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Told like it is

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

My wife and I subscribe to the Boston Globe, though we are more than a stone’s throw from that fair city, for reasons that, if not already known to the reader, will become obvious in the course of this post.

The Globe’s coverage of the genius has, compared, for example, to the New York Times, been pretty good. It’s reporters are not immune to both siderism or the tendency to normalize our Narcissist in Chief, but they’ve tended to be much less in the tank than the likes of Maggie Haberman.

Their editorials have been uniformly fair to the genius, in that they have called him out for exactly what he is. This recent editorial has attracted a fair bit of attention, because it quite bluntly points out that the genius “has blood on his hands”. A criminal indictment (which really should be coming down on January 21st) could not set forth the damning facts more thoroughly.

Full Disclosure: My first born son, who is twice as smart and twice the writer I am (Okay, that might not be saying much) is a member of the Globe Editorial Staff, and though I have no way of knowing, I prefer to think that he wrote every word of this editorial. We need more of the non-Fox media to tell it precisely how it is.

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Another, yes another, Modest Proposal

Monday, March 30, 2020

It seems that the folks at Fox are at least a bit worried that they might have some legal liability for spreading disinformation about COVID-19. For a number of reasons I think the chance of such a suit being successful is low, given the First Amendment. I seem to recall that Fox defended a suit in Florida by arguing that it had a constitutional right to lie, and I believe it won. Oh, here’s a link. Looks like the court ruled on narrower grounds, because the judges were probably too ashamed to put their names on a decision that out and out said it was okay to lie, but they basically green-lighted it.

As I’ve mentioned before, I keep a daily journal. Samuel Pepys and Anais Nin, among others, rest easy as they perceive no threat to their reputations from this quarter, but, putting my literary deficiencies aside, what the app does do is show me what I wrote on “this day” in years past, and just recently one of my entries reminded me of how effective the Parkland kids were at hitting Fox where it hurts the most: advertising dollars.

I haven’t seen that anyone with a national audience has suggested that Fox advertisers be targeted anew for supporting a network that is literally lying to us about a plague. The fact that they are repeating presidential lies is of no moment, because everyone else at least points out those lies (labeling them anything but “lies”, of course), while Fox both amplifies and endorses them. 

I don’t have much of an audience, and, as I have no television, I can’t even identify the offending advertisers, but here’s hoping someone with some national oomph will take the lead on this.

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A Song for our Times

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Many years ago my then quite young son and I went to see Me and My Girl at the Weston Theater in Vermont. We had a great time and I subsequently bought the CD of the then recent Broadway version. Yesterday one of the songs from the show popped into my head and it occurred to me that it’s exactly the song we should all be singing “to counteract an attack of the [pandemic] blues” because, after all, as the song goes “after all is done and said…”.

Unfortunately, the Broadway version is not on YouTube, at least not with a respectable video, but I thought this one would do:

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Friday Night Music returns, if a bit of a bummer

Friday, March 27, 2020

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted what was once a regular Friday night feature, but today I stumbled on this Paul Simon video and I couldn’t resist.

I remember when this song came out. I though it was great, and that it perfectly caught the tenor of the times. Who would have thought that almost fifty years on every line would still be relevant, except moreso. Back then, the road we were traveling on seemed all wrong, but there was still hope that we could get back to the country in which “we lived so well so long”. Those times, I fear, are past. Today we got a postcard from the Center for Disease Control giving us President Trump’s Coronavirus Guidelines for America. As one might expect, it is full of health tips, most if not all of which Trump himself has disavowed or disregarded. But it is proof that our bureacracy, whether willingly or unwillingly, is now prisoner to an unprecedented cult of personality. It would surprise me not at all to learn that the postcard could only be sent if it included this obeisance to Dear Leader. I don’t believe that any other president has ever tried to institute such a personality cult before. Like all the other daily outrages, this one too will go virtually unremarked.

The Republic may not survive our current travails. Say this for the Roman Republic, at least it was brought down by a man of substance, who could both read and write. When the obituary for the American Republic is written, it is quite likely it will be noted that it was brought down by a snake oil salesman.

Anyway, here it is, Paul Simon singing American Tune.

When I watched it this morning it was followed by a promo for a right wing propaganda youtube station. We are surrounded by forces trying to destroy our nation.

UPDATE: A new low in sychophancy. A person with a medical degree alleges with a straight face that the genius is able to both read and understand scientific literature.

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Bad Moon Rising

Sunday, March 22, 2020

A few days ago I noted that the Republicans never let a crisis go to waste. This is probably the biggest domestic crisis we’ve had since the Civil War, so it presents all kinds of opportunities to destroy our institutions. There is no reason to suspend habeas corpus, other than to allow the genius to jail people at will. There is no reason to keep the corporate recipients of bailout money secret, except to cover the corruption of those distributing the money. There is no reason to resist putting money into the “rescue” bill (can’t call it a bailout when Republicans want it) to secure our elections, unless you are planning on stealing them.

It seems pretty clear that their sole objective is to squeeze whatever they can get out of this crisis. I tend to agree with this analysis, that in the end the national emergency will be transformed into a rationale to cancel November’s election and, in the process, transfer more power to the executive. The number of lives lost, and even the economic disruption, are secondary considerations to their need to hold power. I would not be surprised if Brent and Neal are figuring out a legal justification to permit the putsch as we speak.

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Not just for the rich anymore (temporarily)

Saturday, March 21, 2020

Has anyone else noticed that all the measures being contemplated to deal with the economic impact of the corona virus, both here and in England (and probably everywhere else) are, not to put too fine a point on it: socialistic?

What else can we call sending free (gasp!) money to people, or paying them for not working, or providing free (if extremely limited) medical care to people?

This is a stunning departure for this country, which has restricted itself to socialism for the rich ever since it put distance between itself and the New Deal.

I expect it’s too much for the Democrats to point out this obvious fact as they vote for the programs for which Trump, McConnell and their ilk will take credit, even though said ilk had to gag while voting for them.

It is beginning to look like Trump, et. al., are, despite their manifest incompetence, winning the PR war, primarily because the Democrats don’t believe in engaging in such things. Besides, the Republicans have told them that this is no time to criticize, just as the aftermath of a mass shooting is no time to talk about gun control. Like good boys and girls, the national Democrats will probably do as they are told, and hold their tongues while Trump, aided and abetted by a compliant media, lies himself into a second term, by taking political advantage of a plague made far more widespread by his own incompetence.

UPDATE: Is it possible that Joe Biden won’t be following the normal Democratic playbook? Wonders never cease.

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A modest proposal, amended

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Far be it from me to insist on a modest proposal when I am presented with evidence that there is an even more modest way to achieve one’s ends.

A couple of days ago I suggested that we honor the genius by naming the current era The Trump American Plague, inasmuch as for reasons that I can’t fathom, he himself has not chosen, as he historically has, to name his achievements after himself. He has claimed that his administration has done a great job, so it really boggles the mind as to why he would fail to take full credit.

Anyway, a friend of mine, now confined to “shelter in place” due to his advanced age (he’s a whole year older than me!), having nothing better to do, read the aforementioned post and wrote suggesting an alternative nomenclature for this era, one that, I confess, honors the genius even more, inasmuch as it references his economic expertise. He suggests the Trump Slump. This appellation, I confess, is superior to mine in several ways. As noted, it honors the financial acumen that has kept so many bankruptcy attorneys in the black. It rhymes, and, even better, rolls, as Hamlet said, “trippingly on the tongue”. I’m sure that Democratic candidates, since they are all interested in fairness, would be more than happy to employ this verbiage, for each one of them, honest Democrats that they are, should be more than willing to give credit where it is due.

I’m not suggesting that we drop The Trump American Plague completely. That would be a disservice to a man who deserves credit for assuring that the Italians and Spanish would have nothing on us. Still, I believe The Trump Slump deserves pride of place. Perhaps someone can find a way to blend the two without losing the superior phrasing that The Trump Slump employs. Until then, it’s my go to way to honor our Dear Leader.

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Yet another modest proposal

Monday, March 16, 2020

It’s a curious thing. The person currently occupying the White House has traditionally named things after himself, yet there’s a fairly obvious thing to which he has failed to attach his moniker. Perhaps, somewhat surprisingly, he has been afflicted with false modesty.

I certainly concede that I don’t like the guy, but I try to give credit where credit is due, so I hereby propose that our current era be known as the “Trump American Plague!”. Let’s face it, we wouldn’t be going through this end of a lifetime once in a lifetime experience to the extent we are, if he hadn’t taken preventative steps to make sure that it would happen. He deserves recognition for this achievement.

Of course, nothing is worth naming after yourself if you can’t make money off of it, so there’s no reason he couldn’t market stuff like Trump American Plague! Hand Sanitizer, or given the inexplicable shortages, Trump American Plague! Toilet Paper, with a picture of himself on every sheet. Personally, I think the latter would be a big seller.

I would hope that the Democrats, in the proper bipartisan spirit, would join in recognizing his achievement. Now is not the time to refuse to recognize his accomplishments, or to play partisan games by trying to deny him credit for his achievements. We are one nation, after all, and when the president steps up to the plate and strikes out hits a homer, he deserves everything he has coming to him.

Caveat: I can’t take credit for this idea, though I can’t see why it didn’t occur to me. My wife suggested it, and as soon as she did I realized that we owed it to the guy to give him this recognition.

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Acceptable risks

Saturday, March 14, 2020

What is it about American election officials? Are they all corrupt, or are they simply incapable of seeing the obvious. Check this out:

Voatz, a mobile voting app that’s already been used in several elections in the United States, has more than a dozen critical security flaws, according to a newly released audit. The audit also shows Voatz publicly refuted an MIT report that found flaws in its app even after it received confirmation that it was accurate.

The audit, which was prepared by cybersecurity firm Trail of Bits for Voatz and Tusk Philanthropies, which has partnered with Voatz on some of its pilot voting projects, found 48 technical vulnerabilities, 16 of which were “high-severity issues.”

…

The audit notes that many of the vulnerabilities Trails of Bits reported to Voatz were only partially fixed, unfixed, or considered by Voatz as acceptable risks.

…

“Voatz doesn’t make any sense as it’s currently designed. Architecturally, it trusts a central server with everyone’s votes,” Matthew Green, a cryptographer and computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University not involved with the Trail of Bits report, said. “A person who compromises that server or any of the client-side software has virtually free reign over an election.”

Green added: “If this was a hot dog stand, it would be closed by the health department.”

Acceptable risks! Amazing.

Is there anyone too blind to see that conducting elections over the internet is an invitation to steal said elections? Paper ballots, counted by a machine in no way connected to the internet is so much obviously safer. I suppose a mobile app would be more convenient, but there are multiple ways to make our present voting system more convenient. There is really only one conclusion one can draw from the fact that such an app would be utilized anywhere: that the state officials involved wantelections to be stolen, because they expect their political party (guess which one?) to benefit from the theft.

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An open letter to Democrats in Congress

Friday, March 13, 2020

Dear Democratic Congresspersons:

Back at the beginning of the Obama Administration, Rahm Emanuel had this to say:

You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.

The Obama Administration, Rahm helping to lead the way, then proceeded to let a serious crisis go to waste.

Republicans don’t make that mistake. They are not going to let the corona virus crisis go to waste. A person who cared about other people would see this crisis as an opportunity to improve our deeply ineffective health care system, which is currently charging people thousands of dollars just to get tested; a test that should be free. But Republicans only care about some people, and they are using the crisis to steer money into the hands of the rich, the same way they use every crisis.

As I’ve mentioned before, the Republicans play the long game, and they are doing it again in connection with their proposal to stimulate the economy by temporarily reducing or eliminating the payroll tax. There are many ways to get money into people’s pockets other than touching the payroll tax. As Paul Krugman has pointed out, you can just give people money, which has been done before in the form of tax rebates. An even better approach would be to forgive student debt, which would enable those burdened with crushing educational debt to spend that money on other things. After all, if you can print money to save Wall Street, you can print it to save people.

Reducing the payroll tax means draining money from the Social Security Trust Fund, thereby enabling future Republicans to argue that the system is bankrupt and is a Ponzi scheme anyway, so it should be privatized. It’s the Holy Grail they’ve been aiming at for years, and if Democrats can’t see that undermining Social Security is the point of the proposal, then they have not had their eyes open.

So please, Congressional Democrats, do the smart thing and tell Trump and his minions to shove it, and pass a rebate or debt relief bill.

The latest: So far, so good. 

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