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Strange Mugfellows

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Today my family celebrated three birthdays that occur around this time of year, mine being one of them. My son and daughter in law, along with a real gift, gave me a mug, which they got at the Vermont Country Store of all places, which bears the pictures of various Democrats.

Suffice to say, they gave the mug to me because they knew I’d get a laugh out of it. The mug does not say “Made in China” on it, but it’s hard to believe it was made here, and if it was, it can’t have been created by anyone who knows the slightest thing about what we Democrats are thinking about. You have to wonder how Bernie Sanders would feel if he knew he was right beneath Debbie Wasserman Schultz. But it isn’t only Debbie. What’s Chuck Shumer doing there? And while I have nothing against Loretta Lynch, is she really up there with Franklin Roosevelt? Of course, we’re lucky the names are printed underneath the caricatures, because while I think I’d recognize Eleanor, I’d have a tough time with Franklin, and I’d never get JFK.

I understand that there’s a Republican mug as well, but unfortunately, my son and daughter in law didn’t recall who was on it. We can only hope that Honest Abe was spared the humiliation of being on the same piece of pottery with the presumptive 2016 Republican nominee.

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No surprises here

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Americans have differing opinions about torture:

“Remarkably, the gap between torture supporters and opponents widens between voters who are Christian and those who are not religious. Just 39% of white evangelicals believe the CIA’s treatment of detainees amounted to torture, with 53% of white non-evangelical Protestants and 45% of white Catholics agreeing with that statement. Among the non-religious, though, 72% said the treatment amounted to torture. (The poll did not break down non-Christian religions in the results.)

Sixty nine percent of white evangelicals believe the CIA treatment was justified, compared to just 20% who said it was not. (Those numbers, incidentally, roughly mirror the breakdown of Republican versus Democratic voters among white evangelicals.) A full three-quarters (75%) of white non-evangelical Protestants outnumber the 22% of their brethren in saying CIA treatment was justified. White Catholics believe the treatment was justified by a 66-23% margin.”

 

via Religion Dispatches and Hullabaloo

These are the people who expect us to believe that they think life is so sacred that a fertilized egg has constitutional rights.

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Refreshing

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Good for Kevin Lembo:

State Comptroller Kevin Lembo added his name to a growing list of advocates and officials asking Insurance Commissioner Katharine Wade to recuse herself from reviewing the Anthem-Cigna merger.

“With each passing day I grow more concerned about both the process by which the review is being conducted and the eventual impact of the proposed merger on the State of Connecticut and its residents,” Lembo wrote in a letter to Wade.

The concerns about Wade are related to her former employer, Cigna.

Wade last worked at Cigna in 2013 as vice president Public Policy, Government Affairs and U.S. Compliance. She was also the head of the Connecticut Association of Health Plans, the lobbying group for Connecticut’s insurance plans, from 2005 to 2013. Wade’s husband still works for Cigna.

Lembo said he understands the Office of State Ethics has been asked to consider whether Wade’s involvement conflicts with the state Code of Ethics, “however a favorable ruling from the OSE will not remove public skepticism of your role in the review of the merger.”

via Connecticut News Junkie

It’s really never a good idea to let insured industries regulate themselves, either officially, as with the Federal Reserve, or unofficially, as in this case. Just another example of the Malloy administration handing the state over to rent-seeking corporations.

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A bad idea

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

The State of Connecticut is, if every so timidly, exploring the idea of imposing a mileage tax in Connecticut.

The state of Connecticut is on the road to testing the possibility of a ‘Mileage Tax.’ The brakes were put on this plan one year ago when News 8 first reported about the idea, but now it’s back.

With GPS and smartphones, the idea of the state charging you for the number of miles you drive is technologically possible and several states in the Northeast, including Connecticut, want to give it a test

via WTNH News

The DOT is downplaying the initiative:

Judd Everhart, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, said the agency did apply for the federal grant. However, “we have no intention of moving forward with a mileage-based user fee program.”

via Connecticut News Junkie

The current gas tax is already pretty regressive, but a mileage tax would add a real ironic twist to the current situation. Assuming the tax would replace the gas tax, or at least keep that tax from rising, it would actually have the result of shifting the tax burden to people who drive fuel efficient cars. The gas tax falls most heavily on people with inefficient cars, since their tax per mile driven is greater than those who drive fuel efficient cars. As an example, if the gas tax were $.40 a gallon, and I got 40 mpg I would be paying 1 cent a mile. If you got 20 mpg, you’d be paying 2 cents a mile. That added cost is a small but nonetheless real incentive to get a fuel efficient car. If we simply tax each mile driven, my comparative advantage disappears; the tax burden has been shifted from those driving inefficient cars to people driving efficient cars. This doesn’t make any sense from a public policy perspective, but then, how much of our tax system does make sense.

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Free speech in Connecticut

Monday, June 27, 2016

I did not hear about this when the issue arose in 2014:

Republican Party Chairman JR Romano said he called the State Elections Enforcement Commission earlier this week to make sure Democratic lawmakers running for re-election know the rules about using a candidate for another office in their campaign materials.

Just in case some of them may want to refer to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in those materials, Romano thought it was best for Democrats to know the rules in advance.

…

In 2014, the State Elections Enforcement Commission issued this opinion, which said that if a candidate wants to mention another candidate who is not in the race, they can, they just have to apportion the cost of the ad to the opponent in that other race.

via Connecticut News Junkie

I can understand the rationale for this sort of rule, but in the final analysis, it makes no sense. In 2014, apparently it was the Republicans who wanted to tie Malloy to the Democrats (at least in this neck of the woods they were tied already), and this year it’s the Democrats who want to tie the anvil Trump around the neck of Republicans about to enter the electoral waters.

The fact is, Trump is not just a candidate, he’s an issue to himself. It says something about a person if they can support an openly racist “tiny fingered, Cheeto-faced, ferret wearing shitgibbon”. (You can google that one yourself). It says something about a person, in my opinion, if they can remain a member of a party that puts such a shitgibbon forward as its candidate. Groucho said he refused to join any club that would have him as a member. He was a man of principle. Republicans should have to explain their willingness to join any club that would have Trump as a member, never mind its leader.

This rule allows candidates from either office to evade any issue that tangentially involves a candidate for another office, even if it’s crystal clear that the ad in question is designed solely to assist the paying candidate and harm the target. I takes an important issue off the table, or at least makes it harder to raise, and one has to wonder whether it runs afoul of the First Amendment, which is still in force, at least until January.

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Why we really need the TPP

Monday, June 27, 2016

Shouldn’t this have been front page news:

On June 24, foreign oil company TransCanada filed a lawsuit against the U.S. under NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that the U.S. rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline violated NAFTA’s broad rights for foreign investors by thwarting the company’s “expectations.” As compensation, TransCanada is demanding more than $15 billion from U.S. taxpayers.

TransCanada’s case will be heard in a private tribunal of three lawyers who are not accountable to any domestic legal system, thanks to NAFTA’s “investor-state” system, which is also included in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The controversial TPP would empower thousands of additional corporations, including major polluters, to follow TransCanada’s example and use this private tribunal system to challenge U.S. climate and environmental policies.

From Ecowatch via Angry Bear

Yet another reason why it wasn’t insane to vote for Brexit, as the British are saddled with a similar “justice” system in the EU.

By the way, our future president, who was telling us a few months ago that she was against the TPP is making sure the Democratic Party Platform doesn’t hold her to that position. I’ve speculated several times on when she will announce that for one reason or another the problems she perceived with the TPP have been solved. This is just laying the groundwork:

Remember her appointees on the platform committee killed a Medicare-for-all plank, killed strengthening the $15 minimum wage plank, killed an anti-fracking proposal, killed Keith Ellison’s attempt to stop the TPP… all the stuff Republicans get woodies over.

via Down with Tyranny

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Brexit

Monday, June 27, 2016

The Brexit vote is all over the news, at least it was a day or so ago, and there are no end of explanations to why the British voted the way they did. It was a fairly unique situation. The right had reasons to support an exit, given the anti-immigrant posturing of some of the proponents, but so did the left, considering the inequality enhancing policies and actions of the unelected apparatchiks who actually run the EU, and the fact that in no way, shape or form do the people of Europe have any direct control over the EU.

One explanation favored by the elites is that the unwashed masses are frustrated by the fact that they are being swept along to impoverishment by historical forces over which they feel they have no control. The New York Times quotes David Axelrod:

“There’s a fundamental issue that all developed economies have to confront, which is that globalization and technological changes have meant millions of people have seen their jobs marginalized and wages decline,” said David Axelrod, a former strategist for President Obama and an adviser to Britain’s Labour Party in last year’s general election.

via the New York Times

Underlying this sort of statement is the assertion that “globalization and technological changes” are forces of nature beyond the control of mere mortals; that these changes are inevitable, and in opposing them the British electorate might just as well be spitting into the wind. Globalization as a historical force, we are supposed to believe, is no different than the force of climate change at the time of the Ice Age. This is a comfortable position for the elites to take, because it relieves them from any responsibility for those changes, and allows them to implicitly dismiss these frustrated voters as simpletons who refuse to accept their inexorable fate.

But the masses sense what the elites prefer to obfuscate: that their present situation is the result of deliberate choices made by those very elites, from the transfer of wealth embodied in tax cuts slanted toward the rich to the international trade agreements that are intentionally designed to exert downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on corporate profits. After all, if there really was an historical inevitability to these occurrences, the .01% wouldn’t have to spend so much money to bribe legislators to facilitate the transfer of wealth that’s been occurring.

If the people of Britain made the wrong choice, at least some of them made it for the right reasons. Democracy is becoming a charade. Our institutions are being co-opted by the super rich and their minions. The TPP is just the latest example. Not only will workers be screwed yet again, but the corporations will get their own rigged legal system, in which they will get to impose their will on so called “democracies” all over the world. It might not have been intended initially, but the EU has become something of a stalking horse for the oligarchs. It’s not surprising that there’s been a reaction.

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One more reason I won’t give to the DNC, DCCC, or DSCC

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

As most politically aware Democrats know, there will be a primary in late August to decide the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate. Alan Grayson is one candidate. Lord knows he’s not perfect (well, actually there is no Lord), but at least he’s an actual Democrat, something that can only technically be said about his opponent, Patrick Murphy. What many politically aware Democrats might not know is that the DSCC has picked sides in this race, and is spending a million dollars to run ads on behalf of one of the candidates..

Do I have to tell you which candidate is on the beneficiary of this largesse?

As in Maryland, where the DSCC also went for the DINO, President Obama is helping out, assuring the people in Florida that Patrick Murphy has “had his back” while “serving” in Congress. Murphy has a strange way of having Obama’s back:

This nonsensical ad with Obama’s voice claims Murphy has had his back in the House. The only thing Murphy did with Obama’s back in the House was to stick knives in it. He was one of only a tiny handful of Democrats (all from the New Dem Republican wing of the party) to have not just voted for the Keystone XL Pipeline every time it came up but to vote for the disgraceful and unconstitutional GOP scheme to remove Obama from the decision-making process! Is that having his back? Grayson, coincidentally, was the congressman who began court proceedings to defend Obama’s authority in the matter!

But that was just one of scores of examples of Murphy stabbing Obama in the back. Can you imagine a Democrat voting with the Republicans to establish the Benghazi witch hunt against Hillary Clinton? That was Patrick Murphy. The only other Democrats still in the House who voted for the establishment of the Benghazi Committee are two ultra-reactionary Blue Dogs, Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) and Collin Peterson (MN)– just those two proto-Republicans and Murphy.

And then there’s Obama’s back in terms of Dodd-Frank. There is no House Democrat who’s worked more diligently– if not all that effectively, given his lack of talent– on behalf of the banksters than Patrick Murphy. He is the go-to chump among House Financial Services Committee memberswhen they need a patsy to make their pro-bankster legislation appear “bipartisan” by adding a Democratic schnook as a co-sponsor. Ironically, it wasn’t #DebtTrapDebbie Wasserman Schultz who co-sponsored the pay day lending scheme, it was Patrick Murphy, who has taken more money from the payday lenders than anyone else running for the Senate. In fact– at $1,413,950 and counting– Murphy has taken more money this cycle from the Finance Sector than any non-incumbent running for the Senate. The banksters have given him more loot than they’ve given to vulnerable Republican incumbents who have been serving their interests in the Senate already, like Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Richard Burr (R-NC), John McCain (R-AZ) and Roy Blunt (R-MO)– and nearly double what they’ve given any other non-incumbent from either party.

via Down with Tyranny

You would be hard pressed to find an issue on which Murphy has actually had “Obama’s back”. Which leads to a rather simple question. Why is Obama, not to mention the DSCC, doing this to a Democrat who has, consistently, and not just on rare occasions, had Obama’s back? Sadly, the answer is obvious. What Wall Street wants, Wall Street gets, at least to the maximum extent that the party establishment can possibly give.

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Burdensome government regulations

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Years ago my wife and I bought a second home in Vermont. It is somewhere between a shack and a house, if truth be told. We found shortly after we bought it that we could not pay the mortgage on the house and college tuition at the same time, so until recently it has been rented out, successfully bringing in enough to pay the mortgage and taxes.

Anyway, recently the tenant moved out, and my son and his wife have moved in for the summer, and are at working prepping it as a vacation rental. We’ve been to Vermont three times this year for various reasons relating to the house. It is at the end of a dirt road up in the hills surrounding the town of Chester, in an area known as Popple Dungeon right near Nudist Colony Road. It also has faster internet service than anything you’re likely to find here in Connecticut. Why? Because the socialistic state of Vermont has mandated that Internet providers blanket the state with fiber optic cable, which cable has reached the remote fastness of Popple Dungeon. They have apparently not imposed any similar obligation on cell phone service providers, so getting cell service is definitely hit or miss, but were I a resident, I think I’d rather have great internet than great cell coverage. Anyway, it’s further proof that government, in the right hands, can make a difference.

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Hillary is stalking me!

Thursday, June 16, 2016

My wife and I have a landline. It’s primary use appears to be as a conduit to allow telemarketers and robocallers to reach us. However, I am of a generation for whom a ringing landline once actually meant there was a human being trying to reach someone, so like Pavlov’s dog I react to a ringing phone. I drop whatever I’m doing and answer it, even though I know deep down that after I say a cheery hello I will hear dead air space for quite a while, until the tape starts playing or an Indian fellow will start telling me that he is calling to help me with a problem with my Windows computer.

Lately, Hillary’s disembodied voice has been calling on an at least daily basis. I say at least daily, because who knows how often she calls while I’m at work. What’s weird is that it’s always the same recording, and it seems like it starts mid-message. When it’s not Hillary, it’s one of her computer generated minions. Whenever I get these calls I wonder about my fellow Americans. My reaction to robocalls, no matter the source, is to resent the fact that a machine has interrupted some vital activity, such as writing on this blog. But one must assume that, on balance, they work, and there are people out there who actually listen to what Hillary or the other robots have to say. That is to say, Hillary gains more money or votes by these calls than she loses. That is a truly depressing thing to believe about my fellow Americans. But then, what’s even more depressing is that there are probably even more people who eagerly listen to recorded messages from the Donald.

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