Skip to content

Who could have guessed that Biden would be uninspiring?

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Let me start by saying that I would vote for anyone with a D after his or her name in the 2020 presidential race. I desperately want us to win. In future posts, I may not so preface, but it should always be assumed.

That being said, I tremble in fear at the thought of a Joe Biden presidency. Here, Atrios points out that Biden’s inability to attract crowds is a problem, either with the candidate himself or with his campaign staff.

His staff may be partly to blame, but I think it’s Biden. Perhaps there are people in this country who are actually enthusiastic about the prospects of a Biden presidency, but they are few and far between. He is up in the polls partly due to name recognition, and partly because people who don’t really think too deeply think he’s the guy to beat Trump. And the latter is partly because he’s been anointed by the same people who anointed Hillary, and they figure that when all is said and done, he’s what they’ll be getting. Can anyone even articulate what Biden would do as president, or what he would like to do, other than not be Trump? All the other candidates are not Trump too, but they also have (except for the Seth Moulton and Tim Ryan DINOs) policy objectives that they articulate. We need for people to come out and vote, and they will not be inspired to do so by Joe Biden.

As a candidate, he will be his own worst enemy At least Hillary grasped most of the realities of the political landscape in which she was operating. That is, she understood that Republicans would take no prisoners and give no quarter. Biden is delusional. It is inevitable that, if nominated, he will make a fool of himself time and again, and the press will do to him what it does to all Democratic candidates: concentrate fire on him while giving Trump a “Trump being Trump” pass (Remember Al Gore, the alleged liar, and John Kerry, the alleged flip-flopper, and Hillary’s emails?). They’ll do it to whoever gets the Democratic nomination, but they’ll have so much more to fire at with Biden. Or maybe I should say “fire with”, since he’ll be giving them the ammunition. If anyone with a reasonable shot at the nomination can depress Democratic leaning turnout, it’s Joe Biden.

I still believe, or want to believe, that he’ll fade, but the truth is that given the gigantic field out there, if he keeps his numbers in the high teens, and the good candidates split the informed vote, we could end up sleep walking toward a replay of that awful night in November, 2016. 

Filed in Presidential Politics | | Comments (2)

We could use this here

Saturday, May 25, 2019

The British Labour Party suffers from some of the same defects as its American cousin, the Democrats. There is a cadre of right wing alleged Labourites holding it back, and it is easily intimidated by right wing bullshit. But they’re not all like that. I saw this video on Crooks & Liars and I felt I had to pass it on. We could use some of this on this side of the puddle.

My only criticism is that he doesn’t know how to pronounce “shit”.

Filed in Uncategorized | | Comments (0)

Meanwhile, as always, under the radar…

Monday, May 20, 2019

One of the many unfortunate side effects of the blatant criminality emanating from the White House and Attorney General is the fact that the regular run of the mill corruption that is the hallmark of this administration goes largely unremarked. One of the most corrupt of our regulators is Ajit Pai, the FCC Chair. Today he okayedthe proposed T-Mobile acquisition of Sprint, which everyone with a living brain realizes will result in an increase in the already outrageous cost of mobile phone service.

Now Pai says, despite all the evidence, that this will be good for consumers because the merged company has promised to deploy a 5G network and has also agreed not to raise rates for three years. But…, as you might expect:

Industry watchers doubt whether Pai’s FCC would enforce conditions given the agency’s unwillingness to stand up to major carriers on a litany of subjects, ranging from the foot-dragging on implementing robocall tech, casual treatment of consumer location data, and repair delays in the wake of hurricanes in both Florida and Puerto Rico.

This may not rise to Scott Pruitt levels of corruption, at least not obviously, but rest assured that if and when we get our country back Pai will be handsomely rewarded for his fealty to his former employers. All of the carriers benefit from this decision, because it will green light rate increases across the board, as the linked article discusses. Every carrier knows and Pai knows that he won’t enforce the conditions on the merged company so none of the other companies will be under competitive pressure to provide US consumers with a phone network on a par with that in other countries.

Indeed, that’s the way it works in this country and everyone knows it. Corporations say what they need to say to get the governmental action they want and then simply don’t do what they promised, especially now when they know that each and every regulatory body will look the other way.

Consider what Amazon is now trying to do to the town of Braintree, Massachusetts, where Amazon recently sued the Town over a requirement that “ delivery vehicles going to and from a warehouse that Amazon plans to build must carry signs identifying them as such.” It was a condition the Town Planning Board imposed on approving the facility in the first place in order to assure compliance with a traffic management plan to which Amazon agreed in order to get the zoning approval. At that time Amazon’s attorney said the requirement “makes sense”. The town relied upon that to grant the zoning approval in the first place. Had the attorney opposed the requirement, Amazon would likely not have gotten the approval. Now Amazon is suing to overturn that requirement, given that it has the approval safely in hand. If it were a federal regulatory issue, at this point in time, Amazon would not even bother to sue; it would simply ignore the requirement secure in the well founded belief that nothing would come of it. 

Filed in Corruption | | Comments (0)

Joe Biden was in a coma for eight years

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

If there were a god I would be imploring him/her to save us from this man:

In New Hampshire, Joe Biden predicts that once President Trump is out of office, Republicans will have “an epiphany” and work with Democrats toward consensus.

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) May 14, 2019

The Republicans thrive in the minority, but only if they oppose everything. Look at the poor NRA, which is losing money because they can’t claim their guns are threatened. But I am adding evidence to a case already made. Where was Biden when McConnell said his only objective at the start of Obama’s presidency was to assure that he was a one term president. Where was he when the Republicans refused the offered chance to destroy social security solely because they didn’t want to work on anything with Obama, even on an objective they’ve cherished for over 60 years. Where was he during the Merrick Garland debacle? The coma theory is the only one that gives the man the benefit of the doubt.

I’ll vote for him if I have to, but he’s a sure ticket, should he win (and I don’t think he will), to a Republican sweep in 2024.

Oh well, maybe I’ll be dead by then.

Filed in Presidential Politics | | Comments (0)

No one could have predicted this!

Monday, May 13, 2019

Boy, this is a shocker. No one could have predicted it:

A source close to the Florida man who raised over $22 million on GoFundMe in the “We The People Will Build the Wall” campaign just revealed today that the money has been diverted to pay for a ‘million dollar’ yacht and high-flying lifestyle.

Well, maybe some people could have predicted it. I wonder if the genius of the very stable variety is getting a cut.

Filed in Grifters | | Comments (0)

Yet another Open Letter to the New London Day

Monday, May 13, 2019

I’m glad to see that the Day is maintaining its policy of balancing each liberal column it runs with one (or more) by a conservative. After all, it’s been a few weeks since you hired right wing nutcase Lee Elci. Failed and embittered ex-legislator John Scott’s column in this morning’s paper (can’t seem to bring myself to provide a link) venting his spleen against tolls is yet another example of this stellar policy in action.

It’s a great example of right wing punditry, since not a word of it makes sense. But that’s not really the point, which is to try to take political advantage of what is a common sense solution to a real world problem.

As the Day noted in its printed (I believe the on-line version has been heavily edited) editorial endorsing tolls, it would be unrealistic to expect Republicans to endorse this common sense way of funding road maintenance, because doing the right thing is not their thing. Their thing is playing politics. With tolls, as with so much else, the game is played like this: Democrats are obligated to come up with solutions to problems. Republicans are in charge of creating more problems. (See, e.g., a certain very stable genius) Congratulations to the Day for enabling the very behavior it predicted in its editorial.

Scott swings for the fences and gets it over every time. The column is chock full of the “s” word, the go to insult from the right now that the “c” word is out of fashion. Like the “c” word, the “s” word has been drained of all content by the right, but it appears to be suffering a different fate than the “c” word. A substantial number of people appear to be concluding that if Republicans don’t like socialism, it must be a good thing.

He also hits the ball over the fence when he writes that everyone with a GPS will hit the back roads to avoid paying a couple of dollars in tolls. Only a right winger with a less than logical mind (all right winger minds are like that) could take that argument seriously. I guess it never occurred to John that such a dodge only works if you’re the only one dodging. As I pointed out in my own letter to the Day (gee, maybe I should get a column), I go to Maine every year (and other places with tolls). I never dodge them. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ll gladly pay a few bucks to cut the time it takes me to get to my ultimate destination. Just a suspicion, but I suspect it’s not just me. Oh, and that’s why you commission studies that Republicans vent about: to anticipate and minimize exactly those kinds of effects.

Anyway, back to my main point. Congratulations to the Day for enabling yet another Republican taking political advantage of Democratic willingness to do the right thing. Far be it from me to accuse you of knuckling under to the right wing nutcases that flood your letters page and troll your comment sections.

By the way, I’ve been having trouble finding the liberal columnists to whom I referred in my opening paragraph. I’ve looked and looked. You have a sports columnist who seems to have a sense of fair play and decency. Is that where I should be looking?

Filed in Local issues | | Comments (1)

An open letter to the New London Day

Friday, May 10, 2019

The Day has, for reasons the rational among us cannot fathom, repeatedly endorsed Heather Somers for any political office for which she happens to hanker. Curiously, however, the Day never bothers to cover what Ms. Somers happens to do in the course of her official duties.

Wait, let me correct myself. The Day slavishly passes on her self promoting press releases, but that’s not quite the same as actually committing journalism in the classic sense that some of us believe the Founders had in mind when they passed the First Amendment.

Here’s a recent case in point, about which the Day’s readers have heard nothing. The Connecticut constitution contains some absurd restrictions that prevent the legislature from allowing early voting except in limited cases. Recently a majority of the Connecticut Senate passed a bill that would begin the process of amending the constitution to correct this flaw. As it requires a super majority to get on the ballot it failed, because every Republican, including Heather Somers, voted against it.

Why is Heather against making it easier for people to exercise their right to vote? Well, according to Heather, you shouldn’t hand people their voting rights on a silver platter. To which a person who believes in democracy might say: why shouldn’t the state hand people their rights on a silver platter. Some might say that the state should make it its business to encourage everyone to vote, and that making voting easy and convenient is a fundamental obligation of any state that calls itself a democracy. Heather doesn’t see it that way. She appears to believe voters must prove themselves worthy to exercise their right to vote by overcoming every obstacle that good Republicans like Heather can place in their way. The Day reprinted a Connecticut Mirror article about the issue, but did not mention Heather or any other local opponent of the bill, nor did it do any independent journalism on this vital issue.

Perhaps the Day should ask Heather why it is a good thing to make people struggle to cast their vote. Perhaps the Day should let Heather’s constituents know that it is her opinion that it is a good thing to make it hard for people to cast a vote. Perhaps the Day should consider reporting on what Heather actually does, rather than reporting on the drivel that comes out of both sides of her mouth.

Just a thought, of course. I realize it’s contrary to the Day’s editorial philosophy to hold Republicans to the same standards as Democrats.

Filed in Local issues, Media | | Comments (0)

Was it always thus?

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Is it just me, or do most non-Fox viewers feel this way?

Yesterday the New York Times released a story about the genius’s tax returns from the eighties. Turns out that he lost billions of dollars and the returns emit a strong odor of fraud. I’m not saying it’s not worth reporting, but if you’d asked me to write down what one could expect from his tax returns, I don’t think I’d have guessed wrong.

This is a pattern with Trump. Nothing surprises even the casual observer, never mind the political junkie. Consider this description of two Pulitzer Prize winning stories:

The New York Times received the explanatory reporting prize for an 18-month investigation that revealed how the future president and his relatives avoided paying roughly half a billion dollars’ worth of taxes. The Wall Street Journal won the national reporting award for disclosing clandestine payoffs made by the president’s associates before the 2016 election to two women who had alleged affairs with Mr. Trump.

I’m not saying the prizes were undeserved, but on the other hand, both papers were just telling us what we already knew.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I believe there have been times when we’ve been surprised when politicians were exposed as venal, corrupt, or frauds. In those days, I’m pretty sure, an investigative reporter could uncover a truly shocking story. Nowadays the poor scribes are reduced to simply confirming what we already know.

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

Shape of Things to Come

Thursday, May 2, 2019

This is interesting, I think, and bodes poorly for the Democratic presidential candidate, whoever it may be.

In today’s New York Times (the paper version), right next to the two articles about the Barr hearings, neither of which headlines the fact that he lied his way through his testimony, is an article about Joe Biden. It starts on page one, takes up the entirety of page 10, and extends onto page 11. It concerns allegations of a conflict of interest involving his son’s activities in the Ukraine, and is titled For Biden, a Ukraine Matter that Won’t Go Away. Not until you get to page 10 (and, really, who ever reads that far) does it become clear that this is a story being pushed by the Trumpies, which the Times, dutifully carrying water, has promoted to front page news.

So, I went on line to get a linkto the story (doing my duty as a blogger), in order to make point one of two I intend to make in this post: that the mainstream media is always ready to dutifully chase whatever way Republicans point while somehow ignoring Republican transgressions. Before the election, anyway, how often did the Timesmine the various conflicts of interests, criminal activities and frauds in which Trump engaged. Okay, I understand. There wasn’t room to print them next to all those stories about Hillary’s emails.

Point one made.

Before going on, let me relate what I found on-line. The title to the article has been changed for the on-line version. It reads: “Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies”. A little better anyway, though it might have been useful had the Times noted that nothing in the “questions” being promoted rises to the level of corruption in which the Trump family daily engages. But the damage was done in the print edition.

On to point two.

Someone near and dear to me has been repeatedly making the point that unless the Democrats pursue impeachment this is what we can expect from now until the election: the press chasing adverse stories about Democratic candidates like hounds chasing foxes while Trump escapes scrutiny since, after all, he’s just being Trump. Like this one, those stories will be invented, promoted, or blown out of proportion by Republicans, but it won’t matter. Like Hillary’s emails they will dominate the news. If we want to throw the dogs off the scent, we have to give them something else to chase, and a constant drumbeat of disclosures from impeachment hearings (they don’t actually ever have to hold a vote if they prefer) is part of what we need to do that.

Caveat: This doesn’t mean I’ve become a Joe Biden fan. I’m still convinced he’s the worst of the actually viable candidates.

UPDATE: I see digby came to the same conclusions I did. For once I got a post off before the big players.

Filed in Media | | Comments (1)

All together now

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

A few days ago my wife put this on the Local Resist Facebook page:

 

At this point this should be fairly non-controversial on our side of the great divide. I’m no fan of Joe Biden or Seth Moulton, and their ilk, but I’ll vote for any one of them if it’s the only way to get rid of Trump. Rather predictably the post drew a response from a (probable) Bernie dead ender. I won’t reproduce the unhinged rant here, but boiled down to its essence, it came down to this: rather than vote for someone who is not perfect, I will not vote at all. Another way to state it is that rather than vote for someone who is not perfect, I will cast a shadow vote for Trump.

I say he was a “probable” Bernie dead-ender not because he so identified, but because folks with this attitude tend to reside in that camp, though some are ready to de-camp to the Greens and waste their vote there.

These folks are doing us all a disservice, and they’re doing Bernie a disservice in particular. He wasn’t a Bernie dead-ender in 2016, as he campaigned for Hillary, and he isn’t now, as he’s taken the Indivisible Pledge (he was first) along with most of the other candidates. The likelihood is that they’ll all sign on in the near future. You can take the pledge too.

We really do need to pull together when the time comes. A health primary debate is more than worthwhile, as I believe that it will lead to a realization on the part of the Democratic establishment that it can no longer do business as usual. Whatever the outcome, we need to pull together. 

Filed in Presidential Politics | | Comments (0)