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Dems plot surrender

Friday, April 13, 2018

If this be true, then it is further proof that the Democrats have already started wresting defeat from the jaws of victory:

Democratic leaders in Congress reportedly have a contingency plan in place if President Donald Trump fires Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein—a decision that was rumored on Friday to be due at any moment. Their brilliant plan: Don’t do anything!

In a meeting with Democratic members, Senator Mark Warner reportedly told his colleagues not to do anything drastic if and when Trump fires Rosenstein, but instead to chill out for awhile, according to the National Journal:

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, told a group of Democratic colleagues on Wednesday that they should adhere to a one- or two-day cooling-off period if Trump fires Rosenstein, according to three congressional sources. Rosenstein met Thursday with Trump amid reports that the White House is preparing an effort to undermine the deputy attorney general’s credibility.

“The first 24 to 48 hours, if and when that happens, we should stay calm; we should do our best to reach out across the aisle and talk to our colleagues and say, ‘Seriously, we cannot allow this to happen.’ Just don’t go immediately to DEFCON-1,” said a member of Congress who attended the meeting but asked for anonymity to discuss it candidly. “We should not say anything—let the dust settle for a minute. What I took from it is it’s better to build a coalition across the aisle than just to come out guns a-blazing saying, ‘We’ve got to impeach him now.’”

via Splinter News

I actually agree that the Democrats shouldn’t necessarily be screaming about impeachment. But I find it amazing that Warner actually believes any good can come by “reach[ing] out across the aisle and talk[ing] to our colleagues”. It has been abundantly clear that his colleagues don’t give a damn about the rule of law, the constitution, or the democratic process. All they care about is maintaining power and enriching the rich. Warner, like so many of his Democratic colleagues, appears to be suffering from Stockholm syndrome. The idea of a “coalition across the aisle” is, in this day and age, absurd. There are no more Howard Bakers or Bill Cohens in the Republican Party. Again, I’m not necessarily saying they should be pushing for impeachment, but the proper response is to get out in front of the demonstrations that are sure to spring up everywhere. There’s really no such thing as leading from behind, and a luke warm response will hardly energize the Democratic base. Rather than “working across the aisle”, the Democrats should be loudly accusing their esteemed colleagues of enabling Trump’s criminality. It’s what the Republicans would do, and it’s about time the Democrats learned some lessons from a party that has managed to take over three branches of government while simultaneously screwing the vast majority of the people in this country.

I should point out that the Democrats, including in this case Jim Himes and Elizabeth Esty, are already doing all they can in another policy area to dampen enthusiasm and convince our base that the situation is hopeless.

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The Con-man bows out

Thursday, April 12, 2018

The big news yesterday was Paul Ryan’s decision to retire so he could “spend more time with his family”, an excuse so hackneyed that it is amazing anyone still uses it, inasmuch as it is practically an admission that the actual reason is something other than a desire for familial bliss. 

Here in Southeastern Connecticut the New London Day chose to reprint a truly incredible puff piece from the Washington Post, in which once again we are asked to believe that there is a distinction between Trumpismand the standard ideology of the Republican Party. We are also treated to more of what should be the mystifying insistence on the part of the mainstream to refuse to acknowledge the fraud that Paul Ryan is and was for the entirety of his political career. That fraudulence has been extensively documented by Paul Krugman, and is well summarized here.

It will, perhaps, be the work of future historians to explain how he managed to perpetrate his fraud so successfully throughout his career.

The Post’s puff piece portrays Ryan as a reluctant Trumpie:

But the praise did little to remove the shadow Trump casts over the end of Ryan’s career now that he has decided to forego a campaign for reelection. The Trumpian revolution, which Ryan had long resisted, appeared to have claimed another victory, dispatching another occasional critic and reaffirming the president’s growing hold on a shrinking electoral coalition.

“Speaker Ryan is an embodiment of a particular kind of optimistic, pro-growth, pro-free market inclusive conservatism,” said Michael Steele, a former top adviser to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. “And that is a very different feel and tone of where the party is going under President Trump.”

In fact, once Trump was elected, Ryan jumped at the chance to use Trump and the House and Senate majorities to enact his Randian agenda, an agenda no different that Trump’s, except that it was not as explicitly racist. Of him, it can be said more truly than it could of Rosencrantz and Gildenstern that he “did make love to this employment”.

Speaking of employment, Ryan now goes to his reward. Will it be a lucrative lobbying gig, or will it more likely be a sinecure at a Koch funded “think” tank, where he will be paid for spouting earnest sounding nonsense for the remainder of his days? After all, it pays handsomely to be a Koch employee, for after retirement from Congress, where the pay is pretty good by ordinary standards, a good boy who comes through for the .01% can be assured of doing far better while doing far less. Who can blame him for hopping on the gravy train now?

By the way, I don’t really blame the idiots at the Day for going with the Post’s piece, rather than, for instance, the more balanced article in the New York Times. They have completely bought in to every mainstream meme out there, so how could they be expected to be aware that Ryan is a lying fraud? That would require a little thought and research, and that’s expecting far too much.

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With friends like these

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

In the past I’ve noted the fact that there exists a host of griftersthat prey on suckers on the right. A lot of these grifters are of the unofficial sort; direct mailers that claim to be raising money for a cause or candidate, when in fact most, if not all, of the money goes to the grifters.

We don’t have similar grifters on the left, but that is not to say that we don’t get grifted. (I will not swear that “grifted” is a word) But we can be forgiven, for the grift is from those we have every right to trust. The worst grifters of them all work for the DCCC.

The DCCC is doing pretty well in fundraising these days, drumming up contributions from energized progressives, who it then proceeds to stab in the back.

In defense of the folks who are sending their hard earned money to the DCCC, they have every right to believe that the DCCC is on their side, and they are encouraged in that belief by the endless emails the DCCC sends out, claiming to support progressives and, well – – , you know, actual Democrats.

Some Democrats are beginning to take notice. In Syracuse, the DCCC has attempted to force a candidate, Perez Williams, on the locals, and they don’t like it:

Last week, Perez Williams entered the race. She told The Citizen Thursday night that it was her decision to run for Congress and believes she is the best candidate to challenge U.S. Rep. John Katko, a two-term Republican.

The statement from members of central New York progressive groups doesn’t mention Perez Williams. But they do question why the DCCC would intervene, especially this late in the process.

“Right now, they are paying people to pass petitions to get their handpicked candidate on the ballot,” the activists wrote. “The DCCC is imposing its priorities and decisions on local residents. Instead of fostering a collaborative relationship with grassroots organizations, they are using their funds to erase our work.”

It’s not just the activist types. The four county Democratic chairs have also spoken out against the DCCC’s interference in the race. It goes without saying, by the way, that the DCCC’s chosen candidate is significantly to the right of the candidate chosen by the locals. The DCCC has no problem with anti-abortion, pro-NRA candidates, but it’s totally allergic to candidates that support Medicare for All.

If we take either or both houses, our chances for future success will depend on our ability to show the people that we can deliver stuff that they want if we are given the chance. If we pass progressive legislation, most of which is very popular, we will get credit for trying, even if Trump vetoes everything, or we can’t get it through a Senate still in Republican hands. But we will inspire nothing if, as has been the case, the tail of right wing Democrats continues to wag the dog of the majority of the caucus. Give the Republicans their due: they demand and get fealty from the near-not-insane members of their caucus. The Democrats are precisely the opposite. They bow and scrape before the Blue Dogs and New Dems, and, this year, have gone out of their way to recruit more of them. As a result, assuming we don’t totally blow it, and we do take the House, we’ll demonstrate to the people of this nation that we are nothing more than the party of not Trump, and we have nothing of substance to offer them, thereby dampening enthusiasm in 2020. I suppose we can expect nothing else, since the Democrats have an aversion to winning big (or at all) in years ending in zero, because then they might be able to prevent the Republicans gerrymandering them out of existence.

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Bolton v. Putin?

Monday, April 9, 2018

It was almost exactly a year ago today that Trump bombed Syria, earning plaudits from the likes of Fareed Zakaria, who famously declared that Trump had become president. It quickly became known that Trump and/or his people had given the Russians (and therefore the Syrians) a heads up so far as the target was concerned, in order to make sure that no one got hurt.

Today Trump is once again threatening retaliationfor a chemical attack, the same sort of event that drew his manly man response last year. He says he’ll decide by the end of the day, a day which, alas, is the very same day that John Bolton begins his gig as national security adviser.

It’s obviously important that Trump make some sort of gesture to the effect that he will stand up to Russia and that Putin is not calling the shots.

Bolton makes Dr. Evil look like the Good Samaritan, but give the man his due. He wants a war and he wants it now! And he doesn’t particularly care who that war might be with, though maybe Russia is not his first choice.

In any event, it’s practically a sure thing that Bolton will be telling Trump to bomb away, and, judging by past performance, he will not allow views that dissent from his to be presented to the genius. This cannot make Putin happy. The genius will be in the middle. He has far more to risk by listening to Bolton than by displeasing Putin, since Putin has those tapes and a whole lot more. If it’s Bolton versus Putin, put your money on Putin.

So, maybe this situation will produce something good. If Putin lets the genius know that Mr. Bolton must go, then Mr. Bolton will, eventually (and probably fairly quickly), go. Or, perhaps, Mr. Putin will simply let the genius know that in no event should he take Bolton’s advice unless he gets the okay from Putin. Then, Bolton may go on his own.

Putin is an evil man, but at the moment, Bolton is a greater threat to world peace or stability than any other person walking the face of the earth. In the ordinary case, I’d say getting rid of a Trump official is no big deal. For instance, if Pruitt resigns, he’ll be replaced by someone just as bad. In Bolton’s case, there is no one just as bad. So, it’s at least possible that some good may come from this situation.

There’s always hope.

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Strike a blow for net neutrality

Friday, April 6, 2018

The Republicans in the State Senate blocked the net neutrality bill using a parliamentary trick:

Sen. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme and co-chairman of the Energy and Technology Committee, used his authority to split the committee and allow only the four senators to vote. While Democrats have a majority in the committee when House members are included, the committee has two Senate Democrats and two Republicans.

The resulting vote was a tie, meaning the bill failed. Although Formica held the vote open until 4 p.m., it was unlikely the two Republican senators — Formica and Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield — would change their “no” votes.

The procedural trick is seldom used, but was possible because the state Senate is tied 18-18 between Republicans and Democrats. That means Republicans gained an extra chairman on each committee. Formica used that to his advantage and moved to split the vote, which was raised by a senator.

via The Connecticut Post

Formica is from the 20th District, which neighbors the 18th, in which I reside. Despite his protestations that he considers net neutrality a federal issue, he was clearly doing the bidding of the telecoms, and a disservice to his constituents. But he was doing a tremendous favor to more endangered Senate Republicans, like hypocritical Heather Somers here in the 18th, who gets to pretend she is for net neutrality, but has been saved from actually voting on the issue, for she surely would have ended up voting in the interests of the corporate masters she so craves to please. (Heather’s first act as a legislator was to propose getting rid of public financing, so she could sell herself to ALEC and the Koch Brothers). Formica is considered fairly certain to be re-elected, so the obvious thinking was that he could afford to take the heat.

Still, this could be a year in which no Republican is safe, and it’s incumbent upon us to go after every one of them. Martha Marx (no relation of Karl’s, so far as I know) of New London is a great candidate. She’s still in the process of qualifying for public financing. Help her out, and strike a small blow in favor of net neutrality. You can donate here.

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Leaves Scott Pruitt Alone!

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Some on the left are all atwitter about the fact that Scott Pruitt got a sweetheart deal on a condo in Washington from a lobbyist for whom he could do favors at the EPA.

The Environmental Protection Agency signed off last March on a Canadian energy company’s pipeline-expansion plan at the same time that the E.P.A. chief, Scott Pruitt, was renting a condominium linked to the energy company’s powerful Washington lobbying firm.

Both the E.P.A. and the lobbying firm dispute that there was any connection between the agency’s action and the condo rental, for which Mr. Pruitt was paying $50 a night.

via The New York Times

Some might say there is an appearance of a quid pro quo here, but anyone with a brain can see that’s completely absurd. The pipeline-expansion plan is environmentally destructive, which means that Pruitt would have approved the plan even if he hadn’t gotten the sweetheart deal. That’s what he lives for. So the EPA is telling the unvarnished truth. I think it’s shameful for liberals to imply that Pruitt would have protected the environment had he not been paid to do otherwise. He’s a man of principle, after all.

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History isn’t always written by the winners

Monday, April 2, 2018


I just finished Ron Chernow’s Grant, a book I highly recommend.One thing the book brings home is the fact that the history of the Civil War, particularly the post-Civil War period, was written, not by the winners, but by the losers. I’ve been a history nut all my life. I remember reading every Landmark book I could get my hands on. For those who don’t remember them, Landmark issued a series of biographies of famous Americans aimed at young readers. I remember reading a biography of Nathan Bedford Forrest, and I can promise you that I came away from it completely ignorant of the fact that he headed up a terrorist organization or that he engaged in war crimes.

It was a given at that time that so called “Radical Republicans” were the post war bad guys, unfairly victimizing a traumatized South. Grant was portrayed as a weak and vacillating president surrounded by corrupt office holders. Many of his appointees were indeed corrupt, though that was hardly unusual in those days, but Chernow makes a compelling case that he strove against great odds to deliver on the promise of the 13th through 15th Amendment, trying as best as he could against a backdrop of waning political support from Republicans (the party was even then transforming itself into the party of big business) to protect the rights of the former slaves, including, above all, the right to vote, of which they were ultimately deprived by armed white terrorists (otherwise known in those days as the Democratic Party), aided and abetted by a Supreme Court that unduly restricted the protections of the recently passed Amendments and a Republican Party more intent on preserving it’s ever more tenuous hold on power than on making sure that the civil war dead had not died in vain.

The South won the battle of the history books, to the point where its narrative became widely accepted. To give just two examples: Lee was a brilliant tactician; Grant won by virtue of Northern numbers and a willingness to engage in mass murder; and the South was fighting in defense of a noble cause that had little if anything to do with slavery. By 1915, in The Birth of a Nation, usually considered the first great film made in this country, the Klan was portrayed as the good guys, protecting white womanhood from the lustful black man and delivering the South from the clutches of the greedy carpetbaggers.

When I was in college the first tentative steps were taken to wrest history back from the Southerners. I was assigned The Tragic Era, by Claude Bowers, but mainly in order to prepare us for the rebuttal. Still, even today, the view is widely held that it was the “radical Republicans”, “carpetbaggers”, etc., that were the bad guys after the Civil War. John F. Kennedy (or his ghostwriter) glorified the “courage” of the Senator who cast the deciding vote against convicting Andrew Johnson, a racist who spent almost four years trying to undo the results of the civil war by handing the Southern state governments back to the slaveholders. Grant was relegated to the ranks of the lesser presidents precisely because his true claims to greatness, as president, lay in his persistent attempts to deliver equal citizenship to the freed slaves.

I don’t know how successful the attempts by Eric Foner, Chernow and other historians will be to correct the public perception of the historical record, but one has to wonder whether we are living in a period today in which the history of our present times is being pre-written by propagandists for the worst in our nation. Not only must we contend with Fox, but mostly under the radar, local news has been handed to the propagandists at Sinclair, aided and abetted by Trump’s FCC appointee.. It’s vitally important that we don’t let the forces of reaction rewrite history yet again, or, more precisely, that we don’t let them shape the narrative while history is still happening. Unfortunately, if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that the Democratic Party is incapable of pushing any sort of narrative, even if it is totally consistent with the truth, though, as the recent episode here in Connecticut proves yet again, we’re still perfectly willing to form circular firing squads.

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Now more than ever, always look on the bright side

Friday, March 30, 2018


We must honor tradition, and this is a tradition. Each year since I started this blog I have posted this video on Good Friday. In the beginning, I did it, for the most part, to mock religion, a bit, but now it’s mostly to pass on the words, or should I say, lyrics, of wisdom sung by Brian’s nameless co-crucifixee. For verily, in these time, some things are bad, and they really make you mad, and more things (for instance, a certain very stable genius) make you swear and curse. So while you’re chewing on life’s gristle, keep looking on the bright side of life.

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The Democrats should be protecting these kids

Monday, March 26, 2018

I have written many a post bemoaning the inability of the Democrats to speak with one voice, something the Republicans do all the time. There’s another thing the Republicans do all the time: they insist (again with one voice) that the Democrats condemn anyone on the left who says or does anything they can successfully attack. They’re still insisting that Democrats condemn Louis Farakhan, a man of little consequence. The thing is, it works.

Over the last few days, we have seen a number of vicious attacks upon the Parkland High kids. These kids have done what no Democratic politician has been able to do: put the NRA and its enablers on the defensive. It’s only right that we should at least have their backs. The latest in an already long line of slanderous attacks is a faked image of Emma Gonzalez tearing up the constitution. Even elected Republican politicians are getting into the act; the loathsome Steve King issued a lying and nonsensical tweetabout Gonzalez.

Now, ask yourself, what would the Republicans be doing if the situation were reversed. They would be demanding that all Democrats and Democratic affiliated organizations condemn the slanderers and liars. Shouldn’t we be doing the same. Shouldn’t prominent National Democrats be loudly demanding that the NRA and its lackeys condemn the liars spreading this filth? The country already sympathizes with these kids, and a concerted campaign of this sort could only move the country and the national conversation further in the direction we’d like to see it go. Of course the NRA will not condemn these people, it will respond with more of the same sort of bullshit (I don’t have to sanitize the phrase) that it’s been spewing for the past 55 years. But they’ve been called out on that, and they can be called out again. At least at the moment, it’s not working, and the more they’re attacked for it the more they’ll be exposed for what they are.

I don’t expect this to happen, of course. The DCCC is still out there recruiting gun nuts to run for Congress. But it would work if they did it.

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Some more legal musing on Stormy and her pals

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Over at Hullabaloo, digby joins Greg Sargent in speculating that Stormy and Trump’s other accusers may spell real trouble for him. Sargent notes that:

As CNN’s Collinson points out, this means Trump may be facing a period of pretrial discovery and possibly a deposition, which “could put Trump in a perilous position.

I haven’t seen another aspect of this mentioned. Take Summer Zervos’s defamation suit, for example. She isn’t subject to any non disclosure agreement, so Trump’s lawyers have resorted to the silly defense that a presidential candidate can slander anyone they like because it’s protected political speech. That dog won’t hunt, says the judge, so the suit is on.

It would seem that Summer could make her case, in part, by proving that a) Trump has a pattern and practice of doing to others what she says he did unto her, and b) that he has lied about others like he lied about her. That means she may seek to depose Trump’s other victims as well as Trump himself. And while Strormy may not be a victim in the same sense as Summer, it couldn’t hurt to depose her to see if she has anything to add to Summer’s case.

Non-disclosure agreements, including Stormy’s, typically contain clauses that carve out an exception for testimony given in response to a lawful subpoena, and that, presumably, would include a subpoena to a deposition. Testimony given in depositions is not subject to any kind of non-disclosure agreement unless the parties agree to it, or the judge orders it, and why would any party opposing Trump agree to it, and on what basis would a judge order it? In fact, if I were representing Summer, I’d ask for the identities of any woman with whom Trump is a party to a non-disclosure agreement. Why not?

So, these stories may come out, with nothing that Trump can do about it. I suspect that within a fair percentage of the judiciary Trump is loathed, and it’s unlikely that he’ll get much sympathy from most judges hearing these cases.

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