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A good start

Friday, November 30, 2018

I believe I’ve written before about what the Democrats should do with their house majority: pass legislation that people want regardless of the fact that it won’t pass the Senate and/or would be vetoed by the very stable genius. It looks like the Democrats are going to do exactly that, with the first item of business being an anti-corruption package:

Here are some of the things the surviving House Republicans will have to oppose if they don’t want to support House Resolution 1.

  • A requirement that members of Congress stop using taxpayer money to settle sexual harassment cases or buy first-class plane tickets.
  • A new ethical code for the US Supreme Court.
  • Restoration of the gutted Voting Rights Act of 1965.
  • Public financing of campaigns, including a voluntary 6-1 match for candidates for president and Congress.
  • A requirement that Super PACs and “dark money” political organizations make the identity of their donors public.
  • A requirement that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter disclose the source of money for political ads they run and an accounting of how much money was spent.
  • Money for improved elections security, including a requirement that the Director of National Intelligence provide regular updates on foreign threats.
  • A requirement that President Trump release his tax returns.

There is, of course, a problem, as there always is with Democrats. This package is one that should easily get nearly unanimous Democratic support, but when it comes to things that actually have an immediate impact on people’s lives (and poll just as well as the items above) the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, including many of the new members that were recruited by the DCCC precisely because they were conservative, will no doubt obstruct. Medicare for all, which is hugely popular, something everyone can understand, blessed with a moniker that Fox will have a hard time abusing, and something that makes absolutely good sense, will probably never get an up or down vote, since the right wing of the party will be calling the shots. Bear in mind that with the Republicans, the “moderates” are made to toe the line with the party’s extremists calling the shots. We don’t have extremists in the Democratic Party; we have so-called extremists who are espousing causes that large majorities (including many Republicans) want. Our “extremists “ do not call the shots, our right wingers do. This inability to control its rightest fringe is a self inflicted problem for the Democrats.

Anyway, the bill mentioned above is a good start. Who knows, maybe they can surprise me and keep them coming.

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No reason to wallow

Monday, November 26, 2018

This is one of many blog posts I’ve read recently crowing about the number of corporations demanding their money back from Cindy Hyde-Smith after she let her racist flag fly a little too high. Among those sending bribe money her way was Major League Baseball. Now that she has announced to the world that she is a racist, these corporations are unanimous: her racism conflicts with her values.

One must ask, what was it they thought harmonized with their values when they donated the money in the first place? She is a Southern Republican, which means she is almost be definition a racist committed to depriving black people of all their rights, and the rest of us of the benefits of a sane healthcare system, etc. How was that consistent with their values? How does Major League Baseball explain its donation to the many black players upon whom it relies to draw people into the baseball stadiums to watch the overpriced games?

It seems a little silly for left-wing, or Democratically oriented, blogs to wallow in the fact that these entities have asked for their money back (I’ve yet to see any evidence that any money was returned). We should be attacking them and demanding answers: why did they give this person money in the first place?

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That’s the way you do it

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Apparently at least one Democrat has learned the obvious lesson of the last several years. Incoming House Oversight Chair Elijah Cummings isn’t about to give minority Republicans subpoena power in the new Congress. 

Let’s step back a bit and consider the context in which we’ve learned this. The execrable Chuck Todd asked Cummings whyever he wouldn’t give this power to the Republicans, since Cummings felt it was unfair for the Republicans to take it away from the Democrats:

CHUCK TODD: You did not have your own subpoena power when you were ranking member.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: That’s right. For a long time.

CHUCK TODD: And it was the first time that had ever happened, compared to previous congresses, correct?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: Right.

CHUCK TODD: Do you plan on granting your ranking member, whoever it is on the Republican side, subpoena authority?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS: No, no.

CHUCK TODD: So why not? Explain why you wouldn’t. If you believe this is something that should’ve been granted to you when you were in the minority.

You see, Chuck believes that when we’re talking about Democrats, they should follow the golden rule, and do unto the Republicans as the Republicans shoulddo unto them, but never do. Cummings is declining to do that, and with extremely good reason.

I think I’ve mentioned on this blog before that years ago I read a very persuasive article in Scientific American, that argued, in essence, that the most successful strategy to change someone else’s behavior is to engage in tit for tat. That is, when in the position to do so, give the offending party a taste of its own medicine, in the same dosage as they administered to you. It is the only way to make the offender pay a penalty for bad behavior. Were the Democrats, to do as Todd so obviously believes they should do, they would essentially be rewarding the Republicans for their bad behavior, since they would receive the message, loud and clear, that they can engage in bad behavior without consequences.

I realize this is so obvious that it hardly needs saying, except by way of explanation to people like Chuck Todd, who resolutely insist on the one sided both siderism that the Beltway media has engaged in for years. But I thought it was worth pointing out that it is happening again, and that it’s good that Cummings, at least, is having none of it, and, one hopes and suspects, neither are any of the other Democrats. That represents a change from past Democratic behavior, when they’ve caved to Beltway thinking.

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Democrats already proving me right

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Shortly after the election, I expressed my confidencein the ability of the Democrats to turn this thing around, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at the earliest opportunity. They haven’t even officially taken over the House, and already they’re hard at work to do just that.

I’m no fan of Nancy Pelosi, for reasons I’ll make clear later, but the current attempt by a “micro caucus” of relatively right wing white males to interfere with her election to the speakership, without even putting forward a candidate for the position, is a prime example of Democrats trying to destroy Democrats. The Republicans have tried to turn Pelosi into a demon. Predictably, a number of Democrats have bought into that demonization, and are insisting that she not return as speaker. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were doing it in order to advance a truly Democratic agenda, but the opposite is the case. They are doing it as part of the eternal Democratic quest to appease the unappeasable Fox-addled voters, and to advance their own personal agendas. (Looking at you, Seth Moulton)

The net result will be a party riven by internal conflict from which no good can come.

Meanwhile, Pelosi is doing her best to make sure that this Democratic Congress can pass no progressive legislation for Trump to veto, or the Republican Senate to reject, and to make it almost equally impossible for a future Democratic President and Democratic Congress to do so.

In a nutshell, Pelosi wants to deny the Democrats the tools they would need to advance a progressive agenda. I’ve noted before that she insists on imposing “pay-go” requirements on the Democrats, meaning that Democrats can’t run deficits to do worthwhile things, while Republicans are free to run deficits to line the pockets of the rich. Now, she wants to add another fiscal restriction to the mix, which you can read about in detail here. In a nutshell, she wants to require a super majority to raise taxes on the lower 80%. Sounds reasonable, but if we want things like Medicare for All, that might require some tax increases, in exchange for which the American people would be getting a health care system that, for once, might work in their best interests. Read the linked article for a detailed explanation of why this is a “staggeringly bad idea”.

If we ever get control of the government, Pelosi, if she gets this rule on top of “pay-go”, will have effectively handcuffed a progressive Congress. In order to get anything decent to pass, they will have to change their own rules, giving the Republicans a great talking point about deficit spending which, in the interests of both siderism, the media will amplify to the hilt, never mentioning the hypocrisy inherent in any Republican concerns about the deficit. It will also give the Republicans a great talking point about the Democrats taxing hard working Americans, and again, in the interests of both siderism, the media will amplify that complaint, never noting the Republican history of transferring money from those hard working Americans to the .01%.

All this in order to demonstrate to a gaggle of beltway pundits that the Democratic Party is the party of fiscal responsibility, when, time and again, it has been proven that this does them absolutely no good. In the short term these rules will prevent them from passing legislation in the House, that would fail in the Senate, that would show the American people what they could get with Democrats in control. In the long run, it will, if we manage not to lose in 2020, prevent meaningful legislation in 2021 if we do get control, which will lead to the same backlash Obama experienced when he pushed for a pallid stimulus package in order to get a positive vote from at least one Republican.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who listen to beltway pundits by definition fail to learn from history, because beltway pundits do not remember any portion of the past that undermines their both siderist ideology. (Some good examples of strategic forgettery here.) The disheartening thing is that Pelosi is still our best choice for speaker, given the nature of the opposition. 

Only the Democrats could blow a majority before they even take charge.

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Hypocrisy ahead?

Thursday, November 15, 2018

I’ve mentioned the Palmer Reporta few times in this blog, and I confess I still take a sort of guilty pleasure in checking it out on a regular basis. My overall impression is that the facts are usually accurate, though the conclusions drawn therefrom are often a little out there, although usually entertaining.

Anyway, today the Report is passing on a report that the Stable Genius has paid for not one, not two, but possibly eight abortions, each recipient of said abortion being subject to one of those non-disclosure agreements of which the genius is so fond.

Let me pause to say that I have no doubt about the fact that such women exist, though I have no idea of their numbers. I don’t believe I’ve reduced this rant to a blog post, but if called to testify my wife could confirm the multiple times I’ve orally ranted about the certainty that such payments have been made. So, once again, in my not so humble opinion, Mr. Palmer (assuming he wrote the linked post) has the facts right.

But once again, the conclusions drawn are suspect, and I must part company. In a follow up posthe speculates about the impact such revelations would have on the genius’s evangelical base, including hypocrites like Pat Robertson:

But more than even this, as noted, abortion is a nuclear hot button within the more extreme flavors of conservative Christians. Campaign finance violations or no, there can be little doubt that should evidence of Trump’s abortion underwritings surface with evidence, it could do significant damage to his diminishing support.

This could be a pill simply too bitter for some of his more zealous religious base to swallow, let alone cloak in the hypocrisy of denial. If Donald Trump really did impregnate several women and cause them to undergo abortions, it may turn out to be a bodyblow that not even the recently self-anointed “great moral leader” will be able to evade.

His religious base will gladly swallow any pill that their religious leaders tell them to swallow, and those leaders care not a whit whether Donald Trump paid for no, one, or a thousand abortions. They’re not in it out of religious principles and they don’t really care about abortion, that’s just a hook that’s been handy to keep the brain dead fish on the line. (Is that metaphor too strained?) To paraphrase Randy Newman, it’s money (and power) that matters. It was easy enough for them to look the other way when he talked about grabbing pussies, so they’ll have no trouble deflecting from this, if doing so continues to serve their interest. The Republican base has shown a remarkable ability to believe whatever they are told to believe by Fox News, Pat Robertson, and the other scam artists that pull their strings. They can also, at the behest of their puppet masters, change their beliefs at the drop of a hat, while never even acknowledging their own inconsistencies. In addition, faced with mountains of contrary evidence, they have, up to now, been happy to believe anything the liar tells them. If this becomes an issue, he’ll lie about it, and, again assuming it is in their interest, Fox News, Pat Robertson, et. al., knowing it to be a lie, will strategically accept that lie as true, and blame the liberal media. Their slack jawed followers will eat it up. People of reason will marvel at their ability to believe the unbelievable, but we’ve been doing that for years with no affect on them.

Once Trump is out of the way, the story will change. He, like W before him, will be dismissed as not a true conservative, and suddenly his moral transgressions (sex stuff, not stuff like ripping kids from their parents) will matter. But while he’s president, and lining the pockets of folks like Robertson, a few abortions won’t make any difference.

That’s my take. I hope the story has legs, so we can find out if I’m wrong.

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The election is over, time to complain about Democrats again

Saturday, November 10, 2018

So, today there was this:

Sunday marks 100 years since the end of World War I, the supposed “war to end all wars” that caused the deaths of tens of millions of soldiers and civilians.

Leaders from across the globe are in France to commemorate the centennial. German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined French President Emmanuel Macron at the site of Germany’s 1918 surrender on Saturday. British Prime Minister Theresa May and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also honored the fallen.

President Donald Trump, who departed for Paris on Friday, was also scheduled to visit a cemetery that contains the remains of thousands of U.S. troops who were killed in World War I.

That is, until there was a chance of rain.

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump cancelled their Saturday plans to honor Americans who were killed in service to their country due to the weather.

Bear in mind that the whole point of his trip was to commemorate the end of the First World War.

Here, I must pause, and repeat yet again that rhetorical question: What would have happened had Obama done something similar? We all know what would have happened, as surely as we know that Obama would never have done anything similar, though the folks at Fox may have made something up implying that he did.

Do you remember Clinton fatigue? It was a real thing, and probably cost Al Gore the 2000 election. People simply grew tired of the endless attacks on the man, and despite the fact that they may not have believed any given attack,in the end there was a pervasive feeling that they wanted to leave him behind, and Al Gore paid the price. So did Hillary, years later.

Here we have a so called president who couldn’t be bothered to “support the troops” because he didn’t want to deal with a light rain. Instead, as I understand it, he’s spent his time tweeting and watching Fox. Since this is yet another example of Trump being Trump, the media will forget it after tomorrow, approximately 364 days sooner than they would have forgotten it (if they forgot it at all) had Obama done it. Why the longer memories in the case of Obama, or any Democrat for that matter? In large part because the Republicans would never allow anyone to forget. They would mount sustained, coordinated attacks. They mounted such attacks constantly against both Clinton and Obama, usually mendaciously. The Democrats would have the luxury of mounting attacks that were based on actual (as opposed to alternate) facts. But they won’t do it. It’s true that they don’t have their own TV network, so it would be a bit harder for them than for the Republicans, but they could still pound this, as well as multiple other issues, harder than they will. The Republican methods for manipulating the press and public opinion are out there for everyone to see. 

It wouldn’t hurt for the Democrats to do all they can to exacerbate the Trump fatigue that has, with virtually no help from the organized Democratic Party, set in wherever rational people reside. If that means stealing from the Republican playbook, then steal they should.

But they won’t.

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A few thoughts on the election

Friday, November 9, 2018

I finally have a few minutes to get back to this blog, the election, and my involvement therewith, having taken up a lot of time, including more than 2 hours standing in the rain and wind holding a sign. Does that sort of thing really change any minds? 

Anyway..

When I went to bed Tuesday night, Lamont was behind, but unlike that horrible night two years ago, there was hope, considering where the ballots were uncounted, that things would turn around. And they did. Ned will have a Democratic legislature, which should make life a little easier for him. I’ve heard from some folks that Ned doesn’t project a strong enough image, etc., but I think he’ll have more steel than people expect. It was Ned, after all, that stepped up and took on Lieberman, when no one else would do it, and it’s thanks to him that we finally saw the back of Lieberman. It’s an extra bonus that besides taking pleasure in Tuesday’s Democratic victories, we can wallow in schadenfreude at the thought of how pissed Lieberman must be at the thought of Lamont in the governor’s chair while he is reduced to bleating out bothsiderisms.

On a purely local level we did pretty well here in Groton, winning both state rep seats, and hopefully seeing the last of former one term state rep John Scott, who specializes in mud slinging campaigns. Unfortunately, Heather Somers, our incumbent Republican State Senator, was re-elected by the gun toting yahoos (Heather is an NRA fave) in the northern part of our district. Here in her home town of Groton, where we know her well, she lost to her far superior opponent, Bob Statchen.

The good people of Groton also surprised in another respect. A proposed charter revision, which would have allowed for mandatory multiple budget referenda every year, was voted down rather decisively. The proponents were a group of, for the most part, tea party types. Had it passed it would have been particularly bad for the schools, whose budgets were the main targets. Those of us on the “No” side had a tough job of it, since the “Yes” side could make their argument on a bumper sticker: “It’s your money, you deserve a vote”, while the “No” side’s argument was that political loser: nuanced and complicated. It’s always a stunning surprise when the right side wins in one of these situations, so it was one of a number of satisfactory outcomes on the local level.

Okay, so I was slightly wrong when I said that as go the Red Sox so go the Democrats. The Red Sox actually did better than the Democrats. I guess, geezer that I am, I can’t quite grasp that this is a new century, and the storied losers have changed their ways. Anyway, despite the fact that we didn’t win the long shot races that would have been delicious, such as the Texas Senate race, we did do about as well nationwide as could be reasonably expected, especially considering the degree to which the vote is suppressed in so many states.

Now the Democrats face a daunting task. It has been an honorable Democratic tradition for many decades now for the Democrats to get the shit beat out of them in years ending with zero, so that they are faced in as few places as possible with the moral question of whether they should engage in the same sort of gerrymandering that has enabled the Republicans to get into position to destroy the Republic. They will want to keep that purity intact. The odds are stacked against them. Trump will be running for reelection, and the odds are he’ll be even more hated then than he is now. We will quite likely be in a recession. It will be well nigh impossible for the Democrats to lose big time in 2020. But I have faith. They can pull it off. Unlike the Red Sox, they have not changed.

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Friday Night Music: Where is P.F. Sloan when we need him?

Friday, November 2, 2018

Or, Bob Dylan for that matter.

Little did we know at the time that it was more like the early morning of Destruction. I know it’s a small part of things, but we could use a song like this in the present day. It’s a shame Sloan’s no longer around to update the lyrics. If it’s not Destruction’s eve, it’s approaching midnight. Still, there’s always hope….Until there’s not.

Anyway, make sure to vote Tuesday. We still might be able to push the clock back a few minutes.

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Good, so far as it goes

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

So far as I know Paul Krugman is the only voice in the mainstream that calls out whataboutismand bothsiderism. His columntoday seems like a polite channeling of the always on target rants of Driftglass, a blogI highly recommend. 

There’s a major difference, however. See if you can spot it in the excerpt below:

False equivalence, portraying the parties as symmetric even when they clearly aren’t, has long been the norm among self-proclaimed centrists and some influential media figures. It’s a stance that has hugely benefited the GOP, as it has increasingly become the party of right-wing extremists.

You might have thought that the horrifying events of recent days would finally break through that norm. But you would have been wrong. Bothsidesism is, it turns out, a fanatical cult impervious to evidence. Trump famously boasted that his supporters would stick with him even if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue; what he didn’t point out was that pundits would piously attribute the shooting to “incivility,” and that Sunday talk shows would feature Fifth-Avenue-shooting advocates and give them a respectful hearing.

This needs to stop, and those who keep practicing bothsidesism need to be shamed. At this point, pretending that both sides are equally to blame, or attributing political violence to spreading hatred without identifying who’s responsible for that spread, is a form of deep cowardice.

The fact is that one side of the political spectrum is peddling hatred, while the other isn’t. And refusing to point that out for fear of sounding partisan is, in effect, lending aid and comfort to the people poisoning our politics. Yes, hate is on the ballot next week.

Unlike Driftglass, who calls out the hypocrisy with exhaustive documentation, when it comes to the media, Krugman names no names. This may be because prime examples dwell alongside him on the editorial pages of the Times, exemplified by a man whose name sort of rhymes with “kooks”. Maybe it’s just not the thing to explicitly criticize fellow journalists for enabling Trump, though, again, in a prime example of what Krugman is talking about, there is no reticence among the alleged journalists at Fox when it comes to criticizing actual journalists. Krugman has raised these issues before, often making veiled references to that rhyming fellow I mentioned above, but I’ve noticed that he never gives concrete examples of media bothsiderism. 

If we’re going to shame them, as Krugman recommends, we have to name them. We’ve come to a point in our history when we can’t afford to be polite.

As a sort of afterthought: there’s a good chance we’ve arrived at this bothsiderist point precisely due to the fact that the press was subjected to years and years of pointed and explicit criticism by the right for having an alleged liberal bias, whenever it reported the facts. That criticism had at least something to do with the emergence of bothsiderism. The fact that there was no pushback from the left (except from people like Driftglass, who they can safely ignore) and there continues to be no pushback (looking at you, so called Democratic leaders) means that bothsiderism is a safe harbor for media figures more interested in their salaries than truth.

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Friday Night Music, Something a bit different

Friday, October 26, 2018

I was trolling around at youtube trying to find something to put up tonight, when I chanced upon this video, which appears to be from a tribute to Mel Brooks, probably at the Kennedy Center. It’s a fun video, but also liked the fact that it brought back memories of a time when the President of the United States appreciated the arts, and the artists appreciated the President of the United States.

I will never forget the first time I watched the Producers (the film) and they started singing Springtime for Hitler. One of the funniest things I ever saw. Brooks is brilliant.

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