…there’s lots of reasons why sometimes I wind up without enough time to get these together before they’re due up…but in this case it was a combination of various ways yesterday proved to be aggravating & exhausting in roughly equal measure…& a rabbit hole I fell into that I don’t recommend a trip down

The House scrapped plans for a Thursday session after security officials warned of a possible plot by an unnamed militant group to breach the Capitol. The decision to move up votes on legislation to Wednesday night came after officials warned of credible threats of violence circulated by right-wing extremists that March 4 is the “true Inauguration Day” when former president Donald Trump will be sworn in for a second term. The Senate plans to be in session Thursday.

House scraps plans for Thursday session after security officials warn of possible plot to breach Capitol [WaPo]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/03/us-warned-militia-plot-capitol-washington

…that said…the broad strokes are probably enough?

Also Wednesday, the Capitol Police said it has obtained intelligence showing a “possible plot to breach the Capitol by an identified militia group” March 4.

“We have already made significant security upgrades to include establishing a physical structure and increasing manpower to ensure the protection of Congress, the public and our police officers,” the agency said in a statement.

Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory have set March 4 as the date they believe former president Donald Trump will return to office.

NBC News reported Tuesday that law enforcement agencies around Washington, D.C., were adding extra security out of concern of potential unrest. While users in online QAnon groups are looking forward to Thursday, no specific protests or events are being planned, according to an NBC analysis of the largest remaining forums.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/extremists-discussed-plans-remove-democratic-lawmakers-fbi-homeland-security-bulletin

…but…boy, howdy…it is a long & twisted tale if you get into it at all…Dolt45 wasn’t 45th because supposedly there were barely any presidents before they stopped being “real” presidents…apparently these people think the place has been a corporation instead of a republic since grandpa simpson was a boy or something…so…I don’t know…the president was chief operating officer or something…& lo, today’s the day it’s all going to be set right & the “rightful” president (…who by their logic has never been the president…which is about the only part of this that sounded good to me…but apparently gives them no pause as they are strangers to any logic that fails to follow the path of the corkscrew) is due to be re-instated…as the first “real” president in generations…or something

Why March 4? Because that was the country’s original Inauguration Day, of course.

The Constitution doesn’t actually set a date for the beginning of a president’s term, only saying that it will last four years exactly. But after George Washington’s was scheduled for March 4, 1789, the date stuck.

Back in the tricorn-hat days, having such a long “lame duck” period after an election wasn’t that big of a deal. When news and people travel at the speed of a horse, so follows government business.

But by 1860, it proved to be a real problem. Between Abraham Lincoln’s election in early November 1860 and his inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states seceded from the Union — without the president-elect being able coordinate a response, giving Confederate states a huge tactical advantage (that they soon squandered).

During the Great Depression, the long interregnum proved so unwieldy that it was finally shortened. Franklin D. Roosevelt had been overwhelmingly elected in November 1932, based in large part on his plans for bold intervention on the economy. Then the suffering nation just had to sit around and wait four months for him to finally take office.

And in that time, disaster nearly struck. On Feb. 15, 1933, three weeks before he was set to take office, Roosevelt was nearly killed by an assassin’s bullet while speaking in Miami. The shooter missed the president-elect but shot five others, including the mayor of Chicago, who later died of his injuries.

The 20th Amendment forever moved up Inauguration Day to Jan. 20. Roosevelt’s first term was thus shortened by two months, though that ended up not mattering since he was reelected.

According to QAnon lore, all presidents since Ulysses S. Grant have been illegitimate, so it follows that the day Trump returns to power to set things right would be the original Inauguration Day.

There are a couple of problems with this theory.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/03/03/march-4-qanon-trump-inauguration/

Domestic violent extremist groups have also latched on to the date as a potential opportunity to strike the US Capitol yet again. US Capitol Police said Wednesday that they had received an intelligence report about an unidentified militia group’s possible plot to break into the Capitol on March 4.

The department said in a statement that while it could not provide more details about the nature of the plot, it is “taking the intelligence seriously” and has “already made significant security upgrades” at the Capitol, including establishing a fenced perimeter and increasing manpower.

A Department of Homeland Security and FBI intelligence bulletin sent to local law enforcement agencies on Tuesday also described extremists’ plan to seize the Capitol and remove Democratic lawmakers on or around March 4, NBC News reported.

It’s unclear what will happen to QAnon once March 4 passes without the coup they have predicted coming to fruition. The movement could find itself increasingly shedding followers, who might be amenable to recruitment by white supremacist and far-right militia groups that share a common enemy in Democrats and political elites broadly. But it’s likely that the movement will not crumble entirely, given that following it in the first place has required adherents to push aside any cognitive dissonance.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22280323/qanon-march-trump-inaugration-conspiracy-theory-militia

…well…per the BBC

Why are QAnon believers obsessed with 4 March? [BBC]

…one way is to suggest that it’s all a different sort of conspiracy designed to get the faithful to stick their necks out…because these people do love their false flag theories, I guess…hence the tweet linked in that BBC article

More QAnon influencers have come out claiming that the March 4 conspiracy theory is a false flag — at least one of whom had seemed sympathetic to the conspiracy theory previously. pic.twitter.com/kZ5qzPuRnJ

— Alex Kaplan (@AlKapDC) February 25, 2021

…it’s enough to make your head spin, really…& it’s tempting to dismiss this stuff because it’s just so entirely whack-a-doodle…but buried in all the bullshit would seem to be a kernel of something that might actually be true…there’s a number of people…& a bigger one than I’d have thought, at that…who, when all is said & done, pretty much feel like they won’t be satisfied until the version of the US most of us (…& I’d argue most of the world) think of as existing is entirely subsumed by something akin to the one that might have existed had the south prevailed in that civil war

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_American_Civil_War#Predictions_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic

…& I’d be prepared to bet that all that shit about nazi-rune-shaped CPAC stages & the like is very much part of keeping them enthused…but also suggests that some of these people (…or at least people familiar enough with their bullshit to think they can make use of it/them) are to be found higher up the hierarchy of the GOP political machine than I’m any kind of comfortable with

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/03/south-carolina-deathpenalty-firing-squad

…& in other places they ought not to be

Did the Pentagon wait for Trump’s approval before defending the Capitol? [WaPo]

D.C. Guard chief says ‘unusual’ resistrictions slowed deployment of backup during Capitol riot [WaPo]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/03/us-militia-membership-military-police-american-patriot-three-percenter-website-leak

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/march-4-capitol-attack-rumors-highlight-dangers-of-far-right-extremism-s-military-ties

…but enough about that

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/03/course-fox-news-would-rather-talk-about-dr-seuss-and–mr-potato-head

…I’ve got about an hour to cram some links in this that might actually be worth reading…even if they aren’t necessarily all they’re cracked up to be
[…full disclosure…I might add some bits from the NYT after that nominal deadline…I need coffee & I haven’t got to that one yet]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/mar/03/they-become-dangerous-tools-the-dark-side-of-personality-tests

Google said Wednesday it will not participate in efforts by other advertising tech companies to build new tools to track people around the Web based on their browser history, a decision that could have implications both for privacy and antitrust.

The move shows Google is doubling down on an admission it made a year ago — that most people do not like the idea of advertisers amassing their data and using it to show them targeted ads. But by pushing for more privacy online, the company is also undercutting a vast advertising industry that has no choice but to play by Google’s rules, underlining just how dominant the company is at a time when regulators are already investigating it for anti-competitive behavior.
[…]
Google had already committed early last year to blocking third-party cookies — little bits of code used to track people online — from its Chrome browser by the end of 2021. Because Chrome is the most popular way people access the Internet worldwide, the move sent advertisers scrambling to find alternative ways of targeting ads. Some of the proposals involve combining and matching lists of emails in vast databases, using complex math to hide specific identities from advertisers.

But Google will not participate in those solutions, it said today. Instead, it will focus on developing its own tools that it says preserve privacy while still offering effective advertising. Its core proposal involves lumping people in large groups based on their interests, then letting advertisers target those groups instead of the individuals.
[…]Google has tremendous influence over the online advertising industry. Over the past two decades, it bought up many of the companies that form the infrastructure that matches digital ads with people online. Today, it controls tools used by Web publishers who sell ad space and advertisers who buy the ads, plus a major exchange that helps connect the two. In addition, its massive video platform YouTube and the Google search engine together make it the largest seller of digital ad space in the world.
[…]
There’s a catch though. The changes do not apply to mobile phones running Google’s Android operating system, where the company still provides advertisers with a personalized ID for each user. Mobile Internet use is fast outpacing desktop browsers.

Google will still let advertisers target individuals based on emails consumers have willingly shared with them. That has deepened a push by companies to build their own customer databases by getting consumers to download their apps and give up their email addresses and phone numbers. This move to “first-party data” also benefits Google itself, which uses its vast knowledge on billions of logged-in YouTube, Gmail and Chrome users to targets ads toward them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/03/google-ad-tracking-browser/

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/mar/04/how-big-tech-helps-india-target-climate-activists-naomi-klein

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/03/cybersecurity-202-new-government-watchdog-report-highlights-urgent-federal-cybersecurity-risks

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/u-s-issues-warning-after-microsoft-says-china-hacked-its-mail-server-program

…& we wonder why we can’t have nice things

DeJoy’s latest USPS restructuring plan could increase bureaucracy and slow delivery, experts warn [WaPo]

…or just things

The gray wolf lost Endangered Species Act protections last year, prompting a recent hunt that killed at least 216 wolves — far exceeding a quota set by state wildlife officials.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/us/wisconsin-wolves-killings.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/03/wisconsin-hunters-kill-216-wolves-less-than-60-hours-uproar

…with maybe the emphasis on the just

House Democrats pass sweeping elections bill as GOP legislatures push to restrict voting [WaPo]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-passes-sweeping-voting-rights-ethics-bill

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/04/landmark-us-bill-to-stop-voter-suppression-passes-first-hurdle-in-house

Investigators said David M. Crawford, who resigned as the police chief of Laurel, Md., in 2010, had targeted “victims with whom he had previous disagreements.”

Ex-Police Chief Charged With Attempted Murder After Arson Spree [NYT]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/george-floyd-police-reform-bill-vote/2021/03/03/story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/03/george-floyd-justice-in-policing-act-us-house-democrats

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-passes-police-reform-act-named-for-george-floyd

Rodney King: 30 years after brutal beating, activists say LAPD ‘still corrupt and violent’ [Guardian]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/he-choked-me-out-others-detail-allegations-of-abuse-by-officer-who-knelt-on-George-Floyd

In Trump probe, Manhattan district attorney puts pressure on his longtime chief financial officer [WaPo]

The Justice Department under the Trump administration declined to open a criminal investigation into the actions by Ms. Chao when she was transportation secretary.

Inspector General’s Report Cites Elaine Chao for Using Office to Help Family [NYT]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/watchdog-faulted-elaine-chao-for-misuse-of-office-as-transportation-secretary

Ethics probe led to criminal referral involving Elaine Chao, Transportation Dept. inspector general says [WaPo]

As Judge Merrick B. Garland prepares to take over the Justice Department, officials have already begun to reverse Trump-era policies denounced by Democrats and restore what longtime employees described as a less charged environment where they no longer feared retaliation from the president or public criticism from the attorney general.
[…]
But the judge’s vow to be fair and apolitical will be immediately tested by politically thorny investigations, efforts to reverse Trump-era measures and the Biden administration’s aims to reinvigorate civil rights initiatives and combat domestic terrorism, including the sprawling investigation into the Capitol attack by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6.

Justice Dept. Backs Away From Trump Era but Is Still Expected to Test Garland [NYT]

As Democrats bring back earmarks for transportation projects, billions of dollars from years ago sits unused [WaPo]

Democrats line up behind Shalanda Young amid new jostling over Biden budget pick [WaPo]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/03/neera-tanden-analysis-biden-cabinet-nomination

Research finds that the best people at making predictions (did you know that there are prediction tournaments?) aren’t those who are smartest but rather those who weigh evidence dispassionately and are willing to change their minds.

Likewise, math whizzes excel at interpreting data — but only so long as the topic is banal, like skin rashes. A study found that when the topic was a hot one they cared about, like gun policy, they blundered. Passion swamped expertise.

There are a number of biases in play, including the “I’m not biased” bias. That’s when we believe we’re more objective than others, and it particularly traps intelligent people.

“These biases don’t just prevent us from applying our intelligence,” Grant writes. “They can actually contort our intelligence into a weapon against the truth. We find reasons to preach our faith more deeply, prosecute our case more passionately, and ride the tidal wave of our political party.”

There’s reason to think that American men may be particularly vulnerable to this intellectual arrogance. In one study, teenagers around the world were asked to rate their mastery of 16 areas of math, including three that don’t exist: “declarative fractions,” “proper numbers” and “subjunctive scaling.” Those who boasted of their skill in nonexistent fields were disproportionately male, affluent and North American.

(I sense women and overseas readers of this column nodding sagely to themselves.)
[…]
The world is complicated, and we should all be cautious about shoehorning facts into our ideological constructs.
[…]
Research suggests that what wins people over is listening, asking questions and appealing to their values, not your own. Grant cites evidence for “complexifying” issues so they become less binary and more nuanced, enabling someone on the other side to acknowledge areas of ambivalence.

Researchers find that it is easier for people to reach agreement on difficult issues if they have been prepped to see the world as complicated and full of grays. It’s a painstaking, frustrating process of building trust, keeping people from becoming defensive, and slowly ushering them to a new place.

How to Reach People Who Are Wrong [NYT]

A city gave people $500 a month, no strings attached, to fight poverty. It paid off, study says [WaPo]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/03/california-universal-basic-income-study

…so…there we are…congress seems to be opting for an approach I’m finding tempting for altogether different reasons

…but then nobody stormed my place of business on Jan 6th

…still assuming we weren’t all born yesterday…or this morning, even

…& still have our head in the clouds

…by tomorrow it’ll just be another of those batshit theories consigned to the dustbin of history