Skip to content

Words matter

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Old Friend Steve Fournier, a fellow alum of HPHS, sends out email “rants” on a regular basis, and I’m privileged to be on his list. With his permission, I’d like to share the latest, which I think makes an extremely valid point. I also told Steve that I would point out that I disagree with him about Russian interference in our election being a myth, but that’s tangential to the main point of his rant:

Licensed to Kill

Reports in the embedded mass media of “Iran-backed militias” attacking the US embassy in Baghdad gave the federal government a license to assassinate a popular Iranian general and his entourage as the party was leaving the Baghdad airport. We can only guess whether the killings would have occurred if the media had made any sort of critical examination of the “Iran-backed” characterization.

Reporters and editors might have asked, for instance, whether there is any such thing as an unarmed militia. Millions of viewers saw live video of the crowd assembled outside the embassy. Nobody was armed. There was some stone-throwing, and there were some soldiers in fatigues, but they weren’t carrying weapons.. What we saw was a crowd of men, mostly young, waving flags and vandalizing the building, something like the crowds of what the embedded mass media call pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong.
As for Iran’s part in the protests, that nation’s government denies involvement, and reporters are offering no evidence to support the US government’s accusations. In view of the record of the US government for dishonesty–see recent coverage of the lies told to maintain the state of war in Afghanistan, lies systematically fed to us by our media–news-consumers are entitled to some provenance for the imprecise, even misleading charge of “Iran-backed.” If there is no support for such an allegation, a responsible news editor should say so.

News-mongers aren’t telling us where they got the “Iran-backed militias” phrase, but it’s universal jargon among them, suggesting a common source. Also universal was the acceptance of the phrase as truthful. That would put it in the same category as Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons, imminent victory in Afghanistan, Syria’s repeated poison gas attacks, Putin’s influence over US elections, and Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide, among other widely publicized untrue assertions.

There’s been some criticism of the Baghdad assassinations, but not on legal, ethical or factual grounds. Rather, all the criticism has centered on the danger created by the killings. It’s not that it was wrong or illegal or a rush to judgment to kill ten people 7,000 miles away, but rather that it will increase ill will toward the USA and make certain parts of the world inimical to Americans. From the standpoint of the people who initiated the group assassination, the media coverage guarantees that none of them will be held accountable. News-consumers, if we knew the truth, might expect to pay some price ourselves for our leaders’ malfeasance, but it will be a nice surprise for us all when it comes, thanks to our cherished free press.

I want to focus on the media’s willing use of the word “militia”, obviously the word chosen by the Trumpers. There is a world of difference between a “militia” and a “mob”, “rioters”, or “protestors”, both in practical terms and in the associations the words bring to mind. I have to agree with Steve that from all that I saw, the “militia” looked like a mob, rioters or demonstrators, depending on your terminology, but not at all like an organized military force. If it was a militia, it appeared to lack any tactical leadership.

Buying into official spin is especially suspect these days, since even Chuck Todd has now learned (though he will soon forget it) that the current government runs on lies. So far as Trump is concerned, the demonstrators did him a favor, since they furnished a pretext for him to start a conflict that will certainly end in disaster, but not before, as he thinks, he gets the advantage of a war to help his re-election bid. Once again we see a Republican guilty of that which he accuses others.

Filed in Lies and Lying Liars | | Comments (0)

A look ahead

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

A few days ago I said I’d soon be putting up my predictions for the coming year, but due to the fact that the mathematically innumerate continue to claim we begin a new decade this year, I’ve decided to stretch things a bit, and look even farther into what I fear will be our dystopian future. So, here goes. Read no further if you don’t want to be bummed out. 

Somehow, the dark side will prevail on the Democratic side of the ledger, and Joe Biden will emerge as the Democratic candidate. The media will immediately feel an obligation to make an issue out of his son Hunter and Giuliani’s conspiracy theories, despite the fact that there is no actual evidence to support them. They will do this in the interest of both siderism.

But the good news is that Biden will likely still eke out a narrow victory because by then Trump’s dangerous mental illness will be even more apparent, and the over 50% of the electorate that wants him out of office will have grown somewhat larger, and will hold its collective nose and vote for Joe. Even the Senate will likely change hands.

On January 21, 2020 Donald Trump will be consigned to the memory hole, like his most recent Republican predecessor, and the media will rush to proclaim that the Republican Party has been purged and is now, once again, the responsible party they knew and loved before the Trumpian aberration came along. Lindsay Graham won’t remember anything about the man. Both siderism, which has begun to be in a bit of a bad odor lately, will see a new rebirth.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg will resign, and Joe will replace her with a conserva-Dem that will get along just fine with Brett and Neal. After all, it’s terribly important that we appoint someone who will get some Republican support, even if we have enough Democratic Senators to shove an actual liberal down their throats. The fact that Republicans would never return the favor is absolutely irrelevant.

House Democrats will repass the progressive legislation that has died in Mitch McConnell’s Senate, and it will go to the Senate once again, where it will once again die at the hands of Republican filibusters, the filibuster being preserved at the urging of Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden, the latter of whom has not only predicted that the Republicans will have an epiphany and become reasonable once he gets into office but has also gone on record as being in favor of preserving the filibuster should he win. Much to his surprise, he will come to realize, perhaps three years into his presidency, that they had no epiphany. This won’t upset Joe very much anyway, because a lot of that legislation would undermine his campaign promise that there would be no fundamental change on his watch.

Much to his surprise, the lack of fundamental change will play right into Republican hands. They will score landslide victories in the 2022 elections (I know 2010 was a long time ago, but you can look it up). Democratic turnout will be dampened, while the yahoos will be out in full force, energized by ever louder racist dog whistles that only the punditry cannot hear.

Trump and his partners in crime will escape unscathed, further greenlighting future Republican criminality.

The Republicans, in alliance with Fox News, will suddenly declare that the president is subject to the rule of law, and although they will have nothing valid on Biden, they will continue to spin conspiracy theories. William Barr will get a respectful hearing on CNN as he argues that a special prosecutor should be appointed to pursue those theories, and that Joe, seeing as he’s a Democrat, is not entitled to the benefits of the unitary executive theory. Come 2023, when the Republicans have taken back the House, and likely the Senate, they will move to impeach Biden on specious grounds, or at the very least, threaten to do so while conducting interminable investigations to distract from their primary goal of transferring our money to the already rich.

It goes without saying that the United States will do nothing significant to combat climate change.

If you’re looking for good news, it’s always possible that the Red Sox will win another World Series.

Bonus Prediction: Despite the fact that she’s disturbed that McConnell is fixing the Senate trial in league with the White House, Susan Collins will vote to acquit in the face of all the evidence. We can take some comfort from the fact that the voters of Maine will quite likely send her packing, but never fear, she’ll land a well paying gig on CNN to talk about moderation, both sides, and bipartisanship.

Filed in Dysfunction, Rants | | Comments (0)

Past Perfect

Friday, December 27, 2019

Fred McNulty, who for years has been the youngest member of our Drinking Liberally Group (we’ve always wondered how he put up with us), has an interesting post at his blog, Miguk Minute. (And don’t expect I’ll explain what Miguk means) Fred deconstructs the “War on Christmas” meme. For the most part, with one major exception that I will tackle later, his analysis is spot on, the gist is as follows:

When examined through the lens of the supposed persecution of conservatives, claims of a “War on Christmas” are actually par for the course: conservatives in the United States routinely argue that most major institutions are out to attack right-wing causes. Entertainment media, academia, tech companies, news media, and scientists are constantly portrayed by conservative media as enemies vying to attack right-wing causes. The “everyone is against us” narrative is pervasive in U.S. right-wing culture.

Far right group Turning Point USA has found incredible success marketing self-victimization to conservatives. Their social media pages are filled with memes and posts claiming that conservatives are hated or called “racist” for being “honest.” One meme has a photo implying that Barack Obama is saying, “No one should face discrimination…well, except gun owners, rednecks, Christians, cops, and conservatives.” Although it may be surprising to people who do not consume right-wing media, this is very common rhetoric on talk radio, Fox News, conservative newspapers, meme sites, and on right-wing blogs. And especially from Donald Trump.

But I take issue with the following:

It is a fact that that the demographics of conservatives skew old. With old age frequently comes nostalgia for the “good old days.” This is a psychological phenomenon called rosy retrospection, in which people perceive the past to be better than it actually was.

As a relatively recently minted geezer, I take issue with this. In fact, the past was better than it actually was. Our past, anyway. Who had the best music ever? Who lived in a time when, as Wordsworth said (though he was wrong about the age to which he applied this), “ Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!”. Well, it was blissful so long as you managed to avoid the snares of a certain elderly Uncle who wanted to send you to Southeast Asia. There’s no question in my mind that the sixties were way better than they actually were, and in no way is it the fault of those of us that were young in those blissful times that the very worst of our contemporaries have risen to the political top. We were too blissed out to notice.

Putting that objection aside, I recommend Fred’s post, and, also suggest you check out his Patreon page. Fred made a number of interesting videos about Connecticut history and issues.

Stay tuned, by the way, as I’m working on my predictions for 2020, which, by the way, for those of you who are numerically challenged, is not the beginning of a new decade, but the final year of an old one.

Filed in Ramblings | | Comments (1)

Time to speak with one voice

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Happy day after impeachment.

That being said, let’s take a look at where we go from here. Nancy Pelosi has, I must say, handled things masterfully, but her success depends on the Democrats getting their act together and speaking in unison. They used to do that, but people who were boys and girls in the 70’s cannot remember such things.

Pelosi’s strategy of holding the impeachment articles until Moscow Mitch comes up with some reasonable procedures for a Senate trial makes perfect sense. As soon as I heard about it, though, it immediately occurred to me, as it should to any person who has observed the media in this country, that the Republicans would come up with some attack line that each of them would repeat endlessly, thus requiring the media to take it seriously, despite its evident absurdity.

I had intended to get a post up to that effect before the Republicans unveiled their line of attack, but Moscow Mitch beat me to it. The Democrats are, in his words, “too afraid” to send their work product to the Senate, where, Mitch has already announced, he would engage in a sham trial. But, of course, the media will forget he said that, unless the Democrats keep reminding them of it. That doesn’t mean just Nancy, that means all the Democrats. 

A good shorthand way of getting the message through would be to echo Schumer’s demand that they use the same rules they used with Clinton. After all, the Republicans were in charge back then too. Not just Schumer, not just Pelosi, all of them.

Also, not quite on the subject, hopefully we have heard the last of Tulsi Gabbard.

Filed in Democrats | | Comments (0)

Well, yeah, she doesn’t care, but in her defense…

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Breaking radio silence to make a fairly trivial point. I just read this post at Hullabaloo in which digby comments on the hypocrisy involved in Melania Trump’s tweet about her son Baron and her later defense of the genius’s tweet about Greta Thunberg. She concludes:

And let’s be clear. If it [the law professor’s comment about Baron Trump] was a “mistake” it was entirely innocuous and only because it gave fodder for a bunch of shameless right-wingers to call for the smelling salts over something they knew was not even close to an attack.

Trump, on the other hand, a 73 year old man, mocks and derides a 16 year old climate activist because she gets more positive attention than he does.

And his wife defends it. She didn’t have to. She could have just shut up or made a generic comment about bullying and left it at that. But she didn’t. She called out Thunberg and said, in so many words, that she had it coming.

Melania Trump does not care. Do you?

(Typos in original corrected)

I submit this is not entirely fair to Melania Trump. Granted she married the man for only one reason, having nothing to do with a four letter word beginning with “l” and having much to do with a five letter word beginning with “m”. But I would be willing to bet she had nothing to do with sending the tweet attacking the law professor who noted that the genius could not make a baron out of Baron. Her job is to do or say what she is told, or, more accurately, to allow others to do or say things in her name. I would bet a substanial sum that she has no say in the tweets that go out under her name, nor did she have anything to do with the “she was asking for it” defense that was put out somewhat under her name. She didn’t have to defend the genius, and most likely didn’t. She couldn’t just shut up because she has no control over what is put out under her name. Her offense lies not in originating these statements, but in refusing to disclaim them when they are made. But those are the conditions under which she has agreed to operate.

So, not entirely fair to Melania. Still, 99% is close.

Filed in Hypocrisy | | Comments (0)

The Turley Defense

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Jonathan Turley, who I used to think was a perfectly reasonable guy when I saw him on the Keith Olbermann show, proffered a Trump defense to the House of Representatives that was, in a word, risible (risible is a word I learned from Monty Python). Now, unlike many, I think Turley was both wrong and (maybe) right. Let me explain.

His defense, such as it was, consisted of the assertion that, not having heard from all the witnesses, the House lacked the evidence to impeach Trump. Now, as a matter of law, given the evidence they had, this is a laughable proposition. By way of illustration, let us indulge in a little pretend. What follows is a completely made up scene in an American courtroom:

Defense counsel: Your honor, I submit that, the prosecution having rested, this case must be dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence. It’s quite true that the prosecution has produced multiple eye witnesses who saw my client shoot the victim on 5th Avenue, that my client himself has made multiple statements admitting his guilt, and one of his spokesman has stated that he did it, but the fact remains that there are multiple people in his entourage who were there that day who have not testified and …

(judge interrupts with question)

Defense counsel: Well, yes your honor, they have all left the jurisdiction at my client’s behest and have refused to return, but the fact remains that they could testify about what happened that day …

(judge interrupts again)

Well, no judge, I have never heard of an adverse inference. What’s that?

(judge explains basic legal principle)

Defense counsel: Really? I never knew that. I guess I should have finished law school after all.

I think that pretty much states the essence of the Turley defense.

So how is Turley right? Well, just maybe the Democrats should be drawing the thing out, drip drip dripping the evidence over the course of months, and pursuing the entourage through the courts, so as to build even more public support for impeachment. If that’s what Turley had in mind, he was, possibly, right, though it’s doubtful, coming from a guy with his record, that he did have that in mind. The fly in the ointment of that argument is the very real possibility that the courts, now dominated by Trump appointees, will rule that Trump (and, by implication, all other Republican presidents) has the right to withhold evidence. All things considered, it might be a good idea to avoid the possibility of a judicial decision that effectively declares that we live in a dictatorship whenever there is a Republican president, for we all know an exception would be made in the rule for a Democratic president.. 

Filed in Impeachable, Lawyer stuff | | Comments (0)

It’s okay if you’re a Republican, National Edition

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

A few weeks ago I wrote a few posts (here and here) about David Preka, a Republican candidate for town council here in Groton who lacked a fairly basic requirement for the office: he didn’t live here. The local Republican Party, I have come to understand, was fully aware of this minor little issue when he was nominated, but chose to ignore it for reasons of their own. Their response to the public disclosure of their illegal behavior was strikingly reminiscent of the defenders of a certain stable genius: they blamed the whistleblower, whoever he or she might have been.

It looks like Mr. Preka has a companion in crime at a much higher level:

U.S. Rep. Steve Watkins’ decision to sign a Kansas voter registration form and two other election documents that asserted his residential address was a UPS Store in Topeka could constitute felony voter fraud under federal law and election perjury under state statute, officials said Tuesday.

Shawnee County records show the first-term Republican listed his official residence as 6021 S.W. 29th St. in Topeka, which corresponds to a UPS Store, when he signed a form to change his residency for voter registration purposes in August, signed an application for a mail-in ballot in October and signed a document to complete advance voting for the November election.

It isn’t clear where the congressman physically resided in Kansas after August nor what Topeka precinct he was legally qualified to be part of when voting in November. By asserting his place of residence to be the UPS Store, Watkins left the Topeka City Council’s 5th District for the city council’s 8th District. He then cast a November ballot in an 8th District contest decided by 13 votes.

Jim Joice, Watkins’ chief of staff, said questions about the residency issue posed by The Topeka Capital-Journal led to a staff review of the congressman’s voter registration. He said Watkins mistakenly portrayed his residence to be the UPS building.

No word in the linked article about whether Watkins has gotten around to blaming the Democrats for his criminal behavior. I did get a kick out of his chief of staff’s assertion that his boss “ mistakenly portrayed his residence to be the UPS building”. This requires us to believe that a man with sufficient brains to be a Republican Congressman (okay, I know, that’s in the nature of an oxymoron, but still) doesn’t know his own address. I can’t recall much about my pre-K childhood, but I still remember the address of the house I lived in until I was 6. Watkins apparently wants us to believe that he simply made a mistake about his own address. It would take an entirely Republican and exclusively Fox watching jury (maybe not hard to get in Kansas) to believe this was not intentional fraud.

The article goes on to point out the potential federal sanctions that might await the Congressman:

The penalty in federal law could be five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for people guilty of willfully giving false information about an address when establishing eligibility for registration.

If that’s true it might give Mr. Preka pause as well, since he voted in three federal elections using his phony address.

Again, let us make note of the fact that Republicans are always accusing others of the crimes in which only they engage, voter fraud being a prime example.

Filed in Republican Corruption | | Comments (0)

Yet another stupidity defense

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

I was just checking in at Crooks & Liars, and ran across this post, in which I learn that a Fox News host, Steve Hilton, of whose existence I had no prior knowledge (I do so thank the non-existent god that I don’t own a TV), is urging Trump to stuff not only Giuliani under the bus, but also Joe diGenova, Victoria Toensing, and John Solomon, the last person in that list being someone of whom, as a non-Fox viewer, I have also been blissfully unaware. He is, apparently, a regular Fox talking head who re-spouts Giuliani/diGenova/Toensing conspiracy theories.

I won’t rehash the contents of the post, but I will observe that poor Mr. Hilton is forced to tie himself in knots to make his argument, which boils down to an assertion that the four under-bus dwellers are grifters who are grifting the genius. In order to make his case, he has to explicitly assert that the entire Ukrainian conspiracy theory is ….. you know …. that stuff that comes out of male bovines, thus undercutting one of the genius’s other defenses. On top of that, he must implicitly concede that Trump was stupid enough to believe those conspiracy theories, in spite of what all of his intelligence officials have told him.

So, the defense comes down to this: Trump is a stupid man (despite being a genius) who, despite being a champion grifter himself, can’t spot a grift when he’s the victim, who is more sinned against than sinning (though, again the implication is that he did sin) and who, although he did commit criminal acts, did so because he was tricked into doing them and had no idea that what he was doing was wrong.

Now that last part is probably true. I worked with a client once, who, I was convinced, couldn’t tell right from wrong. He would suggest doing something inappropriate, and we would explain to him that what he was suggesting was wrong, and he would accept what we told him, though he clearly couldn’t see why it was wrong. Trump is like that, which is why he needs people around him to tell him when he is doing something wrong. Unlike my long ago client, however, he doesn’t tolerate being told he is wrong, and so he has, over the course of the past three years, gotten rid of anyone around him who will tell him he is wrong.

This “he was an innocent dupe” defense, is, of course, only one of the many defenses the Republicans and/or Fox have floated in the past several months. All have one thing in common: the implicit presumption that the genius is no genius. More than that, he never was one!

Addendum: Added bonus to anyone who can spot the Gilbert & Sullivan reference in the last paragraph. I couldn’t find an appropriate link.

Addendum the Second: Relevant to the foregoing discussion, Josh Marshall complains:

I just heard – to my great chagrin and distress – one of my favorite CNN hosts say “clearly President Trump doesn’t think he did anything wrong.” Not only is this not “clear” it is almost certainly false. We shouldn’t say this because it’s not true. He certainly knows he did something wrong. He simply doesn’t care.

It may be slightly inconsistent with my previous statements, but I don’t think he knows he did something wrong, because in his worldview, it can’t be wrong if he did it. It is simply a form of mental illness.

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

In which I look on the bright side

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Today we learned, and its does not come as a shock, that 53% of Republicans think Trump is a better president than Lincoln. This is no surprise inasmuch as the Republican Party is now the American Nazi party, and Lincoln is not exactly a favorite of racists. After all, he bears a lot of responsibility for the 13th Amendment, among other things. The real surprise is that 47% of Republicans disagree with their racist brethren.

There may be a bit of good news, mathematically speaking, behind this outrageous statistic. This postat the Palmer Report comes close, but I think there may be more to it. Palmer says:

There are roughly 32 million registered Republicans in the United States. 53% of that is roughly 17 million. So we’re talking 17 million people, out of the 250 million Americans who are of voting age. In other words, this poll tells us that not much more than 5% of Americans think Trump is a better president than Lincoln. Even if you want to quibble with registration numbers, you’re still going to end up with a single digit number.

That’s right so far as it goes, though he implicitly rejects the possibility that there may be some Independents and even (shudder) Democrats who agree with their racist fellow citizens.

But I suspect there’s even more to it. As I understand it, pollsters rely on self-reporting to determine a person’s political affiliation. If one called me I could tell him or her that I was a Republican, and that’s how they’d rank me. I think we may be seeing something of a reverse Bradley effect here. Many registered Republicans may be rejecting the label.

Let’s start out by stipulating that pretty much every American knows that Lincoln is considered the greatest president in American history, and it requires a special blend of stupidity and racism to tell anyone, even a complete stranger, that you think the very stable genius is superior to the ultimate American icon. The fact that 53% of self identified Republicans are that racist and stupid tells me that the number of people who self identify as Republicans is decreasing. After all, you can be a registered Republican and no longer consider yourself a Republican when the pollster calls. My wife and I have acquaintances who were registered Republicans for years who just recently switched, provoked wholly by the genius. They are by no means unique and I think it’s quite likely that lots of registered Republicans no longer identify as Republicans, though they haven’t gotten around to switching or don’t see the need to do so.

So I think that one thing this poll reveals is the extent to which the rational are being squeezed out of the Republican Party like toothpaste out of a tube. Okay, so the switchers apparently don’t eat at diners, at least not so as the New York Times can find them, but they’re out there, particularly in the suburbs.

I realize that the above is absolutely inconsistent with my normal cynicism, but as the good poet said: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself”.

Filed in Republicans | | Comments (0)

They just can’t help themselves

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Let me start out by stating the obvious: I’m no fan of John Bolton’s. Still, it seems as if Bolton has stuff to say about the genius that the genius might rather we not hear, so, as they say, the enemy of my enemy is (at least temporarily) my friend. But as anyone following events knows, Bolton has been playing games about testifying. Today this happened:

Bolton re-emerged on Twitter this week and charged that his absence was due to the White House refusing to return access to his Twitter account.

Last night, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs lobbed a softball to Press Secretary (and obvious liar) Stephanie Grisham that all but asked her to shoot down Bolton’s accusation: “Ambassador Bolton today, with this nonsense about Twitter, wanting his dedicated, you know, handle. That was never in the possession of the White House, was it?

So, naturally Grisham did what she always does: she lied (or misled) and said that:

Somebody who is of an advanced age may not understand that all you have to do is contact Twitter and reset your password if you’ve forgotten it. So I’ll just leave it at that.

As the linked article goes on to state:

Bolton had turned over control of his account to the White House. He was no longer able to access that account shortly after tweeting his accusation that Trump had lied about firing him. According to the Times, the White House had evidently changed his password and verifying email address.

Starting a new account was possible of course, but he had almost a million followers on the old one (don’t ask me why) so you can see why he would want to keep it.

Now, here’s what I don’t understand. If someone has dirt on you, and you’d rather they keep it to themselves, wouldn’t it make sense to go out of your way not to get them mad at you by calling him a senile old man? What exactly is the upside for Grisham or for Trump in provoking Bolton now?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she did it. Anything that prods Bolton into driving another nail into the coffin is fine by me. Still, it makes you wonder if everyone over at the White House flunked psychology 101. 

Filed in Lies and Lying Liars | | Comments (0)