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Jeb! hands the Dems a talking point 

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

As all the world knows, Jeb! has turned out to be a terrible politician, the latest example coming yesterday, when he announced to a room full of supporters that his brother George (remember him?) was a case study in leadership. Now, if your brother was inarguably the worst president in history, and you were trying for the office yourself, wouldn’t you avoid talking about him as best you could, and keep on insisting, as Jeb! did at the start, that you are your “own man”?

But Jeb!, like so many of his Republican compatriots, apparently lives in a bubble, and he seems to have convinced himself that hanging George around his own neck will actually be good for him. This is nothing but good news for the Democrats, because should he beat the odds and get nominated, he will have legitimized an obvious campaign tactic: equating Jeb! with George at every turn. Oddly enough, he appears to believe the crap he’s spewing about his brother, but most of the country got beyond W worship a long time ago. The more people are reminded of George, the less willing they’ll be to vote for Jeb!.

On a slightly different note, the Republican presidential contest seems to be approaching the denoument I’ve predicted in the past: this time the nomination will go to a legitimate crazy. No McCains or Romneys need apply. (Not that either of them were stellar candidates, but they weren’t totally bonkers) At this point, there are really only three sort of legitimate contenders that can lay a sort of legitimate claim to being non-crazies: Bush, Kasich, and Christie, and yes I know an argument can be made that none of them need apply. Neither of them will get the nomination. So we are left to wonder, when the dust settles, who will be left standing? Will it be the most crazy of the bunch, and if so, which of them wins that honor? The pundits seem to have settled on Rubio, almost a sure sign that he’s out of the picture. (Remember Pawlenty?) Someone is going to be nominated, it’s in the rules. The Republican Party has taken up the challenge. Jeb!’s brother was the worst ever, but the nominee of 2016 will make George look like Lincoln.

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Trump sticks up for Muslim women 

Monday, October 26, 2015

Trump said some stupid things in New Hampshire the other day. I know that’s not news, but since it’s treated as such, it seems to me that the media owes us a little context.

Here’s the story from the Boston Globe, and for purposes of discussion, let’s put aside the sexism:

ATKINSON, NH – Businessman Donald Trump told a packed room the United States should not challenge countries that require women to wear burkas as he unleashed a full-throttle criticism of America’s current foreign policy.

“Why are we fighting that?” the presidential candidate asked to cheers in the crowd, and added the United States should “let them” wear what they want.

Trump, waving a hand across his face, also said women might prefer wearing burkas because it obviates the need for make-up.

via The Boston Globe

So, a little context might be in order. Like, for instance, what is he talking about? I googled “United States policy burqa” and was unable to find anything that indicated or stated that the US was involved in suppressing the burqa anywhere. If a leading presidential candidate (I know it’s unbelievable, but he is one) attacks US foreign policy, it would seem incumbent that those reporting on him find out for us whether his attack has any connection to reality. That means, in this case, telling us whether there is such a policy.

One other thing about Trump’s position on this non-issue. Note that the crowd cheered him when he stuck up for the right of Muslim women to wear burqas. Is there a soul out there who thinks he wouldn’t get the same cheers from the same people if he demanded that they stop wearing them and that the US make them stop? Trump is preaching to people who will claim that they are the true American patriots, and yet they’re ready to cheer any and every attack on the United States government, without even bothering to decide whether they agree with the speaker, and by the way, they’ll tell you without pausing for breath that it’s people on the left that reflexively hate America.

Also by the way, the other stupid thing Trump said was this:

During the “town hall,” which the television show billed as question and answer session at the Atkinson Resort and Country Club, Trump said that he had been told ‘no’ many times.

“My whole life has been a no,” he said. “It has not been easy for me. I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.”

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There’s no success like failure

Saturday, October 24, 2015

The New’ York Times has a story today about a subject I’ve covered several times in the past (see category “grifters”): the prevalence of grifters on the right, who raise piles of money from the true believers, mainly to line their own pockets. They’ve gone into overdrive recently, and are now raising money with calls to protect the Republic from that liberal, Paul Ryan. It’s almost comical how they justify the huge percentage of the money that goes into their own pockets:

Larry Ward, the founder of Constitutional Rights PAC, defended the move to derail the ascension of Mr. Ryan, calling it a worthy goal.

“Politics is supposed to be bloody. It is supposed to be a battle of will,” Mr. Ward said. “And the one who can get the American people siding with them is the one who wins.”

But Mr. Ward also has a financial stake in the fight. He runs Political Media, a Washington-based firm that will charge Constitutional Rights PAC a fee for sending out the blast email with the dual purpose of asking conservatives to help dump Mr. Ryan and to donate to Mr. Ward’s political action committee.

“Help us fund the fight by making an emergency donation of $30, $50 or even $100 today,” the email said, even though records show that Mr. Ward’s PAC spends every dollar it gets on consultants, mailings and fund-raising — making no donations to candidates. Mr. Ward defended his use of his own firm, saying he gave his PAC a discount on his company’s regular service charges.

via The New York Times

Well, that’s alright then. So long as he keeps giving himself a discount, it’s all on the up and up.

In the past I’ve argued that this is great for Democrats, as it diverts money that might otherwise go into actually supporting Republican candidates into the pockets of consultants, where it lies fallow. But as I read the article in the Times, it occurred to me that there is perhaps a double blessing, though also a looming threat in all of this. For while these folks have not been particularly effective at getting some of their purported political goals enacted (death to homosexuals and to Obamacare, for example), they have succeeded in driving the Republican party in the direction they say they want it to go. In fact, they might cogently argue that they have achieved what they’ve promised the suckers. Boehner has tumbled; McConnell is in a precarious position, and Ryan, if elected Speaker, will be living on borrowed time. The party will be increasingly perceived as irresponsibly crazy by the American public. Who knows, even the mainstream media may come to see them as they are. But even that would be good for the grifters, because it will merely increase the suckers’ sense of victimization. Of course, there is always the possibility that they will get the shutdown/debt default that they claim to want, and that would not be terribly good for the rest of us. Thus the looming threat.

But the grifters don’t want success, at least not over the long haul. A few minor victories are probably useful, but for the long term, nothing succeeds in their business like failure. It would be way harder for them to raise this kind of money if the Republicans were in control of the White House. In fact, the reason they’ve had to go after their own is because, since they control both Houses of congress, the only remaining targets are Obama and the Republican leadership, which must, since Obama is still president, gays are still living, and Obamacare still law, be selling out to the liberals. Or so they must be painted in order to keep the ATM functioning. Nothing would please the grifters more than to see Hillary win, and a majority Democratic congress would be “very heaven”. The money that would bring in would make their present “earnings” look like peanuts.

Thanks to FS for pointing me to the Paul Krugman post that referenced the Times article.

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Ryan Express derailed

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Paul Ryan has agreed to be speaker of the House, so long as the members of his own party take a solemn oath that they won’t fire him. There is an interesting dynamic in all of this, leaving this pundit to wonder whether there is any way out, for the Republicans, and, more importantly, any way the country can avoid the coming train wreck that may result from this chaos.

There is a seldom acknowledged fact that must be borne in mind when considering this shutdown nonsense. The members of the “Freedom caucus” don’t want the government to shut down, or at least they don’t want it to shut down for more than a few days. If it did, their constituents that expect their social security checks, etc., would be seriously inconvenienced when they discovered that the shutdown their Congressman has been talking about, which they heartily supported because of him and Fox News, actually adversely affects them, rather than just them. No, the Congressional crazies want the government to chug along, but they need for it to appear that it is doing so over their dead bodies. For them, the fact that they are members of the majority party is a serious inconvenience, because at one and the same time they need a Speaker who will keep them from getting what they keep saying they want, and one they can castigate for doing just that. It was so much easier when that person was Nancy Pelosi. Now, that person must be a Republican, upon whom they rely to protect themselves from themselves, but against whom they must also take up arms.

So don’t expect the “Freedom caucus” to agree to Ryan’s terms. Every revolution eats its own, they say, and the caucus is still hungry. They are looking for someone stupid enough to volunteer to be the next sacrificial lamb, and credible enough to garner the votes of the not so crazy Republicans (they purportedly do exist) in the House. There are a lot of stupid people on the R side of the aisle, but not many that fit those specs. Ryan is a con artist, but he’s not that dumb. The problem for the rest of us is that since the person who fits the bill may not exist, we may have no way to avoid a disastrous shutdown. The nutcases may get what they say they want, despite themselves.
UPDATE: Boy, was I wrong. Ryan is apparently that stupid.

UPDATE II: Maybe Ryan isn’t that stupid. In any event, I think my analysis of the problem stands. What the “Freedom caucus” needs is Speaker Pelosi.

Filed in Dysfunction, Republicans | | Comments (0)

What, me cynical?

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Apparently, there is a movement afoot to abolish tipping in restaurants, and we are supposed to believe this is a good thing for the employees involved. The theory is that restaurant should pay their employees a living wage, increase their prices to cover that cost, and we can then all be happy, knowing that we both needn’t tip and needn’t worry that our waitresses kids are going to bed hungry. Apparently, this is the way it’s done in Europe, so it’s about time we did it here.

But this is America, the home of Wal-Mart, the company that gets a federal subsidy by paying its employees so little they qualify for food stamps. So let me tell you how this is likely to play out, assuming the movement gains momentum. At first, it will happen pretty much as advertised. Prices will go up, along with wages. Once Americans are trained to not tip, and come to expect that their servers are being properly paid by their employers, employers will start to squeeze their employees. After all, it may take $15.00 an hour to come close to a living wage, but except in places like San Francisco, there’s no law that says you have to pay that much, and, if I, the restaurant owner, want to make money for myself, the logical place to look is at the outrageously high amounts I’m now paying my employees, which can surely be cut, because if they don’t like it, they can always quit, and I can find someone else who will work for minimum wage. This will especially be the case in the chain restaurants, which will likely be the first places to apply the squeeze.

Personally, I’d humbly suggest that any restaurant with a no-tipping policy be required to post the minimum amount it is paying its employees on an hourly basis, so those of us who actually give a damn about whether the person serving us is making a reasonable amount of money can make an informed decision about whether we should continue patronizing the place.

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Boy wonder with a tin ear

Friday, October 16, 2015

Anyone who lurks about the internet knows about Martin Shkreli, the guy who bought the rights to a drug and immediately jacked up the price by 4000%. The fellow has a bit of a tin ear, and it really seems that he truly can’t understand why anyone would find what he did to be at all offensive, especially Bernie Sanders, whose been using him as a punching bag. So, what did Mr. Shkreli decide to do about it? He figured he could bribe Bernie, and sent him the maximum donation, in an amount equal to about what he charges for four pills:

“Shkreli made the contribution, he said, partly because he supports some of Sanders’ proposals — just not the ones about drug prices. But mainly, he said, he donated to get the senator’s attention in the hopes that he could get a private meeting to explain why drug companies set prices the way they do.”

via The Boston Globe

Call me a prude, but that looks like a quid pro quo to me. Shkreli tweeted about his donation during the debate, and when the Sanders people realized what he’d done, they donated the money to a charity. What I found odd about the Globe article is that the reporter did not follow up on Shkreli’s admission that he donated money in the hopes of getting access to Sanders. It’s been remarked in the Benghazi context that one of the biggest mistakes some politicians can make is telling the truth, like the obvious fact that the Benghazi investigation is political. Isn’t admitting you were attempting to buy access similar? Apparently not, as the admission went unremarked. Maybe paying for access is now considered business as usual.

Of course, the press has likely missed a lot in the Shkreli story. He’s been insisting, after his bald declaration that he had a right to make a profit fell flat, that he jacked up the price, not to line his own pockets, but to fund research into an improved treatment for the disease that the now overpriced drug treats perfectly well. It would be interesting to know if he’s matched the action to the word. I personally rather doubt it.

Anyway, it really seems that Mr. Shkreli should consider just lying low until the heat dies down. After all, Andy Warhol had a point. The American attention span might exceed 15 minutes, but not by much. If Shkreli just shut his mouth and his tweeter, in a short time no one would remember him. Unless, of course, Bernie doesn’t let that happen.

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Religious freedom takes another hit 

Thursday, October 15, 2015

This is really unbelievable!

A police official says brutal beatings that left one teenager dead and his brother seriously wounded at a New York church were part of what members considered a “counseling session.”

New Hartford Police Chief Michael Inserra said Wednesday that both Lucas and Christopher Leonard were subjected to hours of physical punishment at the Word of Life Church “in hopes that each would confess to prior sins and ask for forgiveness.”

Inserra says investigators are still looking into what the supposed sins were. He said there’s no indication, at this point, that the issue was sexual assault.

Nineteen-year-old Lucas Leonard died. Seventeen-year-old Christopher is hospitalized in serious condition.

via Talking Points Memo

That’s not the unbelievable part. Do you know what the cops did to these people? They arrested them!

Six church members, including the victims’ parents and sister, are now locked up on charges they assaulted the two young men on Monday.

What ever happened to the first amendment? These people weren’t bothering anyone; they were quietly and peacefully practicing the dictates of their religion and the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, said teachings having to be somewhere in all that crap about love and forgiveness (forget all that stuff about “cast[ing] the first stone”, because they weren’t using stones). First Kim Davis, now this. Where will it end?

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Lindsay Graham to leave the Senate

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Washington. In an announcement that shocked Washington, Lindsay Graham, (R-SC) announced today that he was resigning from the Senate for health reasons.

Several days ago, Graham asked for disaster relief for South Carolina, which has been devastated by Hurricane Joaquin. That led to the following:

Let’s just get through this thing, and whatever it costs, it costs,“ Graham told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” on Monday of the devastating floods in his home state.

Graham was among the Republican senators who opposed a federal aid package in January 2013 to assist states hit by Hurricane Sandy, but now he doesn’t remember why.

“I’m all for helping the people in New Jersey. I don’t really remember me voting that way,” Graham said.

Pressed further, he said: “Anyway, I don’t really recall that, but I’d be glad to look and tell you why I did vote no, if I did.”

A befuddled looking Graham explained his sudden decision to the Washington Press Corps.

“I did look into it”, he said, “and it’s true. It was a big deal at the time. But I still can’t remember doing it. I’ve consulted with specialists and they tell me that the only thing that can explain it is early onset Alzheimer’s. I have too much respect for the Senate to continue in office given my memory problems. Who knows what else I’ve forgotten. I owe it to the people of South Carolina to step aside for someone who can remember what they were doing yesterday, because frankly, I can’t”.

Graham’s decision has caused consternation in the studios of the Sunday morning talk shows, which, inexplicably, have had him on frequently as a guest, even though experts agree that his processing problems have been obvious for years.

Graham has no plans to drop out of the presidential contest. “That’s an entirely different matter”, a spokesman said, citing precedent. “Ronald Reagan was senile for the entire time he was in office, and every Republican knows he was the greatest president ever. ”

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McGraw-Hill tripped up by little known historical fact

Monday, October 5, 2015

I haven’t been doing much blogging lately, for a number of reasons, not the least being my inability to come up with any more synonyms for “crazy”. Maybe Shakespeare would be up to the task of finding fresh things to say about the clowns running for president, or Republicans in Congress generally, but I confess I am not up to the task.

This post concerns a subject about which there is no need to search for such a synonym. However, it is about synonyms, or the stretching of that classification beyond its appropriate limits.

One of the many ironies with which this country must live is the fact that one of our most ignorant states, Texas, has an outsize influence on our textbooks. When Texas demands that a book be dumbed down, or filled with bullshit, those textbooks often find their way into the hands of kids growing up in states where people think learning is more important than football (or at least equal in importance).

Apparently this has gone viral, and that’s a good thing. Here is an excerpt from a geography textbook published by McGraw Hill, and duly sanctioned by the state of Texas.

  
The full story is here, but I must say that the title of the piece cuts McGraw-Hill too much slack. By no means can this creative use of the English language be considered a “mistake”, anymore than anyone can seriously believe the Republicans are continually investigating Benghazi in order to get at the truth. It was a deliberate choice of words, used with the intent to revise history, particularly since it was placed in a section discussing otherwise voluntary immigrants.

McGraw-Hill was exposed by a Texas woman, whose video (you can see it at the link) went viral. McGraw-Hill eventually owned up to its “mistake” and promised to rectify its error by “adequately convey[ing] that Africans were both forced into migration and to labor against their will as slaves.” They came to the conclusion after a “close review of the content”, which, we are presumably supposed to believe, was required, because the fact that millions of people “emigrated” here against their wills is a little known fact, known only to history buffs, and certainly not to the panel of propaganda enablers who gave the book their imprimaturs (watch the video).

The whole thing is truly outrageous. And yet, I confess that I don’t feel outraged. Like anyone with half a brain in this country, I am suffering from outrage fatigue. After all, when you consider (as one tiny example) the lack of outrage over the fact that it’s only been three days since a mass killing in Oregon, and it is already both literally and figuratively yesterday’s news, whitewashing slavery seems like such a little thing.

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The PR pontiff shows his true colors

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

As the (or should it be “a”) poet once wrote, “hope springs eternal in the human breast”, and it is that human foible which perhaps best explains the eagerness with which Americans of a not right wing persuasion have rushed to embrace he who is Pope only because his predecessor resigned to avoid exposure. Some of us voices in the wilderness have warned that Pope Frank is all hat and no cattle, but no one listens.

Now we learn that the Pontiff met with Kim Davis, in so doing giving her his imprimatur. So, let’s examine this.

The argument that she somehow has the right to refuse to do her job as a matter of religious right has always been intellectually bankrupt, at least if one accepts the principal of separation of Church and State, which I believe the Catholic Church has done, albeit somewhat grudgingly, at some point since the Enlightenment. Not for a minute would I believe that he would support her if she had used the same argument to refuse to marry an interracial couple, yet the principal would have been exactly the same. As has been endlessly pointed out, she had a perfect right to oppose gay marriage; she simply had no right to refuse to do the job she was elected to do, and had even less right to instruct her underlings to abide by her own religious beliefs. He supports her not because he believes that a public functionary has a right to impose the religion of his or her choice on the public, but because she is attempting to impose a religious doctrine of which he approves.

I give Francis credit for understanding the issues involved here.Only a Republican could fail to understand, and that takes an effort of will even for them. So by meeting with Davis, he knowingly strikes at the heart of the major advance the West made by pushing religion out of politics. Like his predecessors, he looks back with fondness to the golden days of the 13th century. He’s more dangerous than his predecessors because he’s more adept at PR.

It’s rapidly becoming clear, by the way, that Davis is just another grifter. Sure she had to spend a few days in jail, but she’s coining money now. There’s nothing more profitable in today’s USA than entering the pantheon of right wing victimhood.

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