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A little fun

Wednesday, October 7, 2020

I saw this on Crooks & Liars and I thought I’d pass it on. I enjoyed it. Having cut the cord, I didn’t know this guy even had a show on American TV. The last time I saw him (James Corden) was in a video of him and Paul McCartney driving around Liverpool.

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John Scott: Trump voters aren’t racists, they just vote for one

Wednesday, October 7, 2020

Today, the New London Day, exercising its usual bad judgment, gave front page prominence to this article, in which we are told that an outraged John Scott, speaking out in his role as the chair of the Groton Republican Town Committee (now dominated by right wing loonies), has demanded the resignation of Democratic Town Councilor Aundre Bumgardner:

Republicans are calling for Democratic Town Councilor Aundré Bumgardner to apologize and resign over social media comments he posted after President Donald Trump said, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” during last week’s presidential debate.

Bumgardner posted on Twitter and Facebook that: “Trump says, ‘Proud boys, stand back and stand by.’ He fails to condemn white supremacists. He is a racist, and he doesn’t even care to hide it. If you vote for him, so are you.”

The news release, issued by Republican Town Committee Chairman John Scott, alleges that Bumgardner’s “post stated quite clearly that all Republicans, especially those who support President Trump are racists.” Bumgardner said he did not say “all Republicans.”

Before going on, I should disclose that this humble blog has dealt with Mr. Scott before, even going so far as to contemplate a lawsuit against him for plagiarizing one of my posts.

So, lets deconstruct this a bit. Nowhere does Scott deny that Trump is a racist. His argument, to the extent it is clear, is that one can vote for a racist, whose campaign has focused on inciting racial division (“stand back and stand by”, “Biden (read-black people) will destroy the suburbs, etc.), one of whose closest advisers (that would be Stephen Miller, may he rot in hell) is an out and proud racist, whose judicial picks have sanctioned voter suppression aimed at black people, without actually being a racist. The list of racist practices and policies is longer, but why belabor the point?

Why it’s a bit like-yes I’m going to go there- a German in 1932 saying he wasn’t an anti-Semite just because he was voting for Adolph Hitler. It’s almost worse, in a sense, because Hitler’s platform had other features than anti-Semitism, but Trump’s is now reduced to nothing but clearly audible dog whistles. If you’re voting for Trump, and you’re not voting for the racism, what are you voting for? Okay, possibly you just believe in some mythical form of Fascism that is not grounded in blaming some “other” for all your problems, but that’s a bit of a stretch, and it’s just as bad. So, if John prefers the term “Fascist”, I think Aundre should oblige.

All this is a bit rich coming from a guy who pretty much argued that you could label anyone a socialist who was in favor of bringing back tolls on our highways. I’d say the logical connection between Trumpism and racism is a lot stronger that that between tolls and socialism.

Finally, and this is directed specifically to John, Aundre didn’t say that all Republicans are racists, he basically said that any Republican, or anyone else, who votes for Trump is a racist. There’s a difference. No one is forcing any registered Republican, or anyone else, to fill in that little circle with the genius’s name next to it. When you do so, you are supporting a clearly racist agenda, carried out in both words and deed. Those little kids in cages all have brown skin, after all. It’s not a minor issue that can be lost among the other travesties that Trump has inflicted upon us; it is the major issue. A vote for Trump is a vote for racism.

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DC Statehood

Friday, October 2, 2020

There’s been some talk lately about making both Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia states in order to increase blue Senators by four and to provide the representation to the people of those areas that they currently lack. I’m all for it, but, being a lawyer, and living in the era of a Supreme Court more politicized than, perhaps, ever in our history, I can’t help thinking about whether DC statehood would pass muster with the present court, which would certainly do everything it could to find a way to frustrate statehood for a region that is largely minority, does not suppress minority votes, and is likely to send two Democratic Senators to the Senate.

Like so many of the provisions in the Constitution, that providing for the existence of the District of Columbia is infected by the fact that the sainted Founding Fathers were far from perfect. It likely never occured to them that the District would contain more than a relative handful of people other than legislators. The provision provides that Congress shall:

…exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards and other needful Buildings.

Let’s start by agreeing that there’s no way we can get a constitutional amendment to clear away any constitutional impediments to DC Statehood. There’s no way states like Wyoming would see their way clear to letting the far more populated District have the same representation as them in the Senate.

In order for DC to be a state, it would have to exercise “exclusive jurisdiction” over the same subject matter as do other states. That is inconsistent with the constitutional provision cited above. One way around that might be for the Congress to essentially change the boundaries of the actual District to which the constitutional provision refers, such that the District of Columbia would essentially consist of a circumscribed area consisting of Capitol Hill, the Supreme Court Building and the White House, with everything else being in the new state. After all, the constitution says that the district can be no more than ten miles square. It can be less if Congress makes it so. So, you might create a state that looks a little like a doughnut, with a hole in the middle for the new and smaller District of Columbia.

In my own humble opinion that should take care of any real constitutional impediments, but I can easily see the present court ruling that if Congress re-defines the area of the District, then the area that is no longer in the District automatically returns to the states that ceded it to Congress in the first place, just as the area on which a federal fort or dock might stand would revert to state control if the government decided to abandon the fort or dock. In other words, Maryland might pick up a Congressperson or two. I may be wrong, but I think Virginia ceded some land too, so that state might gain some population. But there would be no new Senators, which is the short term point of those pushing the issue right now. I think the present court would be eager to frustrate DC statehood, so they would probably grasp at a legal straw such as this. Maybe it would be better to consider making American Samoa a state.

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Why I didn’t watch the debate, and won’t watch the next one

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

I didn’t watch last night’s debate, but then, if you read the title of this piece, you already knew that.

I didn’t actually watch the Kennedy-Nixon debates, being only 10 at the time, but I did become aware, even then, that the “winner” was not the person who made the better argument, but the one who came across better. Poor Nixon (I never thought I’d use that phrase) lost the TV debate, in large part, because he refused to wear makeup and looked like he hadn’t shaven in several weeks. Radio listeners thought he won, since they couldn’t see his face. So we may have missing makeup to thank for delaying his presidency by eight years.

As the years went by, and debates piled up, the “winner” was inevitably the guy ordained by the press, not because he (or she) had the better of the argument on substance, but because he (no shes relevant here) made a snappy remark, like Reagan saying “There he goes again”, when Carter accused him of wanting to destroy Medicare, which no one bothered to point out was perfectly true. No, Reagan won because…well, because the press wanted him to win.

So what really matters is not what happens during the debate, but after. I had no desire to rant and rave at my computer screen while Trump lied unchecked. Better to wait until the morning after and just read the reviews. Less strain on the blood pressure.

The internet has facilitated some very awful things, but it has accomplished some good, one such good being the fact that the press is no longer the sole arbiter that decides who won or lost. On-line reaction is probably more important than punditry these days.

So, anyway, all the really matters is the post debate fallout, and you can assess that without even having to watch the highlights (lowlights?) of the debate.

My overall impression is that Trump lost the debate. Biden “won” by default, inasmuch as Trump acted as if he wanted to lose. People sometimes have trouble assessing policy positions, but they can usually spot an asshole without much effort, and Trump apparently acted like a total asshole, making it almost impossible for the press to both-sides it, and also, quite likely, making the attempts at both-siding it ineffectual. If there are any undecideds, and who are such people anyway, it’s quite likely Trump turned them off.

The next two debates will be more of the same, so once again, I’ll take a pass and wait for the post-game wrap-ups.

All that being said, I might watch Kamala destroy Pence.

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A cynical pattern

Sunday, September 27, 2020

It’s not hard to detect this pattern.

When Justice Thurgood Marshall, a giant of the civil rights movement died, the Republicans went out and found themselves a black person who could be counted on to help undo all of his achievements. They found him in Clarence Thomas.

Now, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died. She was a giant in the women’s rights movement. So they went out and found themselves a woman who could be counted on to help undo all of her achievements. They found her in Amy Comey Barrett.

I never thought I’d be in favor of packing the court, but should Trump fail to steal the election, and should the Democrats take the Senate, I’m all for it. Turnaround is fair play. Or, to put it another way, tit-for-tat.

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Our little Hitler

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Not much time for blogging these days. I am the treasurer of our local town committee, and it’s been a busy time, as I have to account for the multiple donations people are making in exchange for Biden signs, which are going like hotcakes. There’s a lot of frightened people out there, and they’re doing what they can.

In my down time I’m sitting back reading Volker Ullrich’s Hitler: Downfall, the second volume of Ullrich’s Hitler biography and by far the most fun to read. I read Ascent a few years ago, but there’s only so much you can enjoy reading about a guy like HItler when he’s on a roll. It’s a whole lot more fun reading along as he slowly deteriorates, even though he does manage to kill millions of people in the process. Plus, you know the end turns out reasonably well, something we can’t say about our current situation.

I’m reading it on an e-reader. While I’ve been reading it I’ve been highlighting various things that remind me of our Hitler.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Trump is just like Hitler. Hitler was a lot smarter than Trump and actually knew things. He was likely more evil as well, but, all in all, besides the obvious fact that both were racist sociopaths, they have some other similarities as well.

Hitler, like Trump, could become wedded to conspiracy theories, in the face of all evidence to the contrary. His delusions about the Jewish conspiracy is an obvious example, but there were many more, such as his insistence that an assassination attempt against him by a lone assassin was actually the work of a broad ranging conspiracy.

Hitler, like Trump, was obsessed with the loyalty of his underlings. He was far more interested in having underlings who were blindly loyal to him than competent to do the job they were chosen to do. Once any given underling became insufficiently sychophantic, Hitler would go out and find someone who would tell him what he wanted to hear. Just like Trump.

Hitler, like Trump, was convinced of his own infallibility. As soon as something he set in motion went awry, he would find someone else to blame.

Hitler, like Trump, was dependent on medications to get him through the day. His doctor gave him stimulus shots on a daily basis. It is overwhelmingly likely that Trump is addicted to Adderall, and who knows what other stuff he is taking. Since he’s the master of projection, his recent claim that Biden is getting injections of performance enhancing drugs is likely a confession of his own medical regimen.

It goes without saying that Hitler was, and Trump is, a bigot of the first order. Lest you think Trump is only bigoted against people of color, it is a fact that he is also anti-Semitic, though he can’t be as open about it as Hitler, and, to be fair, he may not yet have settled on a final solution so far as people of color are concerned.

Even the little things: Hitler, like Trump, during his decline, was unable to negotiate stairs and ramps.

I am aware that it is considered tacky to compare our Fascist to Hitler, since we’re not supposed to have fascists in this country, and any use of the word is by definition, according to much of our punditry, overblown. However, I think it’s instructive that Trump shares so many of the mental illnesses and pathologies that Hitler had, and that fact should be acknowledged. And, I am informed by Crooks and Liars that even the mainstream is beginning to recognize the reality, as Morning Joe and his cohorts spent an hour talking about the F word’s salience in these United States. Right now I think Trump has a better than even chance of getting the Supreme Court to steal the election for him, and if he is successful, we will become a full blown fascist state.

UPDATE: A great mind thinks like mine. I mean..Hitler, Stalin, what’s the difference. The megalomania is all the same.

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Now for something completely different

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

One of the mysteries of the internet is the lack of websites devoted to connecting people who collect Kabuki Theatre Stamps.My brother in law, is such a collector, and he’s had a tough time connecting up with other collectors. As we’re sure I have multitudes of such collectors as readers, or, that such collectors will find this entry if they are googling around, I’ve agreed to let my brother in law put up the following.

See, even Argentina has kabuki stamps

Hello out there fellow collectors of kabuki on stamps! I now have an album of 224 pages identifying the actors, characters, plays and theatres of kabuki stamps. I have another album of 77 pages of kabuki frame stamps from Japan. Please contact me at mailto:evondorster@orange.fr to share your ideas, questions and comments. Or as they say in Japan, via Google Translate:
?????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????224?????????????? ???????77?????????????????????????????? ????????????????????mailto:evondorster@orange.fr??????????

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Dershowitz takes unintentional aim at Fox

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Alan Dershowitz is suing CNN because:

Alan Dershowitz, a retired Harvard Law professor, is seeking $300 million in a federal libel lawsuit against CNN, alleging that the news network attempted to damage his reputation by misrepresenting a statement he made during President Trump’s impeachment trial.

…

Dershowitz was one of several attorneys who represented Trump during the Senate trial, which resulted in the president’s acquittal.

The lawsuit, filed in Florida Tuesday, alleges that CNN omitted a crucial part of a widely discussed argument Dershowitz made before the Senate, and then CNN hosts and guests “exploded into a one-sided and false narrative’’ criticizing Dershowitz.

Basically he’s claiming that they took a quote of his out of context, though “somewhat out of context” might be closer to the truth, to be charitable.

I would suggest that the folks at Fox must be shaking in their boots at the thought of Dershowitz prevailing. Taking things out of context is, after all, their business plan. Actually, I suppose it’s more accurate to say that in their more responsible moments they take things out of context, instead of merely lie or spread conspiracy theories. If Dershowitz wins it should be open season on folks like Hannity.

Of course there’s always the possibility that the federal courts (assuming that’s where he filed the case) will rule that libel laws are different when Fox is involved. We are, as is plain to see, rapidly becoming a country where there are two sets of laws: one for Republican politicians and enablers, and one for the rest of us. Republican judges are quite skilled at amplifying “distinctions without a difference”, a judicial dodge that was once looked down on, but is not very much in vogue. See, e.g., Bush v. Gore.

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Sounds familiar

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

A few weeks back I “reviewed” Kurt Andersen’s book, Evil Geniuses, about the long game played by the American right to take over our political system. The increase in inequality was a prominent part of the book. I made the point in my post that Andersen didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, but that it was helpful to have it all in one place and so well documented.

But it turns out that some folks didn’t already know why inequality has increased dramatically, so they hired a think tank to look into the question.

They could have saved themselves some money and just read Andersen’s book:

“We were shocked by the numbers,” says Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist who came up with the idea for the research along with David Rolf, founder of Local 775 of the Service Employees International Union and president of the Fair Work Center in Seattle. “It explains almost everything. It explains why people are so pissed off. It explains why they are so economically precarious.”

Notably, it isn’t just those in the middle who’ve been hit. RAND found that full-time, prime-age workers in the 25th percentile of the U.S. income distribution would be making $61,000 instead of $33,000 had everyone’s earnings from 1975 to 2018 expanded roughly in line with gross domestic product, as they did during the 1950s and ’60s.

Hanauer and Rolf fingered the specific causes:

They say the blame lies, in large measure, with decades of failed federal policy decisions—allowing the minimum wage to deteriorate, overtime coverage to dwindle, and the effectiveness of labor law to decline, undermining union power. They also cite a shift in corporate culture that has elevated the interests of shareholders over those of workers, an ethos that took root 50 years ago this week with the publication of an essay by University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman.

Wow. Is it just me, or haven’t all these things been hiding in plain sight for the past fifty years. Do you really need to hire the folks at RAND to figure this out for you?

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Proof positive. He really is stupid

Monday, September 14, 2020

These are hard times for part time bloggers like me. There’s an outrage an hour, but, for the most part, there’s nothing new to say about any given outrage, and how many times can you make the inevitable observation that had Obama committed said outrage it’s shelf life in the mainstream would have been longer than the hour or so that a Trump story lasts.

Anyway, a few thoughts on Trump’s latest self reported triumph.

Before getting there, a few preliminary thoughts. There is a lot of legitimate debate about whether Trump is mentally ill and/or stupid and/or senile, or alternatively a crafty political genius who knows how to manipulate the electorate. There’s a lot of truth in the first three, and a little bit of truth in the last, as he’s been a successful grifter all his life and he can still feed his base the red meat they like, though he doesn’t understand that he can’t win with the base alone. But, as to stupidity, well that’s a no-brainer.

We all know that Trump’s campaign has made much of the fact that he’s been nominated for the Noble (sic) Peace Prize by a rightwing Scandinavian, a nomination that will go nowhere. It is to be fervently hoped that when Greta Thunberg gets it, we will not have to be too smugly satisfied, as Trump will be pouting about his loss as someone about to exit stage right, and off to jail at that.

So, we all know about the “Noble” Prize, but how many of us knew that, as he recently announced, he has already taken home the non-existent yet much coveted “Bay of Pigs” Award. Read all about it here. This is where he totally makes the case for his own stupidity. And yet, ironically, it’s an award, if it did exist, of which he would be totally worthy, given his record in office. The Bay of Pigs was a minor glitch compared to his disastrous presidency. But even here, we must pause. JFK took full responsibility for the Bay of Pigs disaster, though truth to tell, the planning began under Eisenhower. Trump has never taken responsibility for anything, except things he claimed happened, but didn’t.

Filed in The Very Stable Genius | | Comments (0)