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Jeff Flake: it doesn’t take much to make a hero these days, does it?

Sunday, September 30, 2018

In light of the Times puff pieceyesterday, and the Times was not alone (my wife says Twitter is full of folks praising his principled actions), I think it’s time to, as Randy Newman’s devil sang,“inject a note of reality on this festive occasion”, for, as Randy went on to sing, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard such bullshit”. I’m not the first to point all this out, but I do want to add my voice to the somewhat drowned out chorus of naysayers.

Flake is a fraud, as are all the other so called moderates in the Republican caucus. He has cultivated an image of “moderation”, while, along with Corker, Murkowski, Collins, et. al., he has enabled Trump at every turn.

Here’s what I think we can expect.

It is practically a given that the FBI will be unable to confirm Dr. Ford’s story. We all know it’s true, but other than her word, there is no hard evidence, unless Mark Judge decides to confess, but he’ll say he doesn’t recall. This is no surprise; she’s been upfront from day one about the lack of any contemporary witnesses.

So, even if the FBI truly does go beyond Trump’s original limitson the investigation, and looks into Kavanaugh’s perjury and other crimes, Flake, Murkowski, and Collins will limit their personal inquiries to whether the FBI establishes Kavanaugh’s guilt of attempted rape of Dr. Ford. They will disregard all other disqualifying factors, whether the FBI exposes them or not. His lies have been called out and cataloguedfor what they are, or, in the case of the New York Times, catalogued while tippy toeingaround the word “lie”. He lies even when he doesn’t have to. His testimony at the hearing demonstrated beyond doubt that he lacks the temperament and personal qualities that should be required of a Supreme Court justice. 

None of this will matter to Flake. Should the FBI fail to find Kavanaugh guilty beyond reasonable doubt of attempting to rape Dr. Ford, which it surely must, Flake will vote to confirm, as will Collins and Murkowski. He will nonetheless reap the benefits of his courageous stand for principle. It’s amazing how low the bar is for a Republican to qualify as a principled moderate. 

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Friday Night Music, a bit topical

Friday, September 28, 2018

The Very Stable Genius has to be considered the very acme of liars, lying even when he has no need to, so he certainly puts Brett Kavanaugh in the shade. But, Brett is still up there, since, yesterday, almost every word he uttered was a lie or a statement meant to misdirect. The atrocities are documented elsewhere. I would just submit that in my humble opinion there’s enough to warrant a perjury charge when next we take the White House. That saves the time and trouble of an impeachment, and avoids the impossibility of getting the majority needed in the Senate to convict.

Anyway, I originally intended to try to find *Liar, Liar*, by the Castaways. I ultimately rejected that, because the available videos of that are fairly crappy, and, anyway, in the song, it’s the girl that’s the liar. But I stumbled on *Liar*, by Queen, and it seems perfect. Queen came along just as I was tuning out the most current stuff, so I had never heard this before, but it’s not bad, and I think we can all imagine that good Catholic boy Brett will be running to the confessional tomorrow (the confessionals were open Saturday afternoon at Our Lady of Sorrows, and I think it’s like that everywhere) to get his slate wiped clean. Now, the priest should actually require him to divest himself of his ill gotten gains. Brett should be saying, to paraphrase Hamlet’s uncle:

Then I’ll look up
My fault is past.
But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul lies’?
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I told the lies,
My robes, mine own ambition and my entitlement.
May one be pardon’d and retain the offence?

But, he’ll get off with a few Hail Mary’s and an Our Father or two, so “all may be well”.

Anyway, here’s Queen

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Installment 9999 of “What if Obama had done that?”

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Yesterday the delegates to the United Nations laughed at the person who currently holds the position of President of the United States. In the three papers I get each morning, it is barely mentioned, and in one the laughs are referred to as “chuckles”. Of course, Fox didn’t even let its viewers know about it. The fact that the world laughed at the president will be forgotten by tomorrow. Once again ask yourself, what if this had happened to Obama, or any Democrat.

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Kavanaugh

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

The end of the Kavanaugh saga approaches. A few observations.

First, lets stipulate that all the evidence suggests that Dr. Ford’s account of Kavanaugh’s actions is substantially true. We can also put aside any question of whether Kavanaugh’s actions when he was fifteen are sufficient grounds to deny him the right to strip women, minorities, gay people, Democratic voters, and workers of their rights for the next forty years. His persistent lies about his past actions, and his present involvement in attempts to smear his accuser are sufficient grounds, and those actions are taking place right now.

I read today that the loathsome Neil Gorsuch is also an alum of Georgetown Prep, which leads one to wonder what, precisely, the Jesuits are doing over there. Was there no adult supervision of these up and coming masters of the universe? Let’s take another look at that yearbook page.

I went to a public high school. All of our organized activities had faculty advisers. I can say without doubt that this sort of stuff would never have gotten into one of our yearbooks, even if someone had been coarse enough to want to put it in. One can only speculate about what the priests were doing when they should have been supervising the entitled offspring of the Washington rich.

Another observation. I went to a college where there were lots of preppies, most of whom attended single sex prep schools. It seemed to me, even then, that they came in two flavors. There were the predator types who thought of females as sex objects and only sex objects and there were the decent types who, not having been exposed to females in their formative high school years (and possibly not even before that) were painfully shy around girls and couldn’t quite conceive that they could be acquaintances as well as objects of desire. The single exception was a guy in one of my classes who kept talking about his girlfriend in Northern Ireland, who turned out to be imaginary. Anyway, it is thoroughly believable that Kavanaugh had the attitude toward women that is reflected in the allegations of his accusers, and in his casual claim to be a “Renate Alumnius”.

As to the current situation: Kavanaugh knows that Ford is telling the truth. The Republicans know she is telling the truth. He will lie about it. His lie will probably be to the effect that something probably did happen to her at a party, but the little woman’s memory is mixed up as to identity. Every Republican on the committee will know that any woman to whom such a thing happened would never forget the identity of her attacker. Nonetheless, they will pretend to believe it. Kavanaugh will also lie about his involvement in the aborted attempt to blame a named middle school teacher for the assault, which everyone will also know is a lie, just as everyone knew he was lying when he denied any knowledge of Judge Kozinski’s antics. Actually, it’s extremely easy to know when he’s lying: it’s when his mouth is open.

It remains to be seen whether Profile in Courage Susan Collins and her sister in courage, Lisa Murkowski, will decline to vote as ordered by their male bosses. There’s a lot of talk on the internet that the nomination is really in trouble, but my guess is that he’ll be a Supreme Court judge by the end of the month.

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A good idea! From a Democrat!

Sunday, September 23, 2018

This is a good idea! And from a Democrat!

Former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm has a rather brilliant idea for the Democrats to move around the Republican majority’s attempt to protect Brett Kavanaugh.

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s attorneys have negotiated an appearance to speak before the Senate Judiciary Committee for Thursday, but the GOP majority has determined that only Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh will be able to speak, that there will be no other witnesses or investigation brought forward.

So Granholm, on the panel of CNN’s State of the Union, suggests that the Democrats arrange to have other witnesses and testimony be given a platform on a show–like State of the Union, to make sure the American people have all the information that the Republicans are keeping from them.

Unfortunately, the Democrats don’t have their own television network, like the Republicans, but I think they’d be able to pull something like this off with decent coverage (even if only streaming) if they did it. It is crystal clear at this point that Kavanaugh is lying, and that the Republicans are conspiring with him to cover for him.

There is a wealth on information on line that leads one to the inescapable conclusion that the Republicans knew this claim was coming, and that they prepared for it by coming up with risible defenses and by preparing, of course, to slime Ford. Restricting the hearing to a he said-she said debate is part of that strategy. We can only hope that the Democrats (there are at least three skilled litigators on the committee) are aware of all these issues and are prepared to explore them with Kavanaugh and, if possible, to present the case just as Granholm suggests.

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Friday Night Music-School Days

Friday, September 21, 2018

So, this is going up a bit early, because in a short while I’ll be hitting the road to attend the first of two events connected to my high school reunion ( HPHS!!!! SAY IT LOUDER! WE’RE THE BEST). I won’t say how long it’s been, but if you guessed that the first digit is a five (and there’s another digit after that), you’d be absolutely correct.

When you think about it, there’s not really that many songs out there about the high school experience. I even did a Duck Duck Go (I have foresworn Google) and didn’t find much. I did find one list, which included this song, which speaks to one facet of the educational experience. It takes a while for them to get to the actual song, but I thought it made sense to put up this version. Given that I’m a geezer now, it seemed appropriate that it be sung by geezers.

Of course, there’s a bit of a dark side to the educational experience. I have to say that my own high school experience was relatively pleasant, and I can think of only one teacher I truly loathed, but at the time I could probably have related to this next song in ways I can’t now. I’m putting up two versions, one from the movie and Cindy Lauper’s performance at the Berlin Wall. It’s a great song.

 

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An anomaly

Friday, September 21, 2018

Sometimes it’s tough being an ultra right wing organization. The problem is, you’re best strategy for success as an organization is failure. Just ask the NRA and the arms manufacturers that back it (we’ll put Russia aside for the moment). Turns out that times are toughwhen you’re on top:

The NRA is losing membership fees, and it’s running up huge deficits as a result. These grim findings, based on an audit obtained by OpenSecrets, raise doubts about the long-term prospects of the radical gun lobbying group.

“The document offers the first look at the NRA’s finances in the wake of the 2016 elections,” OpenSecrets reports. “It shows that for the last two years, the NRA saw plummeting income from dues-paying members, and that has, in turn, fueled growing deficits.”

Specifically, the NRA ran up a $14 million deficit in 2016, which then ballooned to $31 million in 2017. That’s a stunning reversal from 2015, when the NRA posted $27 million in positive assets.

There may be multiple reasons for the decline. It may be that younger people are as turned off to guns as they are to cars, and as NRA members die (there are good things about the fact that people die) they are not being replaced by other addle-brained individuals. But I think, in the main, the NRA is the victim of its own success:

The gun industry, which the NRA represents, is also suffering huge sales losses in the Trump era. Traditionally, gun sales soar when there is a Democrat in the White House because the NRA and its allies in the right-wing press gin up hysteria about gun ownership being outlawed.

But without that artificial panic, gun sales have plummeted.

If Hillary had won, the NRA would be doing just fine.

It’s somewhat interesting that the arms industry isn’t stepping in and making up for the funds the NRA has lost from dues. It must be nice to have a bunch of suckers pay for your lobbyists, and maybe they just can’t quite believe those days may be past.

For sure, this is not an isolated phenomenon. I’m sure Act Blue is bringing in more money now than before Trump got elected. But it remains a fact that these right wing groups thrive on casting themselves as imperiled victims, and that, in their heart of hearts, they’d really much rather that the Democrats win, so they can keep the till well filled. Maybe that’s the real reason they’re pulling back on political spending:

So far this season, the NRA has committed to spend just $3 million to help Republicans. That’s down from $19 million in 2016, and $11 million in 2014 at this same juncture in the midterm election cycle.

After all, if the Republicans lose big time, the NRA can start scare mongering about gun confiscations, etc., and their real clients, the gun manufacturers, will start raking in the cash again.

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Nothing new here

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Dave Collins, a columnist at the Day, did a survey of Republican legislators in this part of the state to see if any of them could explain how Stefanowski can eliminate the state income tax. He noted at the beginning of his piece, that there’s a talking point that the notion is really just “aspirational”.

I’m not sure it’s true that those are official talking points. Curiously, they would belie the actual promise of gubernatorial candidate Stefanowski, who doesn’t hedge at all about being able to eliminate a tax that provides half the state’s revenue.

He never wavers on the notion that it is possible, even though he admits he has no idea how it would be accomplished until he gets into office and starts working on the budget.

In chatting with GOP candidates from southeastern Connecticut this week about their impressions of Stefanowski’s promise to end the income tax, none could explain how it would happen. Most sounded generally skeptical but, to a person, they all suggested it was a noble goal.

I suppose it is a noble goal, to a Republican. We Democrats have goals like health care for all, equality before the law, voting rights for everyone, etc. They strike me as more noble than getting rid of one of the few taxes that hits the rich as much as the rest of us, at least on a percentage basis.

Collins appears to recognize that, as Dean Baker might say, Mr. Arithmetic precludes reaching this noble goal, unless, that is, one decides to completely defund the state government, or institute new, or raise, other taxes, like the sales tax, that hit the lower and middle classes harder than the rich.

I’m not sure whether Collins is genuinely puzzled at the inability of the local Republicans to grapple honestly with this issue. If he is, then one must ask where he’s been for the past 38 years, since ever since Reagan (at least) the Republican modus operandi has been to lie about the magic effect of tax reductions for rich people. Stefanowski proposes a more extreme version of what Sam Brownback did to Kansas.

What’s that definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But lets give the Republicans their due. They don’t really expect different results. The intent is to destroy the ability of the government to act effectively, thereby proving their assertions that government can’t work, though they leave out the part about it not working when it’s run by people who don’t want it to work. Make no mistake, if the Republicans take over Connecticut’s government, this will be one of many things they will do to destroy the state’s economy, leaving it to the Democrats to do what they’ve been doing for years now: clean up their mess.

If Collins is aware of this basic history, he makes no mention of it. It’s almost as if this sort of thing just started yesterday. It really is time for the press, on both the state and national level, to stop the both-siderism, and call out the Republicans for what they are. In that respect, three cheers for Paul Krugman, who is doing just that. 

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You’re welcome, Rachel

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

My wife and I were in a hotel in Maine Friday night, which means we had access to a television for the first time in quite a while, and, more importantly, reason to watch. The last time we watched television was in another hotel room, the night of the first vote on Obamacare repeal. Friday Night was Paul Manafort flip night, so we settled to wallow and watched Rachel Maddow. 

Turns out, we weren’t alone. Rachel had higher ratingsthat night than any other television show, including the loathsome Hannity.

She couldn’t have done it without us, as I’m sure we put her over the top. 

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Heather ducks debates

Sunday, September 16, 2018

Bob Statchen, the Democratic candidate for the 18th Senatorial District (my District) has a letterin today’s New London Day in which he wonders why it is that Heather Somers, the incumbent Senator, has failed to respond to his own, and third party, requests that she debate him. He suggests a variety of reasons for her reluctance:

Possibly Senator Somers’ strategy is to rely on her built-in name recognition as an incumbent and reduce exposure for a challenger. Possibly Senator Somers has not developed a coherent economic policy which she is ready to discuss. Possibly Senator Somers is not prepared to defend her legislative record from the past two years. Whatever the case, the people in this district deserve better. I urge newspapers, community organizations and individual citizens to encourage Senator Somers to engage in the democratic process and give voters the ability to make an informed choice.

All good explanations, but let me suggest another. Heather is much more comfortable in front of single issue audiences, where she can tell the people what they want to hear. That way she can go to the folks on the other side of the issue, and tell them what theywant to hear, with no one on the other side the wiser. She’s largely gotten away with this sort of thing, but not always. I understand she actually tried to snooker the people at Rise Up Mystic, but they weren’t having it from the woman who said, in 2016, that it really didn’t matter who got elected president as the decision in the 18th Connecticut Senatorial District was far more important, but if she really had to say then she had to allow as she’d be voting for the stable genius because while she didn’t like what he said, she didn’t like what Hillary had done, the exact nature of those evil deeds going unstated, of course. She also takes care to try to stay safely on both sides of an issue on which she’s voted. She was for banning bump stocks, but, sadly, her amendment that would have rendered the ban meaningless was voted down, so she had no choice but to vote against banning them. 

In a debate, you’re more or less forced to take a firm position on things in front of a diverse audience, and Heather doesn’t like to do that. She’s even more uncomfortable defending herself now, because she has cast votes (e.g., her pro bump stock vote) that are hard to defend anywhere except in the fever swamp of the far right voters she can’t afford to offend.

In a way, it’s hard for to understand her reluctance, because the New London Day, which ordinarily supplies the questioners for these debates, has treated her with kid gloves throughout her political career. But talking out of both sides of her mouth has worked well for her, so my guess is that unless forced by circumstances, she’ll avoid any forum in which she has to take a firm position on anything. 

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