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Tuesday, August 9, 2016

I have a very soft spot in my heart for the state of Maine, as that is where I got my college education, but I’ve never understood how Mainers cannot see through Susan Collins, and before that, her compatriot in “moderation”, Olympia Snowe.

Until we were freed from him in 2006, we denizens of Connecticut’s Second District had a “moderate” Congressman, one Rob Simmons. Here’s a definition of a Republican “moderate”: a Republican who votes with the rational side whenever his or her vote won’t make a difference. I recall that with Simmons and his ilk, the folks who called the shots used the term “catch and release” to describe the process. Simmons and his fellow moderates were allowed to vote against crazy things when the leaders were sure they had enough votes to pass them anyway. If they needed his vote, they got it. In other words, like Collins, he never cast a “moderate” vote where that vote would have made a difference.

So count me unimpressed that Collins has now come out against Trump, who is now trying to incite someone to kill Hillary, probably because he can’t see any other way to beat her. Collins is not up for re-election, and may never run again. I believe there may be one Republican incumbent who is both running for re-election and unambiguously against the Donald, and it ain’t Collins. If she were up for reelection, she’d be walking the same tightrope as Kelly Ayotte, especially if there were still time for a Trumpite to run against her as an independent. Mainers are into that sort of thing; they have time and again shown their independence by choosing governors, like LePage, who could never get elected in a two person race, and should never get elected in any race.

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Running in place, and other observations

Saturday, August 6, 2016

“Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

This quote came to mind when I stumbled on this post by Wolf Richter, which demonstrates that the “good” news on the job front is nothing more than keeping in the same place:

On average, 205,300 jobs need to be created every month just to keep up with population growth and not allow the unemployment situation to get worse.

Last months good news was that we netted out 255,000 jobs, meaning that while we’re not quite keeping in the same place, we’re not exactly getting somewhere else. Richter points out that most people who don’t live within the Beltway or some other bubble somehow know we’re not moving, and their perception is absolutely correct. It would be ever so nice if the Democrats more vigorously addressed that well founded pervasive anxiety.

Speaking of Lewis Carroll (see the quote above), it occurred to me while thinking about this subject, that another quote that might apply here is “the faster I go, the behinder I get”. So I looked it up to find the source, and what I found was strange. It’s often stated as “the hurrier I go, the behinder I get”, both versions of which are attributed to Carroll. There’s even a website that features 10 quotes from Carroll, one of which is the “hurrier” quote.

I was interested to see which was genuine, so I searched the full text versions of both Alice and Through the Looking Glass, and couldn’t find the quote in either. I searched for the word “hurrier”, assuming it would only appear once. It certainly sounds like a Carroll quote, and in a way, it echoes the quote above, but I must conclude that it’s a misattribution, unless someone’s able to find it. By the way, when I started looking, I thought it likely that it was something Andy Devine might have said on Wild Bill Hickok.

By way of explanation for this pathetic, meandering, post, I just got back from vacation, and am still feeling quite lazy. I’m hoping to get back in the thick of things any day now, though I have to admit that for a guy with a day job, blogging is getting harder. By the time I get in front of my keyboard to point out yet another crazy thing the Donald has said, a million people have beaten me to it, and at least 10% of them have the same take that I do. If this keeps up I’ll have to take to Twitter. Anyway, I’m back, rested and ready to go.

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Trump opens mouth, doesn’t lie

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Strange but true.

It seems Hillary raised $90 million dollars last month, while Trump raised $35.8 million.

Trump didn’t just drop that in to remarks, he bragged about it. 

“It’s gonna be announced tomorrow or the next day: we’ve raised, we think, about $35.8 million. This is unheard of for Republicans, $35.8 million,” Trump said.

In case you’re wondering, Mitt Romney raised $101 million in July, 2012. …

via Daily Kos

Now the diarist at Kos seemed to think that Trump was lying, but he was telling the honest to god truth. When was the last time a Republican presidential candidate raised such a small (adjusted for inflation, of course) amount of money at this point in the campaign. It truly is unheard of for Republicans.

The fact is, every once in a while Trump does say something that happens, by the wildest chance, to be true. Since the media is really doing such a poor job covering his lies, maybe it should change tack and make a big deal every time he says something that is verifiably true.

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No, Trump did not make the stupid party

Monday, August 1, 2016

Sometimes it amazes me. The New York Times has an op-ed columnist with a Nobel Prize in Economics, but it appears no one at the Times reads his columns. How else to explain that someone let a Republican (Max Boot) write an op-ed piece claiming that the Republican Party has only recently become the actual party of stupid, as opposed to the party that was only pretending to be the party of stupid.

I won’t dissect the whole thing, in which he claims that Ronald Reagan, for instance, was really an intellectual playing the part of a stupid person. Let’s just concentrate fire on this particular paragraph:

There are still some thoughtful Republican leaders exemplified by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who devised an impressive new budget plan for his party. But the primary vibe from the G.O.P. has become one of indiscriminate, unthinking, all-consuming anger.

As Krugman has noted time and again, Ryan is not an intellectual paragon, and his “impressive new budget plan” is a total fraud. Just one example, written before Ryan’s descent to the Speaker’s chair:

But Ryan didn’t step into that role by actually being a serious, honest conservative; he just played one on TV. If you knew anything at all about budgeting, you soon realized that his supposedly responsible fiscal proposals were stuffed full of mystery meat. He knew how to game the system, creating the impression that CBO had vetted his plans when it had done no such thing (and in fact hinted broadly that the whole thing was a crock). But there’s never been any indication that he actually knows how to produce a budget — and in any case, giant tax cuts for the rich and fiscal responsibility are fundamentally incompatible.

So Ryan’s current stature is really quite curious, and I’d argue quite fragile. He has been a highly successful con artist, pretending to be the reasonable conservative centrists desperately want to see; he has become a power within his party because of that external achievement. But he’s not a true hero of the crazy right; he’s valued mainly because of his successful con job on the center. So he doesn’t have a reserve of goodwill from the crazies that would let him be, well, not crazy. On the other hand, if he were to be the kind of speaker the crazies want, he would undermine that all-important centrist approbation. Being off to the side, pretending to be dealing thoughtfully with important policy issues, was where he needed to be; moving to the speaker’s chair would be a lose-lose proposition.

Time and again people who can add and subtract (see one of Dean Baker’s takedowns here) have pointed out that Ryan’s budgets don’t add up, but Mr. Boot has apparently bought into the myth that Krugman has tried so hard to expose. He can believe what he wants, but it’s really time for the Times to stop reinforcing the Ryan mythology.

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A modest proposal, and an observation.

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Apparently Donald Trump is trying to get out of the debates.

Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of intentionally stacking debates against prime time programming to “rig” the election process, despite the fact that the schedule has been set since last September, Politico reports.

Said Trump: “As usual, Hillary and the Dems are trying to rig the debates so two are up against major NFL games. Same as last time w/ Bernie. Unacceptable!”

via Democratic Underground.

Trump claims that the NFL wrote him a letter expressing concerns about the debate schedule, which the NFL has already denied, meaning once again Trump told a blatant lie.

First, the modest proposal. I’d suggest that Hillary allow that Donald has a point, and that it isn’t a good idea if the debates conflict with the football schedule. She should say that she would be willing to debate on any weekday evening of Trump’s choosing. Trump already looks bad, but this would make him look like a total chicken, and to rub it in, I’d suggest unleashing Elizabeth Warren, Jennifer Granholm, Barbara Boxer, and other female Democrats to call him out as a chicken when he ducks and weaves in response. As I’ve said before, his schoolyard bullying techniques don’t work on strong women, as the past several weeks have demonstrated, and he has no idea how to respond when they attack him.

Now, the observation. The lie about the NFL was blatant in the extreme. Remember when Al Gore never said that he invented the Internet? We were not allowed to forget that which did not happen. Maureen Dowd alone must have brought it up a hundred times. What do you want to bet that this actual lie will garner almost zero attention, and that by the time anyone reads this (which, come to think of it, may be a long time from now) it will be totally forgotten. We’ve come to a strange pass when a presidential candidate is allowed to lie simply because he does it so often that it no longer seems unusual, but that’s where we are, and of course it helps him immensely that he’s running as a Republican. Different rules apply to the Republicans, at least in the media. Thankfully, at least in some of the courts, Republican lies have consequences.

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Back from the shadows again

Friday, July 29, 2016

No posting here for quite some time, due to the fact that I’ve been vacationing in Vermont. The main purpose of this post is to make it clear that I’m still alive.

One of the advantages of having no television is that I am spared watching conventions, so I have followed each second hand, so to speak. This week we’ve been getting feedback from blogs and Twitter. So, based on what we’ve seen I conclude that the Republican convention was a poorly managed travesty, pitched directly and only to the Foxaholics who thrive on fear and hate, while ours was inspiring, until Hillary spoke.

I did think I’d share this. One of our houseguests gave me a gift yesterday.

Unfortunately, I’m in a bit of a quandary. Being a chocolate lover, I am tempted to eat it. But then I won’t have it anymore. I guess you can’t have your chocolate bar and eat it too.

Anyway, as we’ve known for many moons, Bernie will not be our candidate, but we can say this about the candidate we have: We know how bad she will be, but there’s absolutely no way to know how bad their’s will be, except that we know that he will absolutely be worse than her. It’s not much, but it’s the best we can do. And just for the record, my opinion of Hillary is in no way tainted by either the email “scandal” or Benghazi, both of which are typical trumped up (should I use that phrase?) Clinton bashing.

This, by the way, will be the last negative thing I have to say about Hillary until after the election. We’re stuck with her, so we have to make the best of it. My last negative observation is this: looking ahead to 2020, we are in deep trouble.

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Our Free Press at Work

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Sorry to return to this subject, but…

If there were a God, I would be thanking him or her right now for the fact that I don’t have a television nor am I forced to watch television news.

Put Fox aside. Are there no televison “journalists” with the guts to call bullshit on Republican spinmeisters?

Check this out. Wolf Blitzer sits meekly and practically concedes RNC Spokesperson Sean Spicer has a point in arguing that there was no plagiarism in Melania Trump’s speech. He just sits there and let’s the guy roll right over him. The best he can do is, at one point, feebly protest that there were some pretty stark similarities. Watch the video at the link. How did this guy get his job? He either has no brains or no spine.

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Beyond Plagiarism

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

In all the fuss and fury over Melania Trump’s plagiarism, something has been overlooked. The point of her speech was to introduce her husband to the somewhat dubious side of the country-you know, the folks that are not stark raving mad. So, consider this particular piece of plagiarism:

Trump told GOP delegates on Monday: “From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond and you do what you say and keep your promise.

“That you treat people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily life. That is a lesson that I continue to pass along to our son, and we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow, because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.”

via The Guardian

Plagiarism, no doubt. But consider that the implication here is that these are values that the Donald exemplifies. Yet, has anyone hitherto ever accused the Donald of working hard for what he wants, believing that his word is his bond, keeping his promises, or treating people with respect? Ask Chris Christie about that last one. Or even ask Mike Pence, who surely must have wondered why the Donald played “You can’t always get what you want” over and over before introducing his VP pick. Melania is catching a bit of flack about the plagiarism, but let’s be fair, her claims to the contrary, she didn’t write the speech, but she probably had at least read it before she delivered it. She probably didn’t know she had plagiarized, but she surely knew she was lying. What was that again about your word being your bond?

But, let’s face it. It has been the case for years that IOKIYAR, but it’s even more Okay if you’re Donald Trump. No doubt that immunity will extend to his wife.

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God in the classroom 

Saturday, July 16, 2016

A few days ago I learned that among all the horrible things in the Republican platform, there is a demand that the Bible be taught “as literature” in public schools. Of course, it’s a transparently bogus demand for the establishment of the Christian religion, but transparently bogus arguments have won in the past. Remember, the Supreme Court has ruled that a Christmas crèche is a secular holiday display.

Anyway, it happens that this is a subject about which I know something, or at least have some experience.

When I arrived at Hartford Public High School in the fall of ’64, with my freshly minted theology degree from Our Lady of Sorrows Grammar School, I was placed into the honors English class. It was, by the way, the only honors course I was placed in, something that mystified me, because in my own quite accurate self estimation, I was much more suited for honors history or math.

Anyway, the teacher was a Miss Crawford, who was herself freshly minted as a teacher. It was her one and only year at the school. How she got the honors class (the sophomore through senior honors classes were firmly in the hands of the entrenched English teachers with seniority, all of whom were horrible), I don’t know. I’m quite sure she didn’t choose the books we read. To the best of my recollection, the first book we read was the Odyssey, which, on reflection, is somewhat odd, given that it was originally written in Greek, and the quality of any English translation depends on the translator.

But I digress. At some point, I believe it was after the Odyssey, we actually were assigned readings from the Bible (King James, I believe) to be read, as literature. Any discussion of the truth of the bullshit therein was off limits.

As all of us HPHS grads know, Hartford Public High School is the second oldest secondary institution of learning in the country. Only Boston Latin is older. Connecticut only ditched its established religion sometime in the 1820s, so I would be willing to bet that reading the Bible as something other than literature was a tradition for the first 300 or so years of the school’s existence. Our class’s experience may have been the last gasp of Bible reading at the school.

At best as I can recall, Miss (there were no “Ms”’s in those days) Crawford tried to steer clear of theology while we discussed the myths we were reading. I have no idea how she felt about teaching religion as literature. As for myself, I found it almost impossible to stop myself from trying to engage with the religious content. There I was with my wealth of learning and my burgeoning skepticism, struggling mightily to confine myself to the Bible “as literature”, which I now realize, was an impossible task. If you put the religious aspects of the Bible aside, there’s nothing left to talk about. But, already being a devout adherent to the gospel as taught by Tom Paine, I also firmly believed that religion had no place in public school, so restrain myself I did, mostly. The long and the short of all this is that I can assure one and all that reading the Bible as literature, while avoiding any discussion of the religious content thereof, is a total and complete waste of time. It’s like reading Shakespeare and confining yourself to discussions about iambic pentameter. None of us were sorry to see the end of the Bible readings, and I’m sure the Jewish kids in the class were especially glad to see the back of King James.

So, if there are any Republican delegates who actually, sincerely believe (ha, ha, ha)that they are merely suggesting a totally secular exposure to the Bible, I can assure them it can’t be done. As for the rest of us, I suppose we can claim some sort of minor victory in the fact that Republicans feel compelled to claim some sort of secular purpose, rather than out and out demanding that their religion be taught in our schools.

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Perhaps I can help

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

So today I got several emails from the DCCC pushing similar themes. Here’s the first few paragraphs of one:

We’re confused…

After Bernie Sanders’ inspiring call to unity, we thought at long last Democrats would…well…unify.

But sadly that’s not what’s happened. Grassroots Democrats just haven’t stepped up.

The entire world is watching to see if the Democratic Party can unify today. And frankly, we’re questioning whether that will happen.

We’re sorry to plead, John, but is there any chance you can help? We will lose out on our chance to win the White House and Congress otherwise.

Will you answer Bernie’s call and chip in $1?

I think maybe I can help them understand why not everyone is stepping up. Of course, I can’t speak for other Grassroots Democrats, but this Grassroot Democrat is tired of giving money to the Democratic Party so that it can fund corporate Democrats against Grassroots Democrats. Consider this, just a bit of what the folks at Down with Tyranny have documented:

“When the PA-07 progressive Mary Ellen Balchunis– endorsed by every Democratic party organ and institutional ally in southeast Pennsylvania– smashed the DCCC recruit who they had helped raise money and run a campaign, even adding him to their Red to Blue program, the DCCC responded by abandoning the district to GOP incumbent Pat Meehan and taking the district off the map. Pelosi’s bullshit about “when women win…” was shown up to be just more of the hypocrisy her sorry later career has turned into. No Red to Blue help for Mary Ellen Balchunis. That’s Pelosi/DCCC “party unity”… it’s only for progressives to rally around establishment hacks, never for the establishment to rally around progressives.

The DCCC had added their pack of unimpressive hacks– Bryan Caforio (CA), Randall Perkins (FL), Salud Carbajal (CA), Val Demings (FL), Monica Vernon (IA), Brad Schneider (IL), Bill Golderer (PA), and Colleen Deacon (NY)– while all were engaged in active, competitive primaries against more progressive candidates, to the Red to Blue program. When Mary Ellen beat Golderer 52,792 (74%) to 18,509 (26%)– despite the DCCC guaranteeing that Golderer could spend $239,391 (and raise $375,402) in the race while they prevented Mary Ellen from being able to spend anything but $45,541– Lujan, Israel and Pelosi didn’t add Mary Ellen to Red to Blue. They just continued telling Democratic activists to starve her campaign of contributions– even after the AFL-CIO unanimously decided to not re-endorse Meehan and give the nod to Balchunis instead. Balchunis, who identifies as “a Warren wing Democrat” didn’t endorse Bernie, although she shares his values and issues, because she has a long, friendly relationship with Hillary and endorsed her. But Hillary and her establishment wing of the party did absolutely nothing for Balchunis– and still haven’t.

Tuesday morning Zephyr Teachout, who Bernie had helped raise a great deal money through grassroots contributions, tweeted, “I am running for Congress to break down the doors of power in Washington.” That isn’t a phrase likely to make party hacks like Pelosi, Hoyer, Lujan, etc feel all warm and comfy.

Early Monday morning DWT got a press release from NRCC chairman Greg Walden: “Congratulations to John Faso on his hard-fought victory this evening. John has spent his career serving his community, and will do a great job representing the Hudson Valley in Congress. John understands the importance of keeping taxes low and getting government out of the way so that the private sector can create jobs. I look forward to working with him after he is elected this November.”

Still no word from Lujan and the DCCC. I’m sure some kind of grudging statement of support will arrive eventually. For now, though, Teachout’s wonderful volunteers will have to make due with congratulations from the grassroots groups like DFA, Blue America and PCCC who have endorsed her from day one. ”

 

via Down with Tyranny

Why should I give my money to an organization (the DNC and the DSCC do the same thing) that actively works against the interests of the very Grassroots Democrats they claim to support? The DNC is even worse that the DCCC, what with Wasserman Schultz, the head of the DNC, brazenly supporting Republicans. It gives me great joy to see the grifters making fools of Republicans. I prefer to avoid having the Democratic grifters make a fool out of me.

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