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Say it’s no go, Joe

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

It isn’t often that a pundit (Krugman aside) hits the nail on the head, but Michelle Goldberg column about Joe Biden hit a homer in this mornings Times.

Biden has been the subject of a couple of recent accusations of inappropriate conduct toward women. Not exactly sexual harassment, more like the exact kind of conduct that led Kristin Gillibrand to force Al Franken out of the Senate. Goldberg doesn’t excuse the behavior, but she does get right to the meat of the reasons why Biden should spend a lot more time with his family.

Still, the widespread assumption that Biden would pose the strongest challenge to Donald Trump is unwarranted. In recent years, neither party has done well when they’ve chosen candidates who were meant to appeal to some elusive cadre of swing voters but lacked a robust grass-roots base. On paper, the war heroes John Kerry and John McCain looked electable; Obama and Trump did not. To those desperate to unseat Trump, the centrist, establishment Biden might seem like the safest choice, but it would actually be risky to pick a candidate who will need to constantly apologize for himself.

The “centrism” path doesn’t work, except with people like David Brooks, and even he probably pulls the Trump lever when in the safety of the voting booth. People have to feel like they’re voting for something, not for the status quo with a little kindness mixed in. It was progressivism that beat back the forces of darkness last time around, and it will either do it again or the republic will degenerate into complete autocracy while the planet burns. That’s our choice, and we can’t afford to nominate a guy who doesn’t see that stark reality.

Several months ago Biden was on Pod Save America, and I was absolutely flabbergasted at the degree to which his mind is still in the 1970s, talking about comity and reasonableness and bipartisanship. They were polite to him, but he was utterly clueless. This from someone who spent eight years as the Vice President of a guy who tried beyond reason to make nice with Republicans and who got nothing for it. This in an era when Mitch McConnell has the gall to complain about Democrats obstructing presidential nominations.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Biden’s front runner status will quickly disappear once the primary season begins in earnest. Fondly do I hope, fervently do I pray that I’m right. I’m sure the powers that be in the Democratic Party want to hand him the nomination, as much as they wanted to hand it to Hillary. Trump will eat him for breakfast if he gets the nomination, and he will inspire precisely no one. If the women who have made these complaints about his behavior put paid to his candidacy they both deserve the Medal of Freedom.

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The genius plots strategy

Friday, March 29, 2019

Trump is apparently planning to campaign in 2020 by trumpeting the Barr letter, which no one other than the brain dead (fortunately still not a majority in the country) accepts as valid.

A reliable barometer of Trump’s moods, Giuliani offered a glimpse into the future. Mueller might be done with his investigation, but Trump and company are loath to let it drop. They want to capitalize on the president escaping criminal charges and make Mueller’s findings a core piece of 2020 campaign messaging. In their view, Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary of the report is a gift that vindicates Trump, undercuts Democratic investigations, and repudiates critical news coverage. There’s time enough to talk policy on the campaign trail. Team Trump first wants to showcase the special counsel’s conclusions: According to Barr, Mueller reported no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, and he couldn’t make a judgment on obstruction of justice. Even though the probe has led to 215 criminal charges and five prison sentences, Trump and his allies have framed Mueller’s findings as total exoneration.

Yet many Republican lawmakers and strategists fear that Trump would be fixating on the wrong message at the wrong time. They worry that Trump risks repeating the same strategic blunder he made in the midterm elections, which culminated in Republicans losing control of the House. Rather than spotlight economic gains rung up on his watch, the president might wind up dwelling on collateral issues of scant interest to voters. In the midterms, Trump locked onto migrant caravans making their way north from Mexico, warning of a national-security threat that never materialized, and ultimately made little mention of the bread-and-butter issues that some strategists believe would have bolstered his party’s odds for winning.

Even if no other shoes drop, which seems unlikely, I think the “many Republican lawmakers and strategists” may be right. It’s hard to see how a campaign message consisting of “the guy I picked to squelch an investigation of me says I’m not guilty” is going to garner many votes. That’s just preaching to an ever quieter choir, but it’s all Trump really knows how to do. If the Democrats had any messaging ability they might suggest in response, for instance, that if he’s so innocent why can’t we see the whole report, etc. In fact, the Democrats might actually have the intelligence to do just that. I really don’t think “I’m not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of selling out to Russia” is a great campaign message. Here’s hoping he sticks with that approach.

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Democrats are their own worst enemy

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

A friend sent me a link to this articleat the Intercept, in which a political consultant claims she was blackballed by the DCCC because she was helping Democratic primary challengers. I wrote back that although it was believable, I’d withhold judgment, given Fox Democrat Glenn Greenwald’s role at the Intercept, until I got verification elsewhere.

It didn’t take long to find it. One might argue that Down with Tyrannytends to be a little over the top, but the post is based on an article from New Yorkmagazine, which I think is authoritative enough. Besides, it was totally plausible to begin with. 

The DCCC is not only an incumbent protection racket, it is the exclusive domain of the right wing of the Democratic Party, dedicated to getting right wing Democrats elected, who will then either consistently vote with Republicans and/or oppose any initiative that is—how can I say this— popular with voters.

The Republican Party has been completely taken over by the extreme right. In order to avoid being taken over by a non-existent extreme left (I’ll say it again, today’s progressives are no different than run of the mill 60s liberals) Nancy Pelosi has handed the DCCC over to the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. It’s a funny thing, but it turns out that people who want to vote for Republicans tend to vote for the real thing, particularly when the alternative with which they are presented offers nothing but a lukewarm version of the red meat they get from Republicans. If we want to win, we have to convince people we are a better alternative, not that we are a kinder and gentler version of the Republicans.

I won’t give money to the DCCC. They raise money by promoting progressive ideas, and then they use it to squelch progressives.

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Religion Lesson

Monday, March 25, 2019

This has nothing to do with politics.

I’ve mentioned before that I have an advanced degree in theology, courtesy of the nuns at the aptly named Our Lady of Sorrows Grammar school. But recently I discovered a shocking deficit in my theological knowledge. That deficit has been corrected, and I feel obligated to both confess error and share the fruits of my new found knowledge with anyone who happens to read this blog.

A little background. My son and daughter in law gave my wife and I tickets to The Book of Mormon for Christmas. The reader is free to speculate why my son and daughter felt that I’d enjoy this particular play. Some friends bought tickets for the same March 24th showing, and after the show we met them and my son and his spouse, at a very nice New York City Italian restaurant. The reader should not be surprised that the subject of religion came up during our dinner conversation.

Now my son was raised religion free, and while he may teach at a fancy pants university, the fact is that he just can’t match my academic credentials when it comes to theology, particularly the theology of the one true Holy Roman Catholic Church (see above). So, when he mentioned that Mary (you know, Virgin mother of our Lord Jesus Christ) had been immaculately conceived, I immediately pulled academic rank and stated that only Jesus, god’s only son who died for our sins on a crucifix, without singing so much as a single verse of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, was immaculately conceived.

But I was wrong, and my smarty pants, unbaptized and therefore Limbo bound (at best) son was right!

During my rigorous religious training I was made aware early on that Mary was a virgin, and remained a virgin throughout her life, even after giving birth to our Lord Jesus Christ, who was sired, not by a bull, like in those Greek fables, but by God the father, even though the Lord Jesus Christ actually existed prior to his own birth. (We shall leave that conundrum aside) Truth to tell, during the first several years of my theological education I was a bit hazy on precisely what a virgin was, except for that it was a very good thing, but I did manage to piece it all together, no thanks to the nuns, before I got my degree. So anyway, Jesus was immaculately conceived because Mary never once “did it” with any mortal man (just the also aptly named God the Father, and that has no effect on virginity, apparently). We are left to speculate how Joseph felt about all that, but really he’s just a bit player and he had to take one for the team.

So, when my professorial offspring said Mary had been Immaculately Conceived, I leapt to the conclusion that he was saying that her mama and daddy never “did it” either, or at least didn’t “do it” the time Mary was conceived. I, e., that God the Father “did it” with Mary’s Mom, before he “did it” with Mary, which really seems a bit much, when you think about it.

But it turns out, Mary’s Mom and Dad did “do it” after all. But Mary was still immaculately conceived.

Okay, now we have to step back a bit. As we all know, we are all born sinners, carrying the stain of “original sin” which, so far as I can gather from all the evidence, is a result of the fact that we got here because our parents “did it”. Not a big deal (for Catholics, deadly for all others), because it’s easily washed away by a properly conducted Catholic baptism, all others being totally ineffectual. I should pause here and say that my fellow theology students and I could never quite see the fairness of blaming a newborn child for someone else’s sin (even if we didn’t quite know what “doing it” was at first, not to mention the confusion engendered by the story about the apple). Now, it turns out that inasmuch as God (the Father) had plans for Mary, he gave her a free pass and even though her parents “did it” she was born with a clean slate so to speak. That way she could be sin free when she “did it” with God, because back then they didn’t have baptisms, and even if they did, they didn’t count because they weren’t Catholic baptisms. And she did indeed live a sin free life, which again was easier back then, since she didn’t have to come up with any sins (“I lied to my parents three times”) to satisfy the priest during confession. So Mary was immaculately conceived as was Jesus, only in a completely different way.

Some people might say that you can’t make this stuff up, but somebody did! Now compared to the stuff Mormons have to believe, you can easily swallow this stuff with one gulp, and you’d better, because if you don’t, you’ll spend eternity in the fires of hell, and if the Church could bring back the good old days, you’d get there by being pre-burnt here.

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You can stop if you’ve read this same rant elsewhere

Monday, March 25, 2019

I realize that everything I’m about to say has been said ad nauseum, but inasmuch as this is my blog and no one has to read it if they don’t want, I will proceed to vent.

First, lets stipulate that when people read newspapers, they often just scan the headlines, or read the first couple of paragraphs of any given article. Everyoneknows this to be so. It, therefore, behooves the press to make sure those headlines reflect that actual state of affairs for any given piece it chooses to publish. It’s simply not enough to put qualifying statements in the last paragraph of a piece.

Robert Mueller sent his report to Barr, and Barr proceeded to provide a “summary” to Congress and the public. Lets step back and recall some rather salient facts.

  • Before he was chosen as AG, Barr wrote articles in which he essentially argued that Trump could not possibly be guilty of obstruction of justice.
  • Barr was chosen to be AG precisely because Trump hoped and expected that he would do what was necessary to protect Trump from Mueller.

These facts, in the eyes of any but the most rock ribbed Republican, would lead one to conclude that one must be wary of any summary he would provide, particularly when that summary includes his own admission that Mueller felt there was evidence that Trump obstructed justice, and Barr decided he hadn’t after giving it a nanosecond of thought.

So why do all the headlines blare that Trump has, essentially, been cleared? Sure, the op-ed pages are full of caveats, but no one but junkies reads them. It’s probably the case that by the time one reaches the final paragraphs of these articles that it is conceded that one must consider the source, and that perhaps this “summary” might be somewhat slanted. Given Barr’s background, and given the overall mendacity of Trump and his criminal cohorts, the headlines and leading paragraphs should reflect that reality. Instead Barr and Trump got just what they wanted.

Have I said anything original? Nope. I’m even a little late, but that’s because I was away yesterday and couldn’t write this rant until now. Who knows, maybe if enough people scream about this we’ll see a change in behavior from our media elites.

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This guy’s pretty good

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Watch this video at Crooks and Liars of Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He’s obviously a long shot, but he’s quite impressive. It has been a pet peeve of mine for years that people in this country throw around the word “socialism” as if we all share a definition of that term, when in reality it is nothing but an all purpose word of derision for the right. The word has really been thrown around ever since, as Buttigieg points out, Obama’s conservative think tank inspired health plan was labeled socialist. Never have I seen anyone demand that those using the term define it. It’s just assumed that we all know what the word means, and we all agree on that meaning. As a result, it now means anything Republicans want it to mean. They always seem to get their way, don’t they?

Anyway, “Mayor Pete” is having none of that. He implicitly calls out Joe Scarborough for using a term that has become completely devoid of real content.

More of that, please.

Also, everything else he said made sense.

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Pundit amnesia syndrome

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Every Tuesday and Friday I religiously check out the op-ed page at the New York Times to peruse Paul Krugman’s latest. I’m not sure if David Brooks always runs on those days as well, but if he is I also check out the title to his latest, groan, and make a mental note read the inestimable Driftglass’s deconstruction of Brooks latest bullshit. He reads Brooks do I don’t have to, and I truly appreciate it.

Today Brooks piece is titled Cory Booker Finds His Moment. (I refuse to actually link to David Brooks) I immediately knew two things upon reading that title. First, that I should push Booker even further down on my presidential preference list, though truth to tell I think he’s only been ahead of Kristin Gillibrand and Tulsi Gabbard. Second, I could sense that Driftglass would have a field day with this particular column, and indeed he did. He had something up before I put the paper down.

Brooks premise, apparently, is that Booker would seek to govern in a bipartisan fashion; would work with both Democrats and Republicans in a spirit of comity and mutual respect; that this would be a surefire way to get important and meaningful things done in this country; and that it’s about time someone tried governing like that. Driftglass points out:

Golly, if only Democrats would elect a president who is calm and humane. Formidably intelligent and fundamentally decent. A president who would reach out to Republicans to a fault, no matter how ruthlessly they slander him, how scurrilously they attack his family and no matter how relentlessly they sabotage anything he tries to accomplish, even if it means filibustering their own bills.

But of course Democrats did try that, didn’t we?

I remember it like it was yesterday. I’m sure you do too, as do billions of human beings around the world. How very, very strange it is, therefor, that quite possibly the only adult human on the planet who doesn’t remember a single thing about the Obama administration is the senior Conservative political/cultural columnist for The New York Times.

That last cut is unfair to Brooks. Lots of beltway pundits don’t remember a single thing about the Obama administration. Consider the fact that Chuck Todd just blamed Obama for failing to bring the country together.

Orwell was right about a lot of stuff. One of them was the memory hole, into which people like Brooks and Todd consign every past event that is inconvenient for any meme they wish to push in the present. In Brooks case, this very often includes his own columns, predictions and opinions from years, months, or weeks past. It is the only way to preserve the illusion that both sidesare responsible for getting us into the parlous situation in which we now find ourselves. In the Brooksian world, as Driftglass points out, right and wrong are irrelevant. Or, more precisely, they are irrelevant when your side is in the wrong. 

Yet another reminder that we on the left must not forget, and must keep reminding the forgetful other side of its history.

As a bit of a sidenote, I must note that not all facts are consigned to the memory hole. It always amazed me that before he ended his pundit career by letting his racist flag fly too obviously, Jeffrey Lord constantly made the argument that Democrats were evil because they were the party of racists back in 1850 or thereabouts. An actual historical fact. No one ever asked him how, precisely, that had any salience in the second decade of the 21st century. For that is another privilege that only the right has: the right to spout non sequiturs without challenge.

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Latest rant

Saturday, March 16, 2019

This is not going to be a post about the genius’s tone deaf but honest reaction to the killings in New Zealand. That’s been massively covered elsewhere, but I’ll note, as it is somewhat germane to this post, that his racist reaction is eliciting, at least here in the U.S., the now familiar “Trump being Trump” reaction. The rules are different for Trump individually, and Republicans in general.

Which brings me to the main point, something I’ve sort of been mulling over for several days. Recently the New London Day ran an editorialendorsing the idea of tolls here in Connecticut. In the course of that editorial it dismissed the Republican alternative of borrowing money to fix the roads, while reducing bonding authority for non essential things like education. All fine, as far as it goes, but this bit of prose really rankled:

Lamont is expending substantial political capital in pushing for tolls. They are unpopular. No one wants them. But Connecticut needs them.

This will fall to Democratic lawmakers holding ranks. Republicans appear lockstep in opposition. That is the politically expedient course. We urge local Republican lawmakers to break from the pack, yet we understand the political calculus to let Democrats own this. (Emphasis added)

I can tell you that without doubt if the situation were reversed the Day would not be so understanding, and it would call out local Democratic legislators by name. But when it comes to Republicans, the Day explicitly gives them a pass. “Sure”, it says “it would be nice if you did the right thing, but we totally understand if you want to play a cynical game”. Why does the Day in particular, and most of our media in general, give this sort of pass to Republicans? My own belief is that it’s because this has been the Republicans’ game plan for so long that the media has now been trained to perceive this behavior as normal, when Republicans engage in it. It’s a different story entirely when Democrats do it, of course, because they are expected to be responsible. After all, in the quote above the Day tells us that it is up to the Democrats to hold ranks to give Connecticut what it “needs”. If they don’t, they will have done the irresponsible thing, something only Republicans are allowed to do.

I will hazard a prediction. Local Senator Heather Somers (R) will engage in this cynical behavior until the very end. But the Day loves them some Heather. She can do no wrong. The Day will endorse her in 2020 without so much as mentioning her cynical failure to support giving Connecticut what it “needs”.

End of rant.

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What if Obama had done this, part (insert high number here)

Monday, March 11, 2019

As Driftglass is wont to say, “it’s a funny old world”. 

As all of the internet knows, the genius recently referred to Apple CEO Tim Cook as “Tim Apple”. He is now busily lying about the fact, first claiming he said “Tim Cook of Apple”, a lie even his corrupt donors couldn’t swallow. Then he changed his tune. This from the article I’ve linked to above:

Now, however, Trump is claiming that he meant to call Cook the wrong name, changing his recollection of the event and keeping alive a stupid story that would have died had he just kept his mouth shut.

I have a bone to pick with this writer.

Nothing Trump does can keep this story alive, illustrative as it is of his stupidity and/or dementia, except in certain godforsaken nooks and crannies of the internet. The average Fox viewer will never hear of it. The other major media may mention it in passing, but it will haves no legs, because it’s just the genius being the genius, which we have all come to expect and therefore this evidence of serious mental and/or moral defect will vanish down the major media memory hole. I am not, by the way, arguing that it is a moral defect (though it may have been a mental defect) that caused him to call Cook “Apple”. The moral defect comes with the lie.

Now comes the obligatory refrain. Imagine, for a moment, if Obama had made this verbal slip and then lied about it. He once wore a tan suit and we heard about it for years. It would have been pundit fodder for months, and not just on Fox.

It is a funny old world, isn’t it?

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We’re all fraudsters on this bus

Saturday, March 9, 2019

This isn’t a political post, per se, but it raises a question that has some bearing on our present plight, considering that the person occupying the White House built a career based on fraud, much of which involved misrepresenting his own abilities.

I ran across this articleon ProPublica. It’s titled I’m a Journalist. Apparently I’m also one of America’s “Top Doctors.”The journalist in question is Justin Volz. Volz writes:

My eyes narrowed when the woman on the voice message told me to call about my “Top Doctor” award.

They needed to “make sure everything’s accurate” before they sent me my plaque, she said.

It was a titillating irony. I don’t have a medical degree, and I’m not a physician. But I am an investigative journalist who specializes in health care. So I leaned forward in my seat with some anticipation when I returned the call last year. I spoke to a cheerful saleswoman named Anne at a company on New York’s Long Island that hands out the Top Doctor Awards. For some reason, she believed I was a physician and, even better, worthy of one of their awards. Puzzled and amused, I took notes.

I asked how I had been selected. My peers had nominated me, she said buoyantly, and my patients had reviewed me. I must be a “leading physician,” she said.

Later:

On my call with Anne from Top Doctors, the conversation took a surreal turn.

“It says you work for a company called ProPublica,” she said, blithely. At least she had that right.

I responded that I did and that I was actually a journalist, not a doctor. Is that going to be a problem? I asked. Or can you still give me the “Top Doctor” award?

There was a pause. Clearly, I had thrown a baffling curve into her script. She quickly regrouped. “Yes,” she decided, I could have the award.

It’s an open secret in the legal profession that the various awards with which many lawyers festoon their websites are purchased by the honorees. Those seeking to honor me didn’t make contact by phone; they littered my email inbox on a daily basis.

The only financial advice I can recall giving my clients was that my social security clients should open checking accounts so they could get their checks direct deposited. Apparently that advice was good enough to qualify me for an award honoring me as the best financial adviser in the WORLD!. That one sticks in my head solely because it was so off the mark.

There is a certain magazine published in this state, which actually bears the name of this state, which gives such awards. Do I have proof that its readers choices are heavily influenced by the exchange of lucre? No, but I have my suspicion based on the fact that the lawyers it has honored have included some folks that are almost comically inept. I have some questions about the restaurants the readers have chosen as well.

I’ve often wondered whether these honoring institutions have some potential liability should some poor sucker, impressed by, for instance, my credentials as the world’s best financial adviser, should lose his or her shirt after following my advice. In truth, I humbly turned down the award, but in a different universe I accepted it, and there may now be several bankrupt advisees in that alternate universe. Do they have a case? I’d say they do, but I also recall that a lot of the awarding institutions (putting magazines aside for the moment) were located safely overseas.

So far as I know, neither the legal profession nor the medical, judging by Volz’s experience, bother to police the advertising of these awards, which are arguably false and deceptive representations. We have normalized fraud, which is sadly consistent with what we’ve done with the fraudster in chief.

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