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A blogger’s woes in the era of the Very Stable Genius

Friday, October 26, 2018

Back in the long ago days when we spent our time blogging about the loathsome Joe Lieberman, GWB, and the rest of them, you could normally wait until the evening to post some words of wisdom about the current state of affairs. Things are moving way to fast these days, and unless you are constantly at the keyboard, it’s impossible to say anything that hasn’t been said before. Not just once, but a million times.

Consider this. It turns out, (and who could have predicted it ?) that the person behind the bombings was precisely who we thought it would be. A white male Trumper.Could it have been a person of any other description? Not just any white male Trumper. He’s a guy who plastered his van with threats against the folks who have been receiving those bombs.

A few minutes ago I pinboarded the above link and figured that in a short while I’d post something predicting that the conspiracy theories would seen be flying on the right, and, that most likely, Fox would find a way to excuse this guy. After all, white guys who do criminal things can generally be forgiven due to mental illness or the misery attendant upon being a loner, whereas the rare person of color who commits such a crime has done so because, as a person of color, they are inherently evil.

Anyway, within minutes I saw that the conspiracy theorizing has begun.This is the type of thing that trickles up these days. We’ve seen Republicans who are supposedly responsible buying into ridiculous conspiracy theories, so we can expect them to be buying into one or more of the theories percolating up from the whackjobosphere (I just made up that word, but I am giving it away for free). 

Okay, it wouldn’t have been a particularly original insight anyway, but still, couldn’t they have waited until the ink dried on the guy’s booking sheet?

Filed in Crazies | | Comments (1)

So far, so good

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

A while back I suggested that the fate of the Boston Red Sox and the Democratic Party might be mysteriously linked this year, victims or beneficiaries of some cosmic force that survives on a diet of irony. I observed that the Democrats were the Red Sox of baseball, always capable of blowing it in the end. And yet…

And yet, hope springs eternal in the human breast. So I submit that, just maybe, the fate of the Red Sox and the Democrats are inextricably entwined. If the Red Sox manage to go all the way, then so too, shall the Democrats. This year, the gods of baseball and the gods of politics have made a pact. As the Red Sox go, so goes the nation. Democrats: prepare for the worst.

But the Red Sox have not yet blown it! They trounced the hated Yankees. They did the same to the Astros, who we neither hate nor love; they simply exist in a part of the baseball universe that we ignore for 95% of the season. Now only the Dodgers, the Brooklyn castoffs, stand in the way. Is it possible that the Sox are going to pull us over the line?

Here’s a sign of hope. How delicious would it be if the biggest asshole in the Senate (and that is a difficult title to earn) were beaten in the red state of Texas. I’m not saying this is going to happen, but there appears to be hope. Consider that yesterday was the first day of voting in Texas, and turnout was huge (people waiting in lines) in blue leaning areas.

Now it’s true that, Texas being Texas, we can’t know how these people are voting, but consider again: would you turn out early and wait in line for Ted Cruz?

It just may be that the Dems and the Sox will both cross the finish line this year. At least we can still hope, though we must never forget the failures of which both are capable. I don’t know if Bill Buckner is a Democrat, but he should be.

Addendum: I feel sort of bad about that last sentence, as I have always maintained that Bill Buckner should not have been blamed for that disastrous loss. He was playing injured and should not have been in the game; the manager was counting Red Sox chickens without considering that they might not (given we’re talking Red Sox, probably would not) hatch. I well remember saying out loud, before that inning began, that of course Buckner would be removed for defensive purposes and Dave Stapleton would replace him, but this obvious move did not take place. Anyway, the pitchers were in the process of blowing the game, so Buckner merely hastened the process.

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A year ago today

Friday, October 19, 2018

I keep a journal on my Ipad, and every day it displays entries from previous years. Besides chronicling my own boring life I’ve been making note of the doings of the very stable genius. Among other things I noted the following a year ago. The quotes in the entry below are from some internet source; I failed to insert a link in the journal, which I usually do. Anyway take my word they were written by someone at the time, and given the subject, it hardly matters who:

Finally, it what can only be considered a Supreme Irony, it looks like there may be an actual Benghazi lurking in the Niger episode, where four servicemen got killed. Of course it will come out only over the dead bodies of several Republican Congresspeople, but in fact, that may happen (figuratively):

Let’s get back to the real issue: What happened to those troops in Niger, and why isn’t the administration talking about it? Just like in Benghazi, terrible things happen. Trump’s refusal to address it may indicate something else — or it may simply represent his inability to accept responsibility for anything that isn’t a victory.

And McCain, who has nothing to lose, and may be looking to burnish his reputation, doesn’t appear to want to let it go:

Even Defense Secretary James Mattis and Sen. John McCain, chair of the Senate’s Armed Forces Committee, don’t have the clarity they want.

When asked whether the Trump administration was being up front about the ambush in southwest Niger on Oct. 4, McCain issued a blunt “no” on Wednesday. […] “We deserve to have all the information.”

He’s talking subpoenas. There are rumors about Russian involvement in the operation. If we were carrying water for the Russians that could be explosive, since it could be perceived as a payoff, a perception that would probably be true.

Can you say Benghazi?

You can’t blame McCain for not following up; he was a dying man. But no one followed up, and the entire incident disappeared down the memory hole, along with so much of the other criminality of the current administration. A prediction: a year from now the fact that the current administration countenanced the murder of a journalist who was an American resident will be entirely forgotten.

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The DCCC, an incompetent organization

Thursday, October 18, 2018

A few weeks ago I got a fairly suspicious voicemail from a recorded voice stating it was calling from the D-C-C-C. It did not use the term “Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It advised me that I would soon be getting a absentee ballot and that I should make sure to fill it out and return it right away. Needless to say I found this email somewhat misleading, as I had not applied for an absentee ballot, nor am I eligible to do so. The voice provided a telephone number but I was in no position to write it down so I was unable to call it. I did notify someone I know who works at the secretary of state’s office, as it seemed like voter suppression to me. I figured that even the people at the DCCC couldn’t be so stupid that they’d call a Connecticut resident with information that was clearly inconsistent with Connecticut state law.

Turns out I was wrong. A couple of days ago they called again, this time leaving a voicemail. I have tried to embed it below, and hopefully this will work.

voicemail.wav

I forwarded it to my contact at the Secretary of States’s office, and received a phone call from a nice person there who told me she would follow up. A few minutes ago she called to ask me if by chance I had been registered recently in another state, say, North Carolina. Well, as it turns out I had not been, but a relative, who lives in France but votes in North Carolina has, on occasion, used our address and phone number as a contact. So, in fact, it was the DCCC, calling numbers outside of North Carolina with North Carolina specific information, not even bothering to make that clear and, no doubt, potentially confusing as many people as they might enlighten. How hard could it be to tailor the message in such a way that it would not potentially confuse the legions of non-North Carolinians likely to get this robocall? How hard could it be to notice that there were calls going to non-North Carolina area codes and that might cause a problem? Leave it to the DCCC to counter Republican voter suppression tactics with unconscious voter suppression of their own.

This, of course is only a minor example of the sundry ways in which the DCCC is doing it’s best to blow the upcoming election, or, at the very least, stock the House of Representatives with DINOs that will vote with the Republicans 80% of the time.

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More whining about messaging

Thursday, October 18, 2018

This postat Hullabaloo caught me eye. In it, Digby states the obvious about Republican tax cuts:

It’s a simple scheme, really. Whenever they control the government they immediately pass massive tax cuts and massive increases in military spending, always promising that the wealthy and the corporations will pour all that money back into the economy and it will end up increasing revenues because of all the growth it will stimulate. But it never does.

It’s actually quite brilliant because the real goal isn’t just to give tax cuts to the rich and spend huge sums of money on the military. It’s also to run up the debt so Republicans can turn around and wring their hands over the need to be “fiscally responsible” and force the government to cut spending on programs they don’t like. They are specifically hostile to what they call “entitlements”: the big-ticket items of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

It should be a simple matter to come up with a simple, coherent message to expose this con game, particularly because, as Digby points out, they’ve done it again and again with the same results each time. Yet, the Democrats can’t seem to be able to do it. Nor can they come up with a counterattack when the Republicans blame them for failing to deal with the deficits that Republicans created.

This kind of con game goes on at every political level. Last night I attended a debate between our incumbent Republican Senator, Heather Somers, and our candidate, Bob Statchen. Heather has no problem advocating for reduced taxes on the rich (her first move as a state senator was a proposal to repeal the Connecticut estate tax and the business tax), which she takes as a given that we can afford, but immediately whines about our inability to pay for anything, such as paid family medical leave, that benefits normal people. The latter just couldn’t be done, she assured her listeners. To his credit, Bob insisted we could do it, as have so many other states. Of course, Heather insists that increased revenue is off the table. We can’t have tolls, she insists, while she lies about various aspects of that revenue source. And of course, we can’t raise the minimum wage, because it would destroy the state if we stopped exporting the money Walmart is saving by paying slave wages to Arkansas and the pockets of the Waltons. 

But I rant.

This particular race is extremely important, by the way. Heather is vulnerable, and Bob is a good candidate. If the Senate remains tied, or goes Republican, and Lamont wins, the Senate Republicans will do to him what the US Senate Republicans did to Obama. 

Filed in Democrats, Local issues, Rants | | Comments (0)

Friday Night Music

Friday, October 12, 2018

This video raises the question: Why are the songs protesting the very stable genius being sung by 76 year olds. Maybe there are others out there, but I haven’t heard about them. I hope that’s the case. I do know that the Vietnam War, as bad as it was, was nowhere near the existential threat to democracy than is the current administration.

Anyway, to the music. A video by Barbra Streisand.

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In the unlikely event that the Democrats don’t blow it…

Friday, October 12, 2018

Let me direct your attention to this thought provoking post at Naked Capitalism. The thrust of the argument made is that, should the Democrats not blow it, and they take one or more of the Houses of Congress this year, they should avoid investigations into Trump’s crimes and corruption, instead concentrating on promoting a legislative agenda, with the following suggested as composing part of that agenda:

[code language=”plain”][/code]

The argument is that while none of these things could be passed, they are all popular, and would set the agenda going into 2020.

I’ve made a similar argument. I believe I’ve made it here (too lazy to look), and I know I’ve made it ranting at Drinking Liberally. It’s simply not enough to be the not Republicans, we need to be the party of something. In part, by the way, that means forgetting this “pay-go” crap that Pelosi has used to hamstring the Democrats. If they can run deficits to give money to rich people, we can run deficits to help real people. The argument is simple actually. It is not reckless to borrow money to buy a house (i.e., make an investment); it is reckless to borrow money to give a party. Republicans do the latter, we can do the former.

I do differ with the author of the piece at Naked Capitalism. I think we can do both. That is, we can investigate Trump and promote progressive legislation at the same time. The problem is that it would require some strategizing and some party discipline, both of which the Democratic Party lacks. The investigations can be done in a sort of low key manner, with the Democrats talking very little about them, but just doing them. When they open their mouths, it should be to talk about health care, free college, etc. Sure, the media will cover the investigations, but with proper planning the Democrats could develop talking points to shift attention to policy.

The impediment to my approach, or that of the fellow at Naked Capitalismis the Democratic Party itself. It lacks the vision to do what he suggests. The people running the show will, no doubt, refuse to embrace a progressive agenda. They will want to prove to the DC punditry that they are responsible, which means occupying a middle ground that exists only in the Twilight Zone. They will pursue the investigations. They have no choice about that. Buy they will occupy themselves, on the policy side, with marginalizing the progressive wing of the party. After all, why make it easy to win in 2020 when you can make it a real challenge?

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Friday Night Music-Jefferson Airplane

Friday, October 5, 2018

Marty Balin died last week, which made it easy to pick a band this week. This performance of Somebody to Love is clearly not lip synced. It’s from the Dick Cavett show, and David Crosby is apparently pitching in. I realize that Balin plays a sort of secondary part in this song, but I like the song, so that’s that.

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Told you so, but it was easy

Friday, October 5, 2018

The Kavanaugh thing has unwound pretty much as I predicted, a fact from which I take no satifaction. I think it is entirely likely that future historians (if they are allowed to write honest histories) will date the final downfall of our form of government to this date. It is most probable that this Supreme Court will overturn any progressive legislation passed from this day forward, and may well go back and strike down some of the legislation we’ve taken for granted.

We are an oligarchy now, or may very well be. It’s possible that we can avoid that fate if we take both the House and Senate, but that requires good turnout, so we can’t let our probable fate discourage us. Vote now, or we may never get a meaningful vote again.

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Yet another in a long series of modest proposals

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

The focus so far as the Kavanaugh vote goes has been on Flake, Collins and Murkowski, the so-called moderate Republicans. (That phrase is now officially an oxymoron.) Not much attention has been paid to the DINO Democrats, Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp, who have expressed varying degrees of openness to voting for Kavanaugh.

They fear, apparently, that voting against Kavanaugh will discourage the people who would never vote for them in a million years from voting for them, while, as all good Democrats do, they show no concern about the numbers of potential votes they throw away by convincing potential Democratic voters that there’s really no point in voting at all.

Presumably, they would like to vote against the guy, but they’re afraid. A lot of that fear stems, as it always does, from pathetic Democratic messaging. The ideological opposition to him has focused almost solely on abortion and women’s rights; the political opposition almost solely on his treatment of women.

The Democrats don’t seem to notice, or don’t want to notice, that the anti-abortion judges that the Republicans appoint are not being appointed for their anti-abortion views. In their heart of hearts (if they have hearts), they don’t care about abortion. Those views are featured to appeal to their own base, because, after all, even the nutjobs might have a problem if the Republicans were upfront about the fact that the real reason these guys are being advanced is because they are reliable pro-corporate, anti-people votes. A subset of people is “working people” and it would be no exaggeration for Joe Manchin to justify a negative vote by saying, in effect, that the lies Kavanaugh told the Judiciary committee were troubling in and of themselves, but what really pushed him toward a no vote was that Kavanaugh never met a corporation he didn’t like, or a worker that he did. His judicial record amply supports such a statement. The people of West Virginia would get that, but they have to hear it from someone. Democrats being Democrats, they probably never will.

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