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Monthly Newsletter Issue 01 2019
Food for ThoughtA roundup of information opinion and brainteasers
for area Democrats and their friends
Jim Highower Free the Free Press
What do people really mean when they speak of ldquothe centerrdquo Center of what
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Do you know your acronyms
Column Feature Review Quiz
Page 2 Page 8 Page 10 Page 12
Paid political advertisement paid for by Volusia County DEC independently of any candidate or committee
In his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King Junior asserts the following ldquoIn any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist negotiation self-purification and direct actionrdquo I would suggest that those same four steps be followed with disputes within a given organization even when there is no question of violence
First get the facts straight Get as close to the source as possible None of this ldquoAlfie Galahad told my cousin he had heardhelliprdquo If you hear that someone has said or done something of which you disapprove especially if you hear it second- or third-hand then call that person and ask whether itrsquos true
Reagan said of his treaty with Russia ldquoTrust but verifyrdquo The same principle should apply among us
Second negotiate Donrsquot start by summoning the clans beating the drums and distributing weapons Start by talking it over Sometimes there is no problem simply a misunderstanding Sometimes there is a problem but by negotiating it can be ironed out amicably
Third purify yourself Examine your own motivations Clear your mind of rancor Make sure that yoursquore acting in love not hate make sure that yoursquore acting for the common good and not for your own personal interest
Finally if it gets to that point nonviolent direct action becomes appropriate In this context that means nonviolent language and intra-organizational maneuvering rather than physical conflict Remain civil throughout Remember that yoursquore dealing with opponents not enemies and that their intentions are usually just as well meaning as yours
Start with polite confrontation escalating demands and pressure only when it becomes necessary (If you start by dropping the Mother of All Verbal Bombs and fail to succeed you have nowhere left to go)
Having seen lots of evidence suggesting that readers overlooked this callout from the previous issue Irsquove decided to reprint it
Seriously
Irsquom persuaded that taking time to reflect on these suggestions will contribute significantly to the unity and mutual respect of our DEC members
Guest Column
Jim Hightower
Free the Free Press from Wall Street Plunderers
Jim Hightower former Commissioner of Agriculture in Texas is one of our sharpest and also one of our funniest progressive commentators After a brief back-and-forth Irsquove been invited by Melody Byrd his executive assistant to reprint Mr Hightowerrsquos columns in our newsletter
As you will discover this is a very good news indeed
The column with which Irsquove chosen to began concerns the struggles newspapers face in trying to remain both viable and independent in an increasingly difficult environment It features Gatehouse corporate owner of one of our own local newspapers The Daytona Beach News-Journal
Let me be clear up front that I have no intention here of criticizing either the News-Journal or any of our other local newspapers (I might do so later but not here) Rather I want to alert readers to the pressures being faced by honest hard-working journalists I also want to help them gain a new perspective on corporate and editorial policies the might perceive but not understand
Before beginning letrsquos loosely defined some of the terminology that shows up in this kind of discussion
Leveraged Buyout an outside entity uses borrowed money to obtain a controlling interest in a corporation
Hedge Fund a limited partnership of investors that uses high risk methods such as investing with borrowed money (see above) in hopes of realizing large capital gains
Corporate Raider an investor who uses a leveraged buyout for a hostile takeover of a corporation The raider plunders or sells off the corporationrsquos more profitable assets leaving it saddled with debt and often foundering into bankruptcy
eFree the Free Press from Wall Street Plunderers by Jim Hightower
December 6 2018
A two-panel cartoon I recently saw showed a character with a sign saying ldquoFirst they came for the reportersrdquo In the next panel his sign says ldquoWe donrsquot know what happened after thatrdquo
Page 2Editor Wayne Dickson
It was of course a retort to Donald Trumprsquos ignorant campaign to demonize the news media as ldquo the enemy of the peoplerdquo But when it comes to Americarsquos once-proud newspapers their worst enemy is not Trump ndash nor is it the rising cost of newsprint or the ldquofreerdquo digital news on websites Rather the demise of the real news reporting by our city and regional papers is a product of their profiteering owners Not the families and companies that built and nurtured true journalism but the new breed of fast-buck hucksters whorsquove scooped up hundreds of Americarsquos newspapers from the bargain bins of media sell-offs
The buyers are hedge-fund scavengers with names like Digital First and GateHouse They know nothing about journalism and care less for theyrsquore ruthless Wall Street profiteers out to grab big bucks fast by slashing the journalistic and production staffs of each paper voiding all employee benefits (from pensions to free coffee in the breakroom) shriveling the paperrsquos size and news content selling the presses and other assets tripling the price of their inferior product ndash then declaring bankruptcy shutting down the paper and auctioning off the bones before moving on to plunder another townrsquos paper
By 2014 Americarsquos two largest media chains were not venerable publishers who believe that a newspaperrsquos mission includes a commitment to truth and a civic responsibility but GateHouse and Digital First whose managers believe that good journalism is measured by the personal profit they can squeeze from
it As revealed last year in anAmerican Prospect article GateHouse executives had demanded that its papers cut $27 million from their operating expenses Thousands of newspaper employees suffered that $27 million cut in large part because one employee ndash the hedge fundrsquos CEO ndash had extracted $54 million in personal pay from the conglomerate including an $11 million bonus
To these absentee owners and operators our newspapers are just mines entitling them to extract enormous financial wealth and social well-being from our communities
The core idea of the ldquocivic commonsrdquo is that we are a self-governing people capable of creating and sustaining a society based on common good
A noble aspiration
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 3Editor Wayne Dickson
But achieving it requires a basic level of community-wide communication ndash a reliable resource that digs out and shares truths so people know enough about whatrsquos going on to be self-governing This is the role Americans have long expected their local and regional newspapers to play ndash papers that are not merely in our communities but of by and for them
Of course being profit-seeking entities that are usually enmeshed in the local moneyed establishment papers have commonly (and often infamously) fallen far short of their noble democratic purpose Overall though a townrsquos daily (or better yet two or more dailies) makes for a more robust civic life by devoting journalistic resources to truth telling
But local ownership matters as some 1500 of our towns have learned after Wall Streetrsquos corporate demigods of greed have swept in without warning to seize their paper gut its journalistic mission and devour its assets For example Digital First a huge private-
equity profiteer snatched the St Paul Pioneer Press and demanding a ridiculous 25 percent profit margin from its purchase stripped the newsroom staff from a high of 225 journalists to 25
As Robert Kuttner reported these tyrannical private equity firms are paper constructs that produce nothing but profits for faraway speculators He notes that the blandly-named entities only exist ldquothanks to three loopholes in the lawrdquo ndash the first lets them operate in the dark the second provides an unlimited tax deduction for the massive amounts of money they borrow to buy up newspapers and the third allows them to profit by intentionally bankrupting the paper they take over
Our right to a free press is meaningless if Wall Street thieves destroy our communitiesrsquo presses The good news is that many enterprising people are devising ways to rescue their newspapers For more information go to dfmworkersorg (httpdfmworkersorg)
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 4Editor Wayne Dickson
Page 5Editor Wayne Dickson
EditorialWhy are they impervious to truth and realityWayne Dickson
1 Yes I know The tweeter says literally that the nation of New Zealand is a flag Actually of course hersquos using ldquoNew Zealandrdquo as a metonymy for ldquothe massacre in New Zealandrdquo ndash which doesnrsquot really let him off the hook since an event is still not a flag The clicheacute usually runs ldquofalse flag operationrdquo The reference is to the days of sailing ships To raise the flag of some nation other than your own would be to ldquosail under a false flagrdquo It was done for
reasons of subterfuge sometimes to see that some other nation was blamed for harm your own nation had inflicted
2 In this tweet he doesnrsquot specify whorsquos responsible (later he says itrsquos ldquoliberalsrdquo) but hersquos sure that ldquoconservativesrdquo will be blamed ldquoWhy would people assume it was conservativesrdquo one wonders
3 ldquoOnly a total nutjob lunatic insane[] demanized freakrdquo ndash meaning a conservative ndash would do such a thing
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 6Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 7Editor Wayne Dickson
Wow What a gift for his evangelical white supremacist fanboys In one ldquoswell fooprdquo Rushbo (1) neutralizes any temptation to feel doubt guilt or remorse (2) neutralizes the effect of any legitimate evidence or accusation (3) reinforces self-pitying feelings of persecution and (4) blames ldquothe liberal socialist deep-state leftrdquo
1 This is obviously a self-fulling prophesy Rushbo says the day will be filled with politicization then fills the day with politicization via his talk show
2 Just watch you poor persecuted white macho males First theyrsquoll blame your cult leader Uumlber Fuumlhrer Trump and then theyrsquoll blame you
3 I bet we learn this was a false flag operation that the shooter was actually a leftist just pretending to be a paranoid ultra-right white supremacist
4 In fact I wouldnrsquot be surprised to discover he was such a leftist fanatic as to have intended to sacrifice his own life just to make poor beleagured white nationalists like us look bad Thatrsquos how much they hate us
5 After all as faithful listeners to this show are aware to be liberal is to be insane
6 Theyrsquore all against us you know Even Trumprsquos own network Fox News has been gullible enough to swallow the leftist lies about the shooter
Page 8Editor Wayne Dickson
FeatureCenter Center of whatWayne Dickson
A ldquonormal distributionrdquo is a range of values like test scores body weight crop yield or such The lowest instance lies at one end the highest at the other end the greatest number of instances are grouped toward the middle and the mean average of all instances is in the center The graph of such an array forms the familiar bell-shaped curve
Indices of individual political ideology are among the values that form a normal distribution Thus one way of defining the political ldquocenterrdquo is to distribute instances of some statistically valid and reliable index of peoplersquos actual beliefs and calculate their mean average The result will form a bell curve those instances to the left of the mean being increasingly more liberal those to the right increasingly more conservative
Another way of defining the ldquocenterrdquo is abstract and theoretical Start by drawing a straight horizontal line The left end of the line will represent theoretical absolute liberalism the right end theoretical absolute conservatism The middle of the line is thus the theoretical ldquocenterrdquo politically
OK Now letrsquos combine the two On the bottom wersquoll anchor the immovable and unchanging horizontal theoretical continuum Its ldquocenterrdquo will be fixed Above that wersquoll put the empirically determined curve describing peoplersquos actual political ideology Both its range (distance from the first instance to the last) and its ldquocenterrdquo (mean average of all instances) will vary continually with the times Visually wersquoll picture that as the entire curve sliding left or right along the immovable theoretical continuum
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 9Editor Wayne Dickson
This matter is very complex by its very nature and its complexity is often muddied by political figures who are trying deliberately to confuse us To avoid becoming befuddled itrsquos important to keep several facts in mind
1 These are just two of many possible ways of graphing the factors involved here For example party affiliation graphs differently from political ideology and self identified political ideology graphs differently from actual mea-surable political ideology (Remember how many people said that they hated Obamacare but loved the ACA)
We are concerned here with the relationship between permanent and unchanging theoretical ideology and im-permanent constantly changing actual measurable ideology
2 How much of the distribution is included when one speaks of ldquothe centerrdquo For example in the bell graph above the vertical lines represent what are called ldquostandard deviationsrdquo For our purposes the technical meaning of the term isnrsquot important What matters is that the area between -1 STD to the left of the mean and +1 to the right in-cludes 68of the total number of instances Is that ldquothe centerrdquo Half of that One-forth
Any political figure or ldquotalking headrdquo who speaks blithely about ldquothe centerrdquo without specifically identifying the termrsquos meaning in the context in question should be treated with great wariness That personrsquos comments might be very important but they cannot be taken at face value
Oh one more thinghellip If you say anything about ldquothe centerrdquo make sure you specify what you intend by the term
Page 10Editor Wayne Dickson
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
By Andrew G McCabe
St Martinrsquos 2019
I had bought Andrew McCabersquos new book with the intention of reviewing it Still I admit I was feeling a bit uneasy as I began reading After all he had been fired from the FBI just 26 hours before becoming eligible for retirement with full benefits
James Comey had been fired from the FBI under equally uncomfortable circumstances and despite its virtues his book had been annoyingly self-justifying in places I didnrsquot want more of the same As it happened I neednrsquot have worried
McCabe does say a bit about his dismissal (hersquod have been disingenuous not to) but just a bit The gist of his book as I read it is a defense of the honor dedication and professionalism of the FBI And in the process itrsquos also an endorsement of James Comey Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller McCabe had been a subordinate of Comey and Mueller and an associate of Rosenstein
Thatrsquos the background against which one should view the combined outrage and cold determination behind his otherwise bland-seeming assertion that ldquoThe work of the FBI is being undermined by the current presidentrdquo
McCabe tells his story of the FBI by narrating his own journey through its ranks from green recruit on up to acting director His first major case ironically enough involved the so-called ldquoRussian Mafiardquomdashthat is a Russian criminal organization employing methods made familiar by Italian organized criminals from Sicily and elsewhere Later he led the team investigating the Boston Marathon bombing
For me though the most engaging parts involve his impressions of and interactions with various major players like Obama Sessions and Mueller (Obama payed close attention to
Wayne Dickson
ReviewThe Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
Guest Column
Jim Hightower
Free the Free Press from Wall Street Plunderers
Jim Hightower former Commissioner of Agriculture in Texas is one of our sharpest and also one of our funniest progressive commentators After a brief back-and-forth Irsquove been invited by Melody Byrd his executive assistant to reprint Mr Hightowerrsquos columns in our newsletter
As you will discover this is a very good news indeed
The column with which Irsquove chosen to began concerns the struggles newspapers face in trying to remain both viable and independent in an increasingly difficult environment It features Gatehouse corporate owner of one of our own local newspapers The Daytona Beach News-Journal
Let me be clear up front that I have no intention here of criticizing either the News-Journal or any of our other local newspapers (I might do so later but not here) Rather I want to alert readers to the pressures being faced by honest hard-working journalists I also want to help them gain a new perspective on corporate and editorial policies the might perceive but not understand
Before beginning letrsquos loosely defined some of the terminology that shows up in this kind of discussion
Leveraged Buyout an outside entity uses borrowed money to obtain a controlling interest in a corporation
Hedge Fund a limited partnership of investors that uses high risk methods such as investing with borrowed money (see above) in hopes of realizing large capital gains
Corporate Raider an investor who uses a leveraged buyout for a hostile takeover of a corporation The raider plunders or sells off the corporationrsquos more profitable assets leaving it saddled with debt and often foundering into bankruptcy
eFree the Free Press from Wall Street Plunderers by Jim Hightower
December 6 2018
A two-panel cartoon I recently saw showed a character with a sign saying ldquoFirst they came for the reportersrdquo In the next panel his sign says ldquoWe donrsquot know what happened after thatrdquo
Page 2Editor Wayne Dickson
It was of course a retort to Donald Trumprsquos ignorant campaign to demonize the news media as ldquo the enemy of the peoplerdquo But when it comes to Americarsquos once-proud newspapers their worst enemy is not Trump ndash nor is it the rising cost of newsprint or the ldquofreerdquo digital news on websites Rather the demise of the real news reporting by our city and regional papers is a product of their profiteering owners Not the families and companies that built and nurtured true journalism but the new breed of fast-buck hucksters whorsquove scooped up hundreds of Americarsquos newspapers from the bargain bins of media sell-offs
The buyers are hedge-fund scavengers with names like Digital First and GateHouse They know nothing about journalism and care less for theyrsquore ruthless Wall Street profiteers out to grab big bucks fast by slashing the journalistic and production staffs of each paper voiding all employee benefits (from pensions to free coffee in the breakroom) shriveling the paperrsquos size and news content selling the presses and other assets tripling the price of their inferior product ndash then declaring bankruptcy shutting down the paper and auctioning off the bones before moving on to plunder another townrsquos paper
By 2014 Americarsquos two largest media chains were not venerable publishers who believe that a newspaperrsquos mission includes a commitment to truth and a civic responsibility but GateHouse and Digital First whose managers believe that good journalism is measured by the personal profit they can squeeze from
it As revealed last year in anAmerican Prospect article GateHouse executives had demanded that its papers cut $27 million from their operating expenses Thousands of newspaper employees suffered that $27 million cut in large part because one employee ndash the hedge fundrsquos CEO ndash had extracted $54 million in personal pay from the conglomerate including an $11 million bonus
To these absentee owners and operators our newspapers are just mines entitling them to extract enormous financial wealth and social well-being from our communities
The core idea of the ldquocivic commonsrdquo is that we are a self-governing people capable of creating and sustaining a society based on common good
A noble aspiration
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 3Editor Wayne Dickson
But achieving it requires a basic level of community-wide communication ndash a reliable resource that digs out and shares truths so people know enough about whatrsquos going on to be self-governing This is the role Americans have long expected their local and regional newspapers to play ndash papers that are not merely in our communities but of by and for them
Of course being profit-seeking entities that are usually enmeshed in the local moneyed establishment papers have commonly (and often infamously) fallen far short of their noble democratic purpose Overall though a townrsquos daily (or better yet two or more dailies) makes for a more robust civic life by devoting journalistic resources to truth telling
But local ownership matters as some 1500 of our towns have learned after Wall Streetrsquos corporate demigods of greed have swept in without warning to seize their paper gut its journalistic mission and devour its assets For example Digital First a huge private-
equity profiteer snatched the St Paul Pioneer Press and demanding a ridiculous 25 percent profit margin from its purchase stripped the newsroom staff from a high of 225 journalists to 25
As Robert Kuttner reported these tyrannical private equity firms are paper constructs that produce nothing but profits for faraway speculators He notes that the blandly-named entities only exist ldquothanks to three loopholes in the lawrdquo ndash the first lets them operate in the dark the second provides an unlimited tax deduction for the massive amounts of money they borrow to buy up newspapers and the third allows them to profit by intentionally bankrupting the paper they take over
Our right to a free press is meaningless if Wall Street thieves destroy our communitiesrsquo presses The good news is that many enterprising people are devising ways to rescue their newspapers For more information go to dfmworkersorg (httpdfmworkersorg)
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 4Editor Wayne Dickson
Page 5Editor Wayne Dickson
EditorialWhy are they impervious to truth and realityWayne Dickson
1 Yes I know The tweeter says literally that the nation of New Zealand is a flag Actually of course hersquos using ldquoNew Zealandrdquo as a metonymy for ldquothe massacre in New Zealandrdquo ndash which doesnrsquot really let him off the hook since an event is still not a flag The clicheacute usually runs ldquofalse flag operationrdquo The reference is to the days of sailing ships To raise the flag of some nation other than your own would be to ldquosail under a false flagrdquo It was done for
reasons of subterfuge sometimes to see that some other nation was blamed for harm your own nation had inflicted
2 In this tweet he doesnrsquot specify whorsquos responsible (later he says itrsquos ldquoliberalsrdquo) but hersquos sure that ldquoconservativesrdquo will be blamed ldquoWhy would people assume it was conservativesrdquo one wonders
3 ldquoOnly a total nutjob lunatic insane[] demanized freakrdquo ndash meaning a conservative ndash would do such a thing
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 6Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 7Editor Wayne Dickson
Wow What a gift for his evangelical white supremacist fanboys In one ldquoswell fooprdquo Rushbo (1) neutralizes any temptation to feel doubt guilt or remorse (2) neutralizes the effect of any legitimate evidence or accusation (3) reinforces self-pitying feelings of persecution and (4) blames ldquothe liberal socialist deep-state leftrdquo
1 This is obviously a self-fulling prophesy Rushbo says the day will be filled with politicization then fills the day with politicization via his talk show
2 Just watch you poor persecuted white macho males First theyrsquoll blame your cult leader Uumlber Fuumlhrer Trump and then theyrsquoll blame you
3 I bet we learn this was a false flag operation that the shooter was actually a leftist just pretending to be a paranoid ultra-right white supremacist
4 In fact I wouldnrsquot be surprised to discover he was such a leftist fanatic as to have intended to sacrifice his own life just to make poor beleagured white nationalists like us look bad Thatrsquos how much they hate us
5 After all as faithful listeners to this show are aware to be liberal is to be insane
6 Theyrsquore all against us you know Even Trumprsquos own network Fox News has been gullible enough to swallow the leftist lies about the shooter
Page 8Editor Wayne Dickson
FeatureCenter Center of whatWayne Dickson
A ldquonormal distributionrdquo is a range of values like test scores body weight crop yield or such The lowest instance lies at one end the highest at the other end the greatest number of instances are grouped toward the middle and the mean average of all instances is in the center The graph of such an array forms the familiar bell-shaped curve
Indices of individual political ideology are among the values that form a normal distribution Thus one way of defining the political ldquocenterrdquo is to distribute instances of some statistically valid and reliable index of peoplersquos actual beliefs and calculate their mean average The result will form a bell curve those instances to the left of the mean being increasingly more liberal those to the right increasingly more conservative
Another way of defining the ldquocenterrdquo is abstract and theoretical Start by drawing a straight horizontal line The left end of the line will represent theoretical absolute liberalism the right end theoretical absolute conservatism The middle of the line is thus the theoretical ldquocenterrdquo politically
OK Now letrsquos combine the two On the bottom wersquoll anchor the immovable and unchanging horizontal theoretical continuum Its ldquocenterrdquo will be fixed Above that wersquoll put the empirically determined curve describing peoplersquos actual political ideology Both its range (distance from the first instance to the last) and its ldquocenterrdquo (mean average of all instances) will vary continually with the times Visually wersquoll picture that as the entire curve sliding left or right along the immovable theoretical continuum
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 9Editor Wayne Dickson
This matter is very complex by its very nature and its complexity is often muddied by political figures who are trying deliberately to confuse us To avoid becoming befuddled itrsquos important to keep several facts in mind
1 These are just two of many possible ways of graphing the factors involved here For example party affiliation graphs differently from political ideology and self identified political ideology graphs differently from actual mea-surable political ideology (Remember how many people said that they hated Obamacare but loved the ACA)
We are concerned here with the relationship between permanent and unchanging theoretical ideology and im-permanent constantly changing actual measurable ideology
2 How much of the distribution is included when one speaks of ldquothe centerrdquo For example in the bell graph above the vertical lines represent what are called ldquostandard deviationsrdquo For our purposes the technical meaning of the term isnrsquot important What matters is that the area between -1 STD to the left of the mean and +1 to the right in-cludes 68of the total number of instances Is that ldquothe centerrdquo Half of that One-forth
Any political figure or ldquotalking headrdquo who speaks blithely about ldquothe centerrdquo without specifically identifying the termrsquos meaning in the context in question should be treated with great wariness That personrsquos comments might be very important but they cannot be taken at face value
Oh one more thinghellip If you say anything about ldquothe centerrdquo make sure you specify what you intend by the term
Page 10Editor Wayne Dickson
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
By Andrew G McCabe
St Martinrsquos 2019
I had bought Andrew McCabersquos new book with the intention of reviewing it Still I admit I was feeling a bit uneasy as I began reading After all he had been fired from the FBI just 26 hours before becoming eligible for retirement with full benefits
James Comey had been fired from the FBI under equally uncomfortable circumstances and despite its virtues his book had been annoyingly self-justifying in places I didnrsquot want more of the same As it happened I neednrsquot have worried
McCabe does say a bit about his dismissal (hersquod have been disingenuous not to) but just a bit The gist of his book as I read it is a defense of the honor dedication and professionalism of the FBI And in the process itrsquos also an endorsement of James Comey Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller McCabe had been a subordinate of Comey and Mueller and an associate of Rosenstein
Thatrsquos the background against which one should view the combined outrage and cold determination behind his otherwise bland-seeming assertion that ldquoThe work of the FBI is being undermined by the current presidentrdquo
McCabe tells his story of the FBI by narrating his own journey through its ranks from green recruit on up to acting director His first major case ironically enough involved the so-called ldquoRussian Mafiardquomdashthat is a Russian criminal organization employing methods made familiar by Italian organized criminals from Sicily and elsewhere Later he led the team investigating the Boston Marathon bombing
For me though the most engaging parts involve his impressions of and interactions with various major players like Obama Sessions and Mueller (Obama payed close attention to
Wayne Dickson
ReviewThe Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
It was of course a retort to Donald Trumprsquos ignorant campaign to demonize the news media as ldquo the enemy of the peoplerdquo But when it comes to Americarsquos once-proud newspapers their worst enemy is not Trump ndash nor is it the rising cost of newsprint or the ldquofreerdquo digital news on websites Rather the demise of the real news reporting by our city and regional papers is a product of their profiteering owners Not the families and companies that built and nurtured true journalism but the new breed of fast-buck hucksters whorsquove scooped up hundreds of Americarsquos newspapers from the bargain bins of media sell-offs
The buyers are hedge-fund scavengers with names like Digital First and GateHouse They know nothing about journalism and care less for theyrsquore ruthless Wall Street profiteers out to grab big bucks fast by slashing the journalistic and production staffs of each paper voiding all employee benefits (from pensions to free coffee in the breakroom) shriveling the paperrsquos size and news content selling the presses and other assets tripling the price of their inferior product ndash then declaring bankruptcy shutting down the paper and auctioning off the bones before moving on to plunder another townrsquos paper
By 2014 Americarsquos two largest media chains were not venerable publishers who believe that a newspaperrsquos mission includes a commitment to truth and a civic responsibility but GateHouse and Digital First whose managers believe that good journalism is measured by the personal profit they can squeeze from
it As revealed last year in anAmerican Prospect article GateHouse executives had demanded that its papers cut $27 million from their operating expenses Thousands of newspaper employees suffered that $27 million cut in large part because one employee ndash the hedge fundrsquos CEO ndash had extracted $54 million in personal pay from the conglomerate including an $11 million bonus
To these absentee owners and operators our newspapers are just mines entitling them to extract enormous financial wealth and social well-being from our communities
The core idea of the ldquocivic commonsrdquo is that we are a self-governing people capable of creating and sustaining a society based on common good
A noble aspiration
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 3Editor Wayne Dickson
But achieving it requires a basic level of community-wide communication ndash a reliable resource that digs out and shares truths so people know enough about whatrsquos going on to be self-governing This is the role Americans have long expected their local and regional newspapers to play ndash papers that are not merely in our communities but of by and for them
Of course being profit-seeking entities that are usually enmeshed in the local moneyed establishment papers have commonly (and often infamously) fallen far short of their noble democratic purpose Overall though a townrsquos daily (or better yet two or more dailies) makes for a more robust civic life by devoting journalistic resources to truth telling
But local ownership matters as some 1500 of our towns have learned after Wall Streetrsquos corporate demigods of greed have swept in without warning to seize their paper gut its journalistic mission and devour its assets For example Digital First a huge private-
equity profiteer snatched the St Paul Pioneer Press and demanding a ridiculous 25 percent profit margin from its purchase stripped the newsroom staff from a high of 225 journalists to 25
As Robert Kuttner reported these tyrannical private equity firms are paper constructs that produce nothing but profits for faraway speculators He notes that the blandly-named entities only exist ldquothanks to three loopholes in the lawrdquo ndash the first lets them operate in the dark the second provides an unlimited tax deduction for the massive amounts of money they borrow to buy up newspapers and the third allows them to profit by intentionally bankrupting the paper they take over
Our right to a free press is meaningless if Wall Street thieves destroy our communitiesrsquo presses The good news is that many enterprising people are devising ways to rescue their newspapers For more information go to dfmworkersorg (httpdfmworkersorg)
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 4Editor Wayne Dickson
Page 5Editor Wayne Dickson
EditorialWhy are they impervious to truth and realityWayne Dickson
1 Yes I know The tweeter says literally that the nation of New Zealand is a flag Actually of course hersquos using ldquoNew Zealandrdquo as a metonymy for ldquothe massacre in New Zealandrdquo ndash which doesnrsquot really let him off the hook since an event is still not a flag The clicheacute usually runs ldquofalse flag operationrdquo The reference is to the days of sailing ships To raise the flag of some nation other than your own would be to ldquosail under a false flagrdquo It was done for
reasons of subterfuge sometimes to see that some other nation was blamed for harm your own nation had inflicted
2 In this tweet he doesnrsquot specify whorsquos responsible (later he says itrsquos ldquoliberalsrdquo) but hersquos sure that ldquoconservativesrdquo will be blamed ldquoWhy would people assume it was conservativesrdquo one wonders
3 ldquoOnly a total nutjob lunatic insane[] demanized freakrdquo ndash meaning a conservative ndash would do such a thing
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 6Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 7Editor Wayne Dickson
Wow What a gift for his evangelical white supremacist fanboys In one ldquoswell fooprdquo Rushbo (1) neutralizes any temptation to feel doubt guilt or remorse (2) neutralizes the effect of any legitimate evidence or accusation (3) reinforces self-pitying feelings of persecution and (4) blames ldquothe liberal socialist deep-state leftrdquo
1 This is obviously a self-fulling prophesy Rushbo says the day will be filled with politicization then fills the day with politicization via his talk show
2 Just watch you poor persecuted white macho males First theyrsquoll blame your cult leader Uumlber Fuumlhrer Trump and then theyrsquoll blame you
3 I bet we learn this was a false flag operation that the shooter was actually a leftist just pretending to be a paranoid ultra-right white supremacist
4 In fact I wouldnrsquot be surprised to discover he was such a leftist fanatic as to have intended to sacrifice his own life just to make poor beleagured white nationalists like us look bad Thatrsquos how much they hate us
5 After all as faithful listeners to this show are aware to be liberal is to be insane
6 Theyrsquore all against us you know Even Trumprsquos own network Fox News has been gullible enough to swallow the leftist lies about the shooter
Page 8Editor Wayne Dickson
FeatureCenter Center of whatWayne Dickson
A ldquonormal distributionrdquo is a range of values like test scores body weight crop yield or such The lowest instance lies at one end the highest at the other end the greatest number of instances are grouped toward the middle and the mean average of all instances is in the center The graph of such an array forms the familiar bell-shaped curve
Indices of individual political ideology are among the values that form a normal distribution Thus one way of defining the political ldquocenterrdquo is to distribute instances of some statistically valid and reliable index of peoplersquos actual beliefs and calculate their mean average The result will form a bell curve those instances to the left of the mean being increasingly more liberal those to the right increasingly more conservative
Another way of defining the ldquocenterrdquo is abstract and theoretical Start by drawing a straight horizontal line The left end of the line will represent theoretical absolute liberalism the right end theoretical absolute conservatism The middle of the line is thus the theoretical ldquocenterrdquo politically
OK Now letrsquos combine the two On the bottom wersquoll anchor the immovable and unchanging horizontal theoretical continuum Its ldquocenterrdquo will be fixed Above that wersquoll put the empirically determined curve describing peoplersquos actual political ideology Both its range (distance from the first instance to the last) and its ldquocenterrdquo (mean average of all instances) will vary continually with the times Visually wersquoll picture that as the entire curve sliding left or right along the immovable theoretical continuum
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 9Editor Wayne Dickson
This matter is very complex by its very nature and its complexity is often muddied by political figures who are trying deliberately to confuse us To avoid becoming befuddled itrsquos important to keep several facts in mind
1 These are just two of many possible ways of graphing the factors involved here For example party affiliation graphs differently from political ideology and self identified political ideology graphs differently from actual mea-surable political ideology (Remember how many people said that they hated Obamacare but loved the ACA)
We are concerned here with the relationship between permanent and unchanging theoretical ideology and im-permanent constantly changing actual measurable ideology
2 How much of the distribution is included when one speaks of ldquothe centerrdquo For example in the bell graph above the vertical lines represent what are called ldquostandard deviationsrdquo For our purposes the technical meaning of the term isnrsquot important What matters is that the area between -1 STD to the left of the mean and +1 to the right in-cludes 68of the total number of instances Is that ldquothe centerrdquo Half of that One-forth
Any political figure or ldquotalking headrdquo who speaks blithely about ldquothe centerrdquo without specifically identifying the termrsquos meaning in the context in question should be treated with great wariness That personrsquos comments might be very important but they cannot be taken at face value
Oh one more thinghellip If you say anything about ldquothe centerrdquo make sure you specify what you intend by the term
Page 10Editor Wayne Dickson
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
By Andrew G McCabe
St Martinrsquos 2019
I had bought Andrew McCabersquos new book with the intention of reviewing it Still I admit I was feeling a bit uneasy as I began reading After all he had been fired from the FBI just 26 hours before becoming eligible for retirement with full benefits
James Comey had been fired from the FBI under equally uncomfortable circumstances and despite its virtues his book had been annoyingly self-justifying in places I didnrsquot want more of the same As it happened I neednrsquot have worried
McCabe does say a bit about his dismissal (hersquod have been disingenuous not to) but just a bit The gist of his book as I read it is a defense of the honor dedication and professionalism of the FBI And in the process itrsquos also an endorsement of James Comey Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller McCabe had been a subordinate of Comey and Mueller and an associate of Rosenstein
Thatrsquos the background against which one should view the combined outrage and cold determination behind his otherwise bland-seeming assertion that ldquoThe work of the FBI is being undermined by the current presidentrdquo
McCabe tells his story of the FBI by narrating his own journey through its ranks from green recruit on up to acting director His first major case ironically enough involved the so-called ldquoRussian Mafiardquomdashthat is a Russian criminal organization employing methods made familiar by Italian organized criminals from Sicily and elsewhere Later he led the team investigating the Boston Marathon bombing
For me though the most engaging parts involve his impressions of and interactions with various major players like Obama Sessions and Mueller (Obama payed close attention to
Wayne Dickson
ReviewThe Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
But achieving it requires a basic level of community-wide communication ndash a reliable resource that digs out and shares truths so people know enough about whatrsquos going on to be self-governing This is the role Americans have long expected their local and regional newspapers to play ndash papers that are not merely in our communities but of by and for them
Of course being profit-seeking entities that are usually enmeshed in the local moneyed establishment papers have commonly (and often infamously) fallen far short of their noble democratic purpose Overall though a townrsquos daily (or better yet two or more dailies) makes for a more robust civic life by devoting journalistic resources to truth telling
But local ownership matters as some 1500 of our towns have learned after Wall Streetrsquos corporate demigods of greed have swept in without warning to seize their paper gut its journalistic mission and devour its assets For example Digital First a huge private-
equity profiteer snatched the St Paul Pioneer Press and demanding a ridiculous 25 percent profit margin from its purchase stripped the newsroom staff from a high of 225 journalists to 25
As Robert Kuttner reported these tyrannical private equity firms are paper constructs that produce nothing but profits for faraway speculators He notes that the blandly-named entities only exist ldquothanks to three loopholes in the lawrdquo ndash the first lets them operate in the dark the second provides an unlimited tax deduction for the massive amounts of money they borrow to buy up newspapers and the third allows them to profit by intentionally bankrupting the paper they take over
Our right to a free press is meaningless if Wall Street thieves destroy our communitiesrsquo presses The good news is that many enterprising people are devising ways to rescue their newspapers For more information go to dfmworkersorg (httpdfmworkersorg)
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 4Editor Wayne Dickson
Page 5Editor Wayne Dickson
EditorialWhy are they impervious to truth and realityWayne Dickson
1 Yes I know The tweeter says literally that the nation of New Zealand is a flag Actually of course hersquos using ldquoNew Zealandrdquo as a metonymy for ldquothe massacre in New Zealandrdquo ndash which doesnrsquot really let him off the hook since an event is still not a flag The clicheacute usually runs ldquofalse flag operationrdquo The reference is to the days of sailing ships To raise the flag of some nation other than your own would be to ldquosail under a false flagrdquo It was done for
reasons of subterfuge sometimes to see that some other nation was blamed for harm your own nation had inflicted
2 In this tweet he doesnrsquot specify whorsquos responsible (later he says itrsquos ldquoliberalsrdquo) but hersquos sure that ldquoconservativesrdquo will be blamed ldquoWhy would people assume it was conservativesrdquo one wonders
3 ldquoOnly a total nutjob lunatic insane[] demanized freakrdquo ndash meaning a conservative ndash would do such a thing
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 6Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 7Editor Wayne Dickson
Wow What a gift for his evangelical white supremacist fanboys In one ldquoswell fooprdquo Rushbo (1) neutralizes any temptation to feel doubt guilt or remorse (2) neutralizes the effect of any legitimate evidence or accusation (3) reinforces self-pitying feelings of persecution and (4) blames ldquothe liberal socialist deep-state leftrdquo
1 This is obviously a self-fulling prophesy Rushbo says the day will be filled with politicization then fills the day with politicization via his talk show
2 Just watch you poor persecuted white macho males First theyrsquoll blame your cult leader Uumlber Fuumlhrer Trump and then theyrsquoll blame you
3 I bet we learn this was a false flag operation that the shooter was actually a leftist just pretending to be a paranoid ultra-right white supremacist
4 In fact I wouldnrsquot be surprised to discover he was such a leftist fanatic as to have intended to sacrifice his own life just to make poor beleagured white nationalists like us look bad Thatrsquos how much they hate us
5 After all as faithful listeners to this show are aware to be liberal is to be insane
6 Theyrsquore all against us you know Even Trumprsquos own network Fox News has been gullible enough to swallow the leftist lies about the shooter
Page 8Editor Wayne Dickson
FeatureCenter Center of whatWayne Dickson
A ldquonormal distributionrdquo is a range of values like test scores body weight crop yield or such The lowest instance lies at one end the highest at the other end the greatest number of instances are grouped toward the middle and the mean average of all instances is in the center The graph of such an array forms the familiar bell-shaped curve
Indices of individual political ideology are among the values that form a normal distribution Thus one way of defining the political ldquocenterrdquo is to distribute instances of some statistically valid and reliable index of peoplersquos actual beliefs and calculate their mean average The result will form a bell curve those instances to the left of the mean being increasingly more liberal those to the right increasingly more conservative
Another way of defining the ldquocenterrdquo is abstract and theoretical Start by drawing a straight horizontal line The left end of the line will represent theoretical absolute liberalism the right end theoretical absolute conservatism The middle of the line is thus the theoretical ldquocenterrdquo politically
OK Now letrsquos combine the two On the bottom wersquoll anchor the immovable and unchanging horizontal theoretical continuum Its ldquocenterrdquo will be fixed Above that wersquoll put the empirically determined curve describing peoplersquos actual political ideology Both its range (distance from the first instance to the last) and its ldquocenterrdquo (mean average of all instances) will vary continually with the times Visually wersquoll picture that as the entire curve sliding left or right along the immovable theoretical continuum
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 9Editor Wayne Dickson
This matter is very complex by its very nature and its complexity is often muddied by political figures who are trying deliberately to confuse us To avoid becoming befuddled itrsquos important to keep several facts in mind
1 These are just two of many possible ways of graphing the factors involved here For example party affiliation graphs differently from political ideology and self identified political ideology graphs differently from actual mea-surable political ideology (Remember how many people said that they hated Obamacare but loved the ACA)
We are concerned here with the relationship between permanent and unchanging theoretical ideology and im-permanent constantly changing actual measurable ideology
2 How much of the distribution is included when one speaks of ldquothe centerrdquo For example in the bell graph above the vertical lines represent what are called ldquostandard deviationsrdquo For our purposes the technical meaning of the term isnrsquot important What matters is that the area between -1 STD to the left of the mean and +1 to the right in-cludes 68of the total number of instances Is that ldquothe centerrdquo Half of that One-forth
Any political figure or ldquotalking headrdquo who speaks blithely about ldquothe centerrdquo without specifically identifying the termrsquos meaning in the context in question should be treated with great wariness That personrsquos comments might be very important but they cannot be taken at face value
Oh one more thinghellip If you say anything about ldquothe centerrdquo make sure you specify what you intend by the term
Page 10Editor Wayne Dickson
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
By Andrew G McCabe
St Martinrsquos 2019
I had bought Andrew McCabersquos new book with the intention of reviewing it Still I admit I was feeling a bit uneasy as I began reading After all he had been fired from the FBI just 26 hours before becoming eligible for retirement with full benefits
James Comey had been fired from the FBI under equally uncomfortable circumstances and despite its virtues his book had been annoyingly self-justifying in places I didnrsquot want more of the same As it happened I neednrsquot have worried
McCabe does say a bit about his dismissal (hersquod have been disingenuous not to) but just a bit The gist of his book as I read it is a defense of the honor dedication and professionalism of the FBI And in the process itrsquos also an endorsement of James Comey Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller McCabe had been a subordinate of Comey and Mueller and an associate of Rosenstein
Thatrsquos the background against which one should view the combined outrage and cold determination behind his otherwise bland-seeming assertion that ldquoThe work of the FBI is being undermined by the current presidentrdquo
McCabe tells his story of the FBI by narrating his own journey through its ranks from green recruit on up to acting director His first major case ironically enough involved the so-called ldquoRussian Mafiardquomdashthat is a Russian criminal organization employing methods made familiar by Italian organized criminals from Sicily and elsewhere Later he led the team investigating the Boston Marathon bombing
For me though the most engaging parts involve his impressions of and interactions with various major players like Obama Sessions and Mueller (Obama payed close attention to
Wayne Dickson
ReviewThe Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
Page 5Editor Wayne Dickson
EditorialWhy are they impervious to truth and realityWayne Dickson
1 Yes I know The tweeter says literally that the nation of New Zealand is a flag Actually of course hersquos using ldquoNew Zealandrdquo as a metonymy for ldquothe massacre in New Zealandrdquo ndash which doesnrsquot really let him off the hook since an event is still not a flag The clicheacute usually runs ldquofalse flag operationrdquo The reference is to the days of sailing ships To raise the flag of some nation other than your own would be to ldquosail under a false flagrdquo It was done for
reasons of subterfuge sometimes to see that some other nation was blamed for harm your own nation had inflicted
2 In this tweet he doesnrsquot specify whorsquos responsible (later he says itrsquos ldquoliberalsrdquo) but hersquos sure that ldquoconservativesrdquo will be blamed ldquoWhy would people assume it was conservativesrdquo one wonders
3 ldquoOnly a total nutjob lunatic insane[] demanized freakrdquo ndash meaning a conservative ndash would do such a thing
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 6Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 7Editor Wayne Dickson
Wow What a gift for his evangelical white supremacist fanboys In one ldquoswell fooprdquo Rushbo (1) neutralizes any temptation to feel doubt guilt or remorse (2) neutralizes the effect of any legitimate evidence or accusation (3) reinforces self-pitying feelings of persecution and (4) blames ldquothe liberal socialist deep-state leftrdquo
1 This is obviously a self-fulling prophesy Rushbo says the day will be filled with politicization then fills the day with politicization via his talk show
2 Just watch you poor persecuted white macho males First theyrsquoll blame your cult leader Uumlber Fuumlhrer Trump and then theyrsquoll blame you
3 I bet we learn this was a false flag operation that the shooter was actually a leftist just pretending to be a paranoid ultra-right white supremacist
4 In fact I wouldnrsquot be surprised to discover he was such a leftist fanatic as to have intended to sacrifice his own life just to make poor beleagured white nationalists like us look bad Thatrsquos how much they hate us
5 After all as faithful listeners to this show are aware to be liberal is to be insane
6 Theyrsquore all against us you know Even Trumprsquos own network Fox News has been gullible enough to swallow the leftist lies about the shooter
Page 8Editor Wayne Dickson
FeatureCenter Center of whatWayne Dickson
A ldquonormal distributionrdquo is a range of values like test scores body weight crop yield or such The lowest instance lies at one end the highest at the other end the greatest number of instances are grouped toward the middle and the mean average of all instances is in the center The graph of such an array forms the familiar bell-shaped curve
Indices of individual political ideology are among the values that form a normal distribution Thus one way of defining the political ldquocenterrdquo is to distribute instances of some statistically valid and reliable index of peoplersquos actual beliefs and calculate their mean average The result will form a bell curve those instances to the left of the mean being increasingly more liberal those to the right increasingly more conservative
Another way of defining the ldquocenterrdquo is abstract and theoretical Start by drawing a straight horizontal line The left end of the line will represent theoretical absolute liberalism the right end theoretical absolute conservatism The middle of the line is thus the theoretical ldquocenterrdquo politically
OK Now letrsquos combine the two On the bottom wersquoll anchor the immovable and unchanging horizontal theoretical continuum Its ldquocenterrdquo will be fixed Above that wersquoll put the empirically determined curve describing peoplersquos actual political ideology Both its range (distance from the first instance to the last) and its ldquocenterrdquo (mean average of all instances) will vary continually with the times Visually wersquoll picture that as the entire curve sliding left or right along the immovable theoretical continuum
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 9Editor Wayne Dickson
This matter is very complex by its very nature and its complexity is often muddied by political figures who are trying deliberately to confuse us To avoid becoming befuddled itrsquos important to keep several facts in mind
1 These are just two of many possible ways of graphing the factors involved here For example party affiliation graphs differently from political ideology and self identified political ideology graphs differently from actual mea-surable political ideology (Remember how many people said that they hated Obamacare but loved the ACA)
We are concerned here with the relationship between permanent and unchanging theoretical ideology and im-permanent constantly changing actual measurable ideology
2 How much of the distribution is included when one speaks of ldquothe centerrdquo For example in the bell graph above the vertical lines represent what are called ldquostandard deviationsrdquo For our purposes the technical meaning of the term isnrsquot important What matters is that the area between -1 STD to the left of the mean and +1 to the right in-cludes 68of the total number of instances Is that ldquothe centerrdquo Half of that One-forth
Any political figure or ldquotalking headrdquo who speaks blithely about ldquothe centerrdquo without specifically identifying the termrsquos meaning in the context in question should be treated with great wariness That personrsquos comments might be very important but they cannot be taken at face value
Oh one more thinghellip If you say anything about ldquothe centerrdquo make sure you specify what you intend by the term
Page 10Editor Wayne Dickson
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
By Andrew G McCabe
St Martinrsquos 2019
I had bought Andrew McCabersquos new book with the intention of reviewing it Still I admit I was feeling a bit uneasy as I began reading After all he had been fired from the FBI just 26 hours before becoming eligible for retirement with full benefits
James Comey had been fired from the FBI under equally uncomfortable circumstances and despite its virtues his book had been annoyingly self-justifying in places I didnrsquot want more of the same As it happened I neednrsquot have worried
McCabe does say a bit about his dismissal (hersquod have been disingenuous not to) but just a bit The gist of his book as I read it is a defense of the honor dedication and professionalism of the FBI And in the process itrsquos also an endorsement of James Comey Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller McCabe had been a subordinate of Comey and Mueller and an associate of Rosenstein
Thatrsquos the background against which one should view the combined outrage and cold determination behind his otherwise bland-seeming assertion that ldquoThe work of the FBI is being undermined by the current presidentrdquo
McCabe tells his story of the FBI by narrating his own journey through its ranks from green recruit on up to acting director His first major case ironically enough involved the so-called ldquoRussian Mafiardquomdashthat is a Russian criminal organization employing methods made familiar by Italian organized criminals from Sicily and elsewhere Later he led the team investigating the Boston Marathon bombing
For me though the most engaging parts involve his impressions of and interactions with various major players like Obama Sessions and Mueller (Obama payed close attention to
Wayne Dickson
ReviewThe Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 6Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 7Editor Wayne Dickson
Wow What a gift for his evangelical white supremacist fanboys In one ldquoswell fooprdquo Rushbo (1) neutralizes any temptation to feel doubt guilt or remorse (2) neutralizes the effect of any legitimate evidence or accusation (3) reinforces self-pitying feelings of persecution and (4) blames ldquothe liberal socialist deep-state leftrdquo
1 This is obviously a self-fulling prophesy Rushbo says the day will be filled with politicization then fills the day with politicization via his talk show
2 Just watch you poor persecuted white macho males First theyrsquoll blame your cult leader Uumlber Fuumlhrer Trump and then theyrsquoll blame you
3 I bet we learn this was a false flag operation that the shooter was actually a leftist just pretending to be a paranoid ultra-right white supremacist
4 In fact I wouldnrsquot be surprised to discover he was such a leftist fanatic as to have intended to sacrifice his own life just to make poor beleagured white nationalists like us look bad Thatrsquos how much they hate us
5 After all as faithful listeners to this show are aware to be liberal is to be insane
6 Theyrsquore all against us you know Even Trumprsquos own network Fox News has been gullible enough to swallow the leftist lies about the shooter
Page 8Editor Wayne Dickson
FeatureCenter Center of whatWayne Dickson
A ldquonormal distributionrdquo is a range of values like test scores body weight crop yield or such The lowest instance lies at one end the highest at the other end the greatest number of instances are grouped toward the middle and the mean average of all instances is in the center The graph of such an array forms the familiar bell-shaped curve
Indices of individual political ideology are among the values that form a normal distribution Thus one way of defining the political ldquocenterrdquo is to distribute instances of some statistically valid and reliable index of peoplersquos actual beliefs and calculate their mean average The result will form a bell curve those instances to the left of the mean being increasingly more liberal those to the right increasingly more conservative
Another way of defining the ldquocenterrdquo is abstract and theoretical Start by drawing a straight horizontal line The left end of the line will represent theoretical absolute liberalism the right end theoretical absolute conservatism The middle of the line is thus the theoretical ldquocenterrdquo politically
OK Now letrsquos combine the two On the bottom wersquoll anchor the immovable and unchanging horizontal theoretical continuum Its ldquocenterrdquo will be fixed Above that wersquoll put the empirically determined curve describing peoplersquos actual political ideology Both its range (distance from the first instance to the last) and its ldquocenterrdquo (mean average of all instances) will vary continually with the times Visually wersquoll picture that as the entire curve sliding left or right along the immovable theoretical continuum
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 9Editor Wayne Dickson
This matter is very complex by its very nature and its complexity is often muddied by political figures who are trying deliberately to confuse us To avoid becoming befuddled itrsquos important to keep several facts in mind
1 These are just two of many possible ways of graphing the factors involved here For example party affiliation graphs differently from political ideology and self identified political ideology graphs differently from actual mea-surable political ideology (Remember how many people said that they hated Obamacare but loved the ACA)
We are concerned here with the relationship between permanent and unchanging theoretical ideology and im-permanent constantly changing actual measurable ideology
2 How much of the distribution is included when one speaks of ldquothe centerrdquo For example in the bell graph above the vertical lines represent what are called ldquostandard deviationsrdquo For our purposes the technical meaning of the term isnrsquot important What matters is that the area between -1 STD to the left of the mean and +1 to the right in-cludes 68of the total number of instances Is that ldquothe centerrdquo Half of that One-forth
Any political figure or ldquotalking headrdquo who speaks blithely about ldquothe centerrdquo without specifically identifying the termrsquos meaning in the context in question should be treated with great wariness That personrsquos comments might be very important but they cannot be taken at face value
Oh one more thinghellip If you say anything about ldquothe centerrdquo make sure you specify what you intend by the term
Page 10Editor Wayne Dickson
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
By Andrew G McCabe
St Martinrsquos 2019
I had bought Andrew McCabersquos new book with the intention of reviewing it Still I admit I was feeling a bit uneasy as I began reading After all he had been fired from the FBI just 26 hours before becoming eligible for retirement with full benefits
James Comey had been fired from the FBI under equally uncomfortable circumstances and despite its virtues his book had been annoyingly self-justifying in places I didnrsquot want more of the same As it happened I neednrsquot have worried
McCabe does say a bit about his dismissal (hersquod have been disingenuous not to) but just a bit The gist of his book as I read it is a defense of the honor dedication and professionalism of the FBI And in the process itrsquos also an endorsement of James Comey Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller McCabe had been a subordinate of Comey and Mueller and an associate of Rosenstein
Thatrsquos the background against which one should view the combined outrage and cold determination behind his otherwise bland-seeming assertion that ldquoThe work of the FBI is being undermined by the current presidentrdquo
McCabe tells his story of the FBI by narrating his own journey through its ranks from green recruit on up to acting director His first major case ironically enough involved the so-called ldquoRussian Mafiardquomdashthat is a Russian criminal organization employing methods made familiar by Italian organized criminals from Sicily and elsewhere Later he led the team investigating the Boston Marathon bombing
For me though the most engaging parts involve his impressions of and interactions with various major players like Obama Sessions and Mueller (Obama payed close attention to
Wayne Dickson
ReviewThe Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 7Editor Wayne Dickson
Wow What a gift for his evangelical white supremacist fanboys In one ldquoswell fooprdquo Rushbo (1) neutralizes any temptation to feel doubt guilt or remorse (2) neutralizes the effect of any legitimate evidence or accusation (3) reinforces self-pitying feelings of persecution and (4) blames ldquothe liberal socialist deep-state leftrdquo
1 This is obviously a self-fulling prophesy Rushbo says the day will be filled with politicization then fills the day with politicization via his talk show
2 Just watch you poor persecuted white macho males First theyrsquoll blame your cult leader Uumlber Fuumlhrer Trump and then theyrsquoll blame you
3 I bet we learn this was a false flag operation that the shooter was actually a leftist just pretending to be a paranoid ultra-right white supremacist
4 In fact I wouldnrsquot be surprised to discover he was such a leftist fanatic as to have intended to sacrifice his own life just to make poor beleagured white nationalists like us look bad Thatrsquos how much they hate us
5 After all as faithful listeners to this show are aware to be liberal is to be insane
6 Theyrsquore all against us you know Even Trumprsquos own network Fox News has been gullible enough to swallow the leftist lies about the shooter
Page 8Editor Wayne Dickson
FeatureCenter Center of whatWayne Dickson
A ldquonormal distributionrdquo is a range of values like test scores body weight crop yield or such The lowest instance lies at one end the highest at the other end the greatest number of instances are grouped toward the middle and the mean average of all instances is in the center The graph of such an array forms the familiar bell-shaped curve
Indices of individual political ideology are among the values that form a normal distribution Thus one way of defining the political ldquocenterrdquo is to distribute instances of some statistically valid and reliable index of peoplersquos actual beliefs and calculate their mean average The result will form a bell curve those instances to the left of the mean being increasingly more liberal those to the right increasingly more conservative
Another way of defining the ldquocenterrdquo is abstract and theoretical Start by drawing a straight horizontal line The left end of the line will represent theoretical absolute liberalism the right end theoretical absolute conservatism The middle of the line is thus the theoretical ldquocenterrdquo politically
OK Now letrsquos combine the two On the bottom wersquoll anchor the immovable and unchanging horizontal theoretical continuum Its ldquocenterrdquo will be fixed Above that wersquoll put the empirically determined curve describing peoplersquos actual political ideology Both its range (distance from the first instance to the last) and its ldquocenterrdquo (mean average of all instances) will vary continually with the times Visually wersquoll picture that as the entire curve sliding left or right along the immovable theoretical continuum
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 9Editor Wayne Dickson
This matter is very complex by its very nature and its complexity is often muddied by political figures who are trying deliberately to confuse us To avoid becoming befuddled itrsquos important to keep several facts in mind
1 These are just two of many possible ways of graphing the factors involved here For example party affiliation graphs differently from political ideology and self identified political ideology graphs differently from actual mea-surable political ideology (Remember how many people said that they hated Obamacare but loved the ACA)
We are concerned here with the relationship between permanent and unchanging theoretical ideology and im-permanent constantly changing actual measurable ideology
2 How much of the distribution is included when one speaks of ldquothe centerrdquo For example in the bell graph above the vertical lines represent what are called ldquostandard deviationsrdquo For our purposes the technical meaning of the term isnrsquot important What matters is that the area between -1 STD to the left of the mean and +1 to the right in-cludes 68of the total number of instances Is that ldquothe centerrdquo Half of that One-forth
Any political figure or ldquotalking headrdquo who speaks blithely about ldquothe centerrdquo without specifically identifying the termrsquos meaning in the context in question should be treated with great wariness That personrsquos comments might be very important but they cannot be taken at face value
Oh one more thinghellip If you say anything about ldquothe centerrdquo make sure you specify what you intend by the term
Page 10Editor Wayne Dickson
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
By Andrew G McCabe
St Martinrsquos 2019
I had bought Andrew McCabersquos new book with the intention of reviewing it Still I admit I was feeling a bit uneasy as I began reading After all he had been fired from the FBI just 26 hours before becoming eligible for retirement with full benefits
James Comey had been fired from the FBI under equally uncomfortable circumstances and despite its virtues his book had been annoyingly self-justifying in places I didnrsquot want more of the same As it happened I neednrsquot have worried
McCabe does say a bit about his dismissal (hersquod have been disingenuous not to) but just a bit The gist of his book as I read it is a defense of the honor dedication and professionalism of the FBI And in the process itrsquos also an endorsement of James Comey Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller McCabe had been a subordinate of Comey and Mueller and an associate of Rosenstein
Thatrsquos the background against which one should view the combined outrage and cold determination behind his otherwise bland-seeming assertion that ldquoThe work of the FBI is being undermined by the current presidentrdquo
McCabe tells his story of the FBI by narrating his own journey through its ranks from green recruit on up to acting director His first major case ironically enough involved the so-called ldquoRussian Mafiardquomdashthat is a Russian criminal organization employing methods made familiar by Italian organized criminals from Sicily and elsewhere Later he led the team investigating the Boston Marathon bombing
For me though the most engaging parts involve his impressions of and interactions with various major players like Obama Sessions and Mueller (Obama payed close attention to
Wayne Dickson
ReviewThe Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
Page 8Editor Wayne Dickson
FeatureCenter Center of whatWayne Dickson
A ldquonormal distributionrdquo is a range of values like test scores body weight crop yield or such The lowest instance lies at one end the highest at the other end the greatest number of instances are grouped toward the middle and the mean average of all instances is in the center The graph of such an array forms the familiar bell-shaped curve
Indices of individual political ideology are among the values that form a normal distribution Thus one way of defining the political ldquocenterrdquo is to distribute instances of some statistically valid and reliable index of peoplersquos actual beliefs and calculate their mean average The result will form a bell curve those instances to the left of the mean being increasingly more liberal those to the right increasingly more conservative
Another way of defining the ldquocenterrdquo is abstract and theoretical Start by drawing a straight horizontal line The left end of the line will represent theoretical absolute liberalism the right end theoretical absolute conservatism The middle of the line is thus the theoretical ldquocenterrdquo politically
OK Now letrsquos combine the two On the bottom wersquoll anchor the immovable and unchanging horizontal theoretical continuum Its ldquocenterrdquo will be fixed Above that wersquoll put the empirically determined curve describing peoplersquos actual political ideology Both its range (distance from the first instance to the last) and its ldquocenterrdquo (mean average of all instances) will vary continually with the times Visually wersquoll picture that as the entire curve sliding left or right along the immovable theoretical continuum
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 9Editor Wayne Dickson
This matter is very complex by its very nature and its complexity is often muddied by political figures who are trying deliberately to confuse us To avoid becoming befuddled itrsquos important to keep several facts in mind
1 These are just two of many possible ways of graphing the factors involved here For example party affiliation graphs differently from political ideology and self identified political ideology graphs differently from actual mea-surable political ideology (Remember how many people said that they hated Obamacare but loved the ACA)
We are concerned here with the relationship between permanent and unchanging theoretical ideology and im-permanent constantly changing actual measurable ideology
2 How much of the distribution is included when one speaks of ldquothe centerrdquo For example in the bell graph above the vertical lines represent what are called ldquostandard deviationsrdquo For our purposes the technical meaning of the term isnrsquot important What matters is that the area between -1 STD to the left of the mean and +1 to the right in-cludes 68of the total number of instances Is that ldquothe centerrdquo Half of that One-forth
Any political figure or ldquotalking headrdquo who speaks blithely about ldquothe centerrdquo without specifically identifying the termrsquos meaning in the context in question should be treated with great wariness That personrsquos comments might be very important but they cannot be taken at face value
Oh one more thinghellip If you say anything about ldquothe centerrdquo make sure you specify what you intend by the term
Page 10Editor Wayne Dickson
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
By Andrew G McCabe
St Martinrsquos 2019
I had bought Andrew McCabersquos new book with the intention of reviewing it Still I admit I was feeling a bit uneasy as I began reading After all he had been fired from the FBI just 26 hours before becoming eligible for retirement with full benefits
James Comey had been fired from the FBI under equally uncomfortable circumstances and despite its virtues his book had been annoyingly self-justifying in places I didnrsquot want more of the same As it happened I neednrsquot have worried
McCabe does say a bit about his dismissal (hersquod have been disingenuous not to) but just a bit The gist of his book as I read it is a defense of the honor dedication and professionalism of the FBI And in the process itrsquos also an endorsement of James Comey Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller McCabe had been a subordinate of Comey and Mueller and an associate of Rosenstein
Thatrsquos the background against which one should view the combined outrage and cold determination behind his otherwise bland-seeming assertion that ldquoThe work of the FBI is being undermined by the current presidentrdquo
McCabe tells his story of the FBI by narrating his own journey through its ranks from green recruit on up to acting director His first major case ironically enough involved the so-called ldquoRussian Mafiardquomdashthat is a Russian criminal organization employing methods made familiar by Italian organized criminals from Sicily and elsewhere Later he led the team investigating the Boston Marathon bombing
For me though the most engaging parts involve his impressions of and interactions with various major players like Obama Sessions and Mueller (Obama payed close attention to
Wayne Dickson
ReviewThe Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Page 9Editor Wayne Dickson
This matter is very complex by its very nature and its complexity is often muddied by political figures who are trying deliberately to confuse us To avoid becoming befuddled itrsquos important to keep several facts in mind
1 These are just two of many possible ways of graphing the factors involved here For example party affiliation graphs differently from political ideology and self identified political ideology graphs differently from actual mea-surable political ideology (Remember how many people said that they hated Obamacare but loved the ACA)
We are concerned here with the relationship between permanent and unchanging theoretical ideology and im-permanent constantly changing actual measurable ideology
2 How much of the distribution is included when one speaks of ldquothe centerrdquo For example in the bell graph above the vertical lines represent what are called ldquostandard deviationsrdquo For our purposes the technical meaning of the term isnrsquot important What matters is that the area between -1 STD to the left of the mean and +1 to the right in-cludes 68of the total number of instances Is that ldquothe centerrdquo Half of that One-forth
Any political figure or ldquotalking headrdquo who speaks blithely about ldquothe centerrdquo without specifically identifying the termrsquos meaning in the context in question should be treated with great wariness That personrsquos comments might be very important but they cannot be taken at face value
Oh one more thinghellip If you say anything about ldquothe centerrdquo make sure you specify what you intend by the term
Page 10Editor Wayne Dickson
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
By Andrew G McCabe
St Martinrsquos 2019
I had bought Andrew McCabersquos new book with the intention of reviewing it Still I admit I was feeling a bit uneasy as I began reading After all he had been fired from the FBI just 26 hours before becoming eligible for retirement with full benefits
James Comey had been fired from the FBI under equally uncomfortable circumstances and despite its virtues his book had been annoyingly self-justifying in places I didnrsquot want more of the same As it happened I neednrsquot have worried
McCabe does say a bit about his dismissal (hersquod have been disingenuous not to) but just a bit The gist of his book as I read it is a defense of the honor dedication and professionalism of the FBI And in the process itrsquos also an endorsement of James Comey Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller McCabe had been a subordinate of Comey and Mueller and an associate of Rosenstein
Thatrsquos the background against which one should view the combined outrage and cold determination behind his otherwise bland-seeming assertion that ldquoThe work of the FBI is being undermined by the current presidentrdquo
McCabe tells his story of the FBI by narrating his own journey through its ranks from green recruit on up to acting director His first major case ironically enough involved the so-called ldquoRussian Mafiardquomdashthat is a Russian criminal organization employing methods made familiar by Italian organized criminals from Sicily and elsewhere Later he led the team investigating the Boston Marathon bombing
For me though the most engaging parts involve his impressions of and interactions with various major players like Obama Sessions and Mueller (Obama payed close attention to
Wayne Dickson
ReviewThe Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
Page 10Editor Wayne Dickson
The Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
By Andrew G McCabe
St Martinrsquos 2019
I had bought Andrew McCabersquos new book with the intention of reviewing it Still I admit I was feeling a bit uneasy as I began reading After all he had been fired from the FBI just 26 hours before becoming eligible for retirement with full benefits
James Comey had been fired from the FBI under equally uncomfortable circumstances and despite its virtues his book had been annoyingly self-justifying in places I didnrsquot want more of the same As it happened I neednrsquot have worried
McCabe does say a bit about his dismissal (hersquod have been disingenuous not to) but just a bit The gist of his book as I read it is a defense of the honor dedication and professionalism of the FBI And in the process itrsquos also an endorsement of James Comey Rod Rosenstein and Bob Mueller McCabe had been a subordinate of Comey and Mueller and an associate of Rosenstein
Thatrsquos the background against which one should view the combined outrage and cold determination behind his otherwise bland-seeming assertion that ldquoThe work of the FBI is being undermined by the current presidentrdquo
McCabe tells his story of the FBI by narrating his own journey through its ranks from green recruit on up to acting director His first major case ironically enough involved the so-called ldquoRussian Mafiardquomdashthat is a Russian criminal organization employing methods made familiar by Italian organized criminals from Sicily and elsewhere Later he led the team investigating the Boston Marathon bombing
For me though the most engaging parts involve his impressions of and interactions with various major players like Obama Sessions and Mueller (Obama payed close attention to
Wayne Dickson
ReviewThe Threat How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
Page 11Editor Wayne Dickson
D E M O C R A T I C P A R T Y O F V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
the daily intelligence briefing asking probing questions Sessions was a dolt obsessed with the border to the exclusion of almost everything else Mueller showed his approval by teasingly insulting you)
The most topically fascinating part of the book comes toard the end when he tells about opening the investigation of Trumprsquos Russia
connections helping make it unavoidable that a special counsel be appointed and finally standing up to the bully-in-chief himself
This good stuff and McCabe is a clear direct and effective writer Highly recommended
Robert Mueller described by Donald Trumprsquos flormer lawyer Ty Cobb as a ldquogenuine American herordquo
Beauregard and Rod Rosenstein In McCabersquos account rhe former is a ldquobad guyrdquo the latter a ldquogood guyrdquo
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
Page 12Editor Wayne Dickson
QuizAcronyms
1 ____ Referred to half-jokingly as the ldquosovereignrdquo federal judicial district
2 ____ Supreme Court justice
3 ____ Putin told Trump that North Korea doesnrsquot have them
4 ____ ldquoCommie-huntingrdquo congressional committee for which Nixon served as attorney
5 ____ The financial term about whose meaning Rep Katie Porter schooled the clueless head of the Consumer Protection Bureau
6 ____ Saudi crown prince pal of Kushner probably ordered murder of journalist Kashoggi
7 ____ Federal court Eastern District of Virginia
8 ____ Prominent advocate of the ldquoGreen New Dealrdquo
9 ____ Federal statute that nailed John Gotti and is likely to nail Donald Trump
10 ___ Agreement Trump forces every mistress and White House employee to sign
(Plus one phrase)
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
D E M O C R A T I C P a r t y o f V O L U S I A C O U N T Y
Answers
Page 13Editor Wayne Dickson
1 K
2 H
3 E
4 D
5 B
6 F
7 J
8 A
9 I
10 G
For those who might be interested my personal blog ndash which has nothing to do with the Volusia DEC or the Democratic Party ndash can be found here
Caveat lector
My blog is R-Rated for ldquoadultrdquo language ldquoadultrdquo situations and ldquojuvenilerdquo humor Readers and commenters are welcome Content includes commentary original essays cartoons and photos
Southern District of New York (Justice Department) Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Happy Birthday) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles House Unamerican Activities Committee Annual Percentage Rate Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Nicknamed ldquorocket docketrdquo for speedy trials Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D NY) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Non Disclosure Agreement
