Day 792

Day 792 Saturday March 9, 2019

604 Days to the 2020 election and 682 Days to Inauguration Day

Matt Schlapp was on Bill Maher. He’s the conservative from Kansas that runs CPAC. It was interesting to hear this guy because of how he minced and nuanced somethings and how he didn’t on other issues. The main point that he made was “Hey Trump got elected based on saying he would do certain things and on every major promise he’s done those things.” This is what the guy said – essentially (I didn’t look up the exact quote.) This leaves me in the position of wondering: “does he really believe that?” The “that” can cover several cases:

1) Does he really believe that Trump has accomplished that which he promised to do or

2) is Schlapp trying to pretend he has?

 

There is evidenced for both and herein lies the dilemma with trying to talk with people who like Trump. They merrily switch between believing he has while denying the facts, and knowing he hasn’t and not caring. All the while ignoring or pooh-poohing real issues.

There are two places that Schlapp exhibited the behavior I’m talking about. First was when Bill asked him about the wall. Schlapp said they are building the wall. Bill said they aren’t. Matt said that every year they have gotten money for the wall. Well, that’s a clever pivot! Getting money for fence repair or whatever ain’t building a new wall, but Matt is happy with that, or pretends to be. It’s enough of a fig leaf for him to be able to hide behind.

Second was he mentioned in a small slew of things Trump has “accomplished” is a tax cut. Well, Congress passed a bill, called a tax cut, and it is – for the wealthy. Everyone else gets screwed. Is that a tax cut? I guess so. The idea was sold under the guise that it was going to rev up the economy – it hasn’t. That everyone was going to benefit – they didn’t. And that the deficit was going to go down because of it – it’s ballooned. Plus, revenues were going to go up tremendously – They didn’t. The economy would be at 4% – it’s not. The money corporations were going to get back would be put into rebuilding America’s infrastructure – didn’t happen.

So yeah, there was a bill. The bill had in the title “tax cut” or was referred to as such, but was it? No.

What worries me is that people like Schlapp are slick in wiggling around the basic truth. Why they want to do that we can debate, but the problem I see for the rest of us is that these people have a hidden agenda that they masquerade as many other things. This is a power grab and distraction. The real thing that is going on is the widening gap between rich and poor, between privilege based on race, wealth, and parentage versus equal opportunity. We have to look no further than the sentencing of Paul Manafort for evidence of that, but in fairness to the judge, I have heard that he is for reduced sentencing for many crimes. I’d like to see what his record is for poor black drug offenders – for example. But if Manafort’s sentencing was applied to all those who have gotten sentenced and were reduces percentage-wise to the sentencing guidelines then we’d have something. (that would make a sentence be 20% of the sentencing guidelines.)

There were several things of interest on the panel discussion of Bill’s show. 

One was the analysis based on poll percentages that Trump could win in 2020. He’s at 41% and that’s where other presidents were at this time in their first term who won a second term. Wow. 

Two was the discussion about the muslim woman in Congress who made disparaging remarks about Jews and Israel. There are two distinct points that were being made. One was that she was criticizing Israel for its policies toward the Palestinians. The other was the argument that she was a slur against Jews that has been used for many centuries against the jews around the world and was in fact used by the Nazis. That slur is that the Jewish people are more wedded to Jews than they are to whatever country they are living in. This is referenced in many different ways by folks who want to make this point, typically it’s obliquely referenced as some great world-wide Jewish conspiracy, etc. But it’s been out there for literally centuries. In fact, the Nazis really didn’t have to do much to play on people’s fears because most of the ground work had already been done by the retelling of this kind of stuff. Couple that with the fact that around the time of the rise of the Nazis many of the rural population of Russia was uprooted and forced to move into urban areas. Many of these people were Jewish and most were unsophisticated. Dislike was easy to foment.

It’s also hard to try to make a deal with someone who believes that what’s yours really should be mine. This is the view of the Palestinians toward the Israelis, and they have reason to believe this. And it is also the attitude of the Israelis toward the Palestinians and they have a religion that tells them this. (I know. I know. Please, save your breath.)

But it is also the basic negotiating ultimate position of so many peoples and regimes around the world.

The point being that the Muslim Congresswoman brought up some legitimate questions but then wrapped it in an old stereotypical ethnic slur. Not cool. It is also true that she has said things about Saudi Arabia that are similar to what she said about Israel, but that doesn’t get anywhere near the attention that her Israeli comments receive.

Then there’s the really fun thing. Tom Steyer has run some ads in Mark Meadows’ and Jim Jordan’s districts pointing out what little shits there two are. Both of those districts are poster children for why we need to get rid of gerrymandering. Jordan’s district is a skinny little tract of land that runs north south through the middle of Ohio. It’s very very conservative. Meadows has a similar conservative makeup. And here’s the thing, both of these right wing, Freedom Caucus founders could be primaried from the right. I don’t know how you can become more out of touch, obstructionist, and nutty right wing than these two but if anywhere in America can do it I trust those two districts to be able to show us. At least Steyer is pointing out to folks in those districts how anti-American and hurtful to the American ideals there fools are. Will it make a difference? Maybe a little. Ya gotta start somewhere.

And lastly, the most inspiring thing I have seen in a long time was the touchdown video of DragonX, Elon Musk’s space capsule, after leaving the International Space Station. Wow. Wow. (“Hey Clyde, we gotter git rid of deem immigrants. Dey not only stealin’ our jobs, but they’re makin’ us look bad. Creatin’ whole new industries and such.”) 

Elon Musk created Paypal. Sold it for billions and took that money and invested it in America. You know like what the tax cut bill was supposed to do. He really did it. What did he create? A solar company, A car company, A rocket company, and in his spare time he’s proposed a tunneling company. This ain’t a guy who got rich making a app that puts a funny hat on someone’s photo. This is big hard to do stuff. And he’s an immigrant. This is the kind of person the Trump wants to keep out of our country.

604 Days to the 2020 election and 682 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Dragon X – Reentry and Splashdown!