difference?

Moore was made a party to a lawsuit, which he lost. He was ordered to remove the monument, and he defied the court order. If a court orders Newsom to stop and he continues, then he'll be like Moore. It's one thing to act upon one's own "unilateral" decision about what the law means in the first instance, quite another to defy a court order. Moore had his opportunity to defend his legal interpretation in court. Newsom is basing his actions on an interpretation of law, and his day in court has not yet occurred.

There are some similarities too, though. Both men decided to use their position of power to stage a demonstration that stirred the intense passion of a large group of supporters and made them feel deeply invested in preserving the new state of affairs. Maybe I'm not reading enough of the news stories about Newsom, but I don't think he's getting much approval from the press. The events are being covered, but Newsom isn't being hailed as a hero at this point. I think the coverage of the two men at the same stage in the events has been roughly similar. If Newsom is ordered to stop and he persists, he will undermine his own reputation the way Moore did.

UPDATE: Prof. Yin agrees with me (or "tends to agree" with me) about the Moore-Newsom distinction. He goes on to make the point, which is surely correct, that just because what Newsom is doing isn't as bad as what Moore did doesn't necessarily mean it's laudable: there were other ways to test the state law and produce a court opinion on the issue. On the other hand, as I discussed here, there is something to a big, visible demonstration that affects (in both directions) how people think about the legal issues. Eugene Volokh has some good discussion of the Moore-Newsom distinction and of the basis for Newsom's legal interpretation here.

I started watching The Apprentice again. I couldn't help it, kind of, because it was on the TiVo and I kept hearing how good the new episode was. Plus, Isaac Mizrahi was on. I love him. It was pretty hilarious when Jessie was talking to him like he was in kindergarten and especially that she wouldn't stop even after he joked that she was talking to him as if he didn't quite speak English (maybe she assumed that as a fashion designer, he must be European). She didn't even stop when he switched from laughing at her to scowling at her. He's such a thoroughly good-natured, affectionate person--watch his regular show and see!--that if he's reduced to scowling, it's got to be really bad.

So Jessie deserved to leave, based on the competition. What is interesting about the show is that your final performance in the boardroom counts as a separate competition, but the players don't seem to have caught on to that yet. They seem to be trying to preserve relationships for the next stage of the competition. Thus, Jessie went noncompetitive right when she had a chance to cause Omarosa to lose, because Omarosa slipped up at that stage. It was certainly better TV to fire Jessie and keep Omarosa around. The last shreds of comedy had already been wrung out of Jessie, but Omarosa has so much more to give.

Why couldn't Omarosa get Isaac Mizrahi's name straight? She kept calling him Isaac Mizarahi. I'm thinking the word "misery" got lodged in her head when she heard "Mizrahi," because she also refered to the Elizabeth Glazer Fund (the charity they were raising money for) as the Elizabeth Glacier Fund.

Prof. Yin is discussing the new episode too. He admits to not being the target audience for the celebrities in question: Russell Simmons is "some hip hop guy" to him. I'll admit to never having heard of Tiki Barber or "Third Watch." I don't care about hip hop stars, myself, except that I enjoy seeing various houses of the stars on "MTV Cribs"--and Russell Simmons was very appealing showing his house, which has a meditation room, on "Cribs."

Anyway, The Apprentice is amazingly well photographed and edited. It is almost worth watching solely for the views of New York City. Add the characters and their cross-sniping, and it really does demand to be watched.

"[A]ll one needs to do is separate politics from law. Emotion from precedent."

As Steve Martin would say, "First, get a million dollars..."

May I recommend this book: "Descartes's Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain."

Oh, am I perseverating? Sorry, it was the first critic of my blog! I'll go read the New York Times now.