Archives for April 2019

Day 824 Wednesday April 10, 2019

572 Days to the 2020 election and 650 Days to Inauguration Day

The Lovin’ Spoonful had a song called, “Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?” 

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Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Say “Yes” to one and let the other one ride?

Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Sometimes you really dig a girl the moment you kiss her,

And then you get distracted by her older sister,

When in walks her father and takes you in line,

And says, “Better go on home, son, and make up your mind.”

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OKAY  We are at, or close to, that point.

Lemme explain.

 

William Barr, the Attorney General, testified to Congress yesterday. Here is a summary (it’s not a summary!) of what he said (and didn’t say):

– He said he would release a report of what Mueller said to the public within a week. Congress goes on a two week Easter break starting this weekend, which means they will be gone by the time he releases it, if he does within the timeframe he set. Nice. 

– He did not answer the question as to whether or not the report or any part of it has been shared with the White House.

– When asked about the case his department is bringing to strike down the ACA in its entirety he seemed to be saying that he wasn’t putting much in the way of resources into it and that we should let the courts do their job. He seemed to be hinting that he was doing a pro-forma job and hopefully the courts would throw the case out. Or…

He said that once the law was thrown out the administration was going to (magically) replace it with another health care law.

He also waffled and didn’t really answer the question as to whether the decision to bring the case to get rid of the ACA took into account the millions of people that would be thrown off health care or have huge increases in premiums.

In short, he either didn’t answer questions, or he gave answers that had nothing to do with legality, and he seemed to be just another political hack carrying water for the president.

He will soon have to decide. Is he another toady political hack or is he as the chief law enforcement officer in the country going to do his job and uphold the law? In one case the law is The ACA.

Likewise, all these radical conservative judges that have been forced down our throats that the Republicans are so proud to have put on benches all across the country and who are part of the radical organization called The Federalist Society that claims to be all beholding to the Constitution as originally envisioned are going to have to decide, “Do they support the laws of the land and the Constitution, or do they fold and do the illegal things the president wants?”

Meanwhile Stevie Mnuchin was testifying in a room with a bookcase, god knows to whom, I guess it was some folks in Congress. He’s a weird dude. I always thought so, but he has a odd mannerism of lurching his head forward as he speaks. Maybe, he only does it when he’s lying? 

So his situation is this. He’s head of Treasury. The IRS reports to him. However, there is a law on the books that plainly says if the Head of The Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives asks for tax returns the Commissioner of the IRS has to provide them. There is a directive that gives this authority to the Commissioner and not the Secretary of the Treasury. Why? So a political hack appointed to head up the Treasury can’t screw it up, that’s why. 

So what did Mnuchin do? He apparently inserted himself into the process. What did the IRS Commissioner say about all this? He said it’s not clear who is going to decide what to do. And Steve? He said the lawyers are looking at it. Well, that’s great. Can they read? It’s a simple declarative sentence. Hope they can figure it out.

Then we get back to Barr. A Congress woman asked him a question and he said he would follow the law. She asked him, which law? He waffled. She asked him quoting the number of the statute and holding it up and asked him if that was the law he was going to follow? He said he would follow the law.

Guess you better finally decide.

572 Days to the 2020 election and 650 Days to Inauguration Day

PS “Laocoön” El Greco 1610/1614

Laocoön was a Trojan priest who was killed along with his sons by sea serpents after warning his people about the wooden horse.

 

Day 823 Tuesday April 9, 2019

573 Days to the 2020 election and 651 Days to Inauguration Day

The Agenda – The Summary

Shame & Guilt, Type II Diabetes, Otto von Bismarck, The Bismarck, Pete Buttigieg’s Speech, Christian Conservative homophobia, Republican hypocrisy and homosexuality, the limits of toadyism in the age of Trump, the tax returns, the acting power play, the acting and the playing government and a modest proposal.

Do I need to expound? Isn’t it obvious? No?

See this is where I get into trouble. I think it’s obvious so I don’t explain then people think I’m an idiot. Idiot no more! I’ll explain.

First off, Shelby was in Denmark. She was one of eight speakers at a Nova Nordisk event in their series called “Deep Talk.” She was the fifth speaker. It’s on their website and you can probably find it on their facebook page. Many of the speakers I had heard threads of what they had said before. However, the first woman who spoke talked about the shame and guilt of having type II diabetes. She at first, like many people, felt ashamed that she had what many consider a preventable  condition. She felt guilty that she had gotten this disease. Shame and Guilt.

Wow.

We’ll come back to that concept, but now it’s time to talk about Otto von Bismarck. The man who united Germany. He employed a tactic that he called “the whip and the sugarplum” to get all the little German principalities to ban together to form what is today the country of Germany. He was so revered that in world War II the biggest battleship ever built was named after him. The Bismarck was thought to be unsinkable. Huge and heavily armored with some of the biggest guns ever created. It was going to harass and sink ships trying to resupply Britain. 

On it’s first time out of port it engaged the HMS Hood, the pride of the British navy, and as the Johnny Horton song, “Sink the Bismarck” says, “The Bismarck started firing sixteen miles away…” Do you have any idea what sixteen miles at sea looks like? I doubt the ships could see much of each other. Maybe a little smoke from their stacks. To fire shells from that distance you have to take into account the time to get to your target, the parabolic nature of your shot, the Earth’s rotation, and the direction and speed of your ship and your target – other than that it’s a piece of cake. 

The Hood’s nickname was “The Mighty Hood.”

The Bismarck landed a direct hit on the Hood and blew up it’s powder magazine. As Johnny Horton’s song says in the next line, “The mighty Hood went down.” In three minutes.

To say the Brits were pissed off is an understatement. The battle cry was “Sink the Bismarck!” and was the name of the movie that came out the same year as Horton’s song. The Brits looked for the Bismarck in the fog of the North Atlantic. Every ship they had was put in pursuit. One plane found it and buzzed over top of it until reinforcements could join in an attack. The Bismarck was returning to port when attacked by obsolete torpedo planes. Although the forward part of the Bismarck was well armored the aft was not. (Typical, German thinking. They’d always becoming at you so why worry about your ass?) One torpedo struck the rudder and left the Bismarck with the ability to only go to its left. British ships and planes continued to harass The Bismarck taking out her guns and destroying her superstructure. The ship was a shambles but one British ship, The Rodney, came in close, lowered it guns and fired directly at the Bismarck at point blank range. It didn’t have to do that, but you don’t mess with the British navy.

There’s the saying, “a shot across the bow,” which is a warning shot to let you know that you better stop or the ship firing will send a shell into your boat. The phrase is also used as a metaphor or warning given by someone in a speech or via a policy move. 

Whether Pete Buttigieg’s speech was a shot across the bow or a direct hit is hard for me to say at the moment. Maybe, it was more like Robert Kennedy’s comments after Martin Luther King was assassinated. However, you want to characterize it, it was powerful, genuine, and heartfelt. He spoke of being gay. Of wishing he could have taken a pill to change that, or to take a knife to cut it out, but he couldn’t. He called out Mike Pence directly and said that why he was gay was above his, Pete’s, pay grade and that Mike would have to ask Pete’s creator why. 

Buttigieg is being hailed as having his Reverend Wright moment. Of emerging from the field, or at least being at the national level now. It was interesting to watch the Republican commentators on Nichole Wallace’s show yesterday simultaneously praising and downplaying what Buttigieg had done. 

What Buttigieg had done was confront the question of his being gay and land either a shot across the bow, or a direct hit, on the phony Christian conservative anti-gay movement. There’s the attempt at shame and guilt – Boom. Gone. There are the seemingly gay “I’m not gay!” (“I just act like I am.”) folks who make up the conservative Christian gay therapy folks, like Mike Pence’s wife “mommy” whatever her name is, and Michelle Bachman’s closet gay husband and countless others. How many fire and brimstone preachers have we seen railing against the gay community only to be caught with a young boy in a hotel room? 

Pete is a mid-western intellectual guy. He’s interesting, self deprecating, and smart. I think his speech was a point blank range shot at the ship of gay therapy and all that phony crap that comes with it.

The folks on Nichol’s show tried to say, “Oh well South Bend isn’t that big a city.” Yeah? Neither was Wasilla, Alaska. In fact, the town hall was a shoebox storefront in a strip mall. Yet, Sarah Palin was enough of a mayor to run for VP. The black guy said they’ll be questions about what Mayor Pete did about the black police chief. The police chief had illegally recorded other police officers making racist comments. Pete downgraded the chief, fired the communications director because he had continued to make the recordings after knowing it was illegal. What would the black guy on Nichol’s show have wanted? Naturally, he didn’t say, just hinted that there would be questions about it. Then it was the white guy’s turn. South Bend isn’t that big, and the head of Indiana University has more people reporting to him. Yeah? So what? See Palin, Wasilla comment earlier. Then they both started in on the “Well, we’ll have to see after Iowa and New Hampshire when he gets to South Carolina” line.

Okay, let’s wait and see. In the meantime who else is talking about things that matter to voters? Who has a track record of actually doing something? Mayor Pete has a track record of doing things, of being helpful, and kind. He’s also super smart and is the only candidate so far that has put forward interesting ideas that aren’t just talking points.

In other news Kirstjen Nielsen who was fired/resigned and has her last day tomorrow, that is unless Trump can figure out some more cruel and humiliating thing he can do to her before she leaves. She did everything he asked, up until he asked her to break the law. And as Meatloaf sang, “I’d do anything for love, but I won’t do that.” Okay, this ain’t love, this is toadyism and Nielsen apparently got a call from Donald at like 3am bitching because Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity said on their programs that Trump hasn’t stopped the migrant surge.

Some say Stephen Miller is gaining more power within the White House and that’s kind of a “Yeah, maybe” but clearly this is a Trump fingerprints all over it move. I have a boffo idea: why don’t Miller, Trump, and the young Barron Trump go down to the border and show the guards and security folks how to do it? I mean they could snatch the babies out of the arms of young mothers seeking refuge. It would make great video! Think of the ratings! Big numbers. Okay, so while Stephen and Donald are busy showing off, and before some starving central American seeking asylum beats the shit out of one of them, one of the ICE officers could entice Barron to come with them into another room, where he’d immediately be whisked away to an undisclosed location where he’d be put in a cage, given a mylar blanket and told he’d see his parents again in two years if ever. Meanwhile, Trump and Miller would be holding raw steak to their eyes and the prez would ask where is kid is and the authorities would say they don’t know. They lost the paperwork if there ever was any.

Oh then there’s the tax returns. Mick Mulvaney, “The Acting White House Chief of Staff,” which is a funny title in and of itself because there is no such thing as an Acting White House Chief of Staff, because it’s not a Senate confirmed position so you either are, or you are not, the White House Chief of Staff. Speculation is that he was given this title so he’d know Donald had him by the short hairs and if Sean or Lou bitch he’s gone. Mick is toadying up, he’s claiming that the president never said he was going to release his tax returns (which is a lie), and furthermore he said, “The Democrats will never see the tax returns.” 

Fascinating, to make it more interesting Steve Mnuchin, the foreclosure king of California, and husband of lookalike Cruella de Vil cum Elvira Mistress of the night, whatever her name is, has been instructed to get in the middle of this. Nice. Slight problem. The one thing the Secretary of the Treasury is forbidden by procedural statue and law is to get in the middle of is this. Maybe, he should go talk to William Barr who is trying to stand on this sort of thing to not release the Mueller Report. Of course, in Mnuchin’s case, there really is stuff in place to prevent his interference, and it was put there to specifically prevent what Trump and MM (Mick Mulvaney – get it? I’m so clever.) want him to do.  

So the question is, “If Stevie breaks the law will Willie “redaction” Barr go after him?”

Okay, this leaves us with one double question for today. Trump likes to appoint people as “acting” whatevers. He likes it better than going through Senate confirmations where someone might criticize his choice of “the best people.” I mean who could think Herman Cain wasn’t qualified for the Fed? Or that idiot Moore? Or Kris Kobach for anything? Okay. So we have so may “Acting” that we really don’t have much in the way of “functioning” government. So we have folks “acting” like they are governing and we have Jared and Ivanka who are “playing” at governing, and we have a president who is only interested in the ratings and how he looks to his base. 

And that wraps it up for today. Looking forward to William Barr’s meeting on Capital Hill today and tomorrow. Slimy and slippery.

Eric Swalwell announced he’s running. At least he goes on Fox News. Can’t say that for any of the other Dem candidates.

573 Days to the 2020 election and 651 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Eat your heart out Paul Satre.

Day 822 Monday April 8, 2019

574 Days to the 2020 election and 652 Days to Inauguration Day

Kirstjen Nielsen is out. She will, however, stay on until the day after tomorrow to help with a smooth transition. This should give her enough time to pick up the ruler out her desk and the mementos off the walls.

What was the problem? Like a lot of officials working for Trump, she probably told him she couldn’t do what he wanted. You know like throw a switch and shut off the border. Or put kids in smaller cages.

This is being touted as “she wasn’t tough enough,” and “Trump wants someone tougher.” The problem is no one knows what that means.

I mean when throwing kids in cages, when separating kids from their parents, when having a policy of creating orphans of kids, when tear gassing immigrants across the fence in Mexico, when forcing people seeking asylum to sleep for days and weeks on bridges isn’t considered tough enough, then people don’t know what it is. I guess we’ll have to wait for Stephen Miller to lift the rock he’s living under and come out of his hole and explain.

In other immigration news,  which is laughable, The president went to the border where some fencing had been repaired, called it a wall, slapped a sign on it with his name. Naturally, the fact that this was a repair job authorized under the Obama administration had no effect on him. 

In climate change news, president Trump said windmills create cancer. Don’t ask, I don’t know. Also, you can’t use windmills for power because the wind doesn’t blow all the time. Wow. This is deep. I guess he doesn’t know Buckminster Fuller. Why am I even asking? Of course, he doesn’t know who Bucky Fuller is. Because the guy’s name isn’t Trump. Bucky said that witin fifty miles of where you are the wind is blowing. Thar she blows!

In the 1800s the reigning chess master at one point stood up on a chair, pointed to his opponent, and asked, “Why do I have to play this idiot?” I dunno what made me think of that right now.

I hope Nielsen has a smooth transition. It’s hard for me to imagine someone who could be worse than her, but I have faith Donnie can pick someone. There are a few fat f*cks still at Mar-a-Lago who don’t have jobs in this administration. Hey, that would be better than Kirstjen in that they wouldn’t know how anything works and therefore would have a hard time screwing the pooch worse. Just sayin’

Have a nice day!

574 Days to the 2020 election and 652 Days to Inauguration Day

PS There a promo for Ari Melber’s show where Corey Booker quotes a line from Public Enemy and says, “Fight the Power.” Ari responds with the question “Who in the Trump administration most reminds you of Flavor Flav?” It’s a good one. And one I hope to return to from time to time. I think Stephen Miller would look good with an alarm clock around his neck.

PPS “Both Members of This Club” by George Bellows 1909

Day 821 Sunday April 7, 2019

575 Days to the 2020 election and 653 Days to Inauguration Day

Sundays are a good day to review things because hopefully the awful news has slowed down and we can contemplate our navels a bit.

I’ve had several old thoughts running around in my head and this got me to thinking about the fundamental difference between a progressive and a conservative, or Democrat and Republican. 

I think there’s a difference in core values and beliefs. 

Let me tell you the things running around in my head then I’d like to extrapolate to the real world and today.

One was a clip from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. 

I think the clip was of Glenn Beck giving one of those “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” type speeches. In it he said you can go to the library where books are free. 

Immediately, the clip was cut short and there was Jon Stewart looking into the camera say, “No they’re not.” He pointed out that someone had to pay for those books. Maybe not you the person going to the library, but someone had to buy those books, and the building, and pay the staff, etc. etc. etc.

The other was an example from Michael Lewis’ book “The Fifth Risk.” In it Lewis recounts how a Fox News commentator who was a big proponent of doing it all yourself was out in a rural region where he had a farm or business of some kind. He hated the Federal government, always interfering in our lives, blah, blah blah. He had a big new project he was kicking off with a public announcement and there was a woman standing near the stage where he was about to go on and tell the audience how he had done it all himself. How the local bank had made him a loan, etc. etc. etc. He asked the woman who she was. She told him. He asked why she was here. She said she was from the USDA. Why was she here? He asked. “I’m the woman who made you the loan from the USDA via your local bank,” she told him. He was speechless. He had no idea that the big bad Federal government was the one that had made his project possible.

The last example is FDR and Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor. Roosevelt was always worried about people “being on the dole.” Perkins was worried about the poor and the aged. She saw the attempts by volunteer organizations to help out in limited ways. They got money together and created a home for a limited number of poor or aged. Why, asked Perkins, can’t we do that on a national scale? The attitude was not one of something for nothing or being on the dole but rather one of helping out those in need – notably the old and the poor. From that simple idea came the idea of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

From FDR’s efforts to electrify rural America and the low interest bank loans the USDA makes to farmers via their local banks rural America has been transformed. In Lewis’ book one person says if it wasn’t for such programs rural America would look like rural China.

So what’s the point? I think that a progressive is different from a conservative because a progressive wants to improve people’s lives. Conservatives subscribe to a do it yourself, rugged individualism philosophy. They seem to believe its all up to them and they can do it all themselves. They seem to worry about someone getting something for nothing, of others being on the dole, of banding together to help everyone (which they call socialism.) 

The truth of the matter is that no one does it on their own. They have help. Be it in the form of roads to drive on, or mail to be sent and delivered, to being able to apply for a 30 year mortgage. Or having clean water, safe medicine, safe food, they had help.

I find the basic tenet of conservatism flawed. Not only is it flawed at a fundamental level but in practice it is hypocritical. It’s the idea that “I don’t want you to get something for free, but it’s okay if I do,” that most conservatives subscribe to. It might be dressed up in fancy words and phrases so they don’t have to look it in the face and admit it. Or maybe they do know but don’t mind screwing over some group they feel doesn’t desrve what they have or are in some way inferior to them, but it’s there.

Some may want to argue this point and I’m happy to hear what you have to say, but please provide an example or a case where conservatism has actually done some good, and by that I mean more good than harm. I don’t know of any.

575 Days to the 2020 election and 653 Days to Inauguration Day

PS EDWARD HOPPER “Ground Swell” 1939

Day 820 Saturday April 6, 2019

576 Days to the 2020 election and 654 Days to Inauguration Day

A few days ago, maybe it was last week, the Republicans on the House Committee now chaired by Adam Schiff asked him to resign. I like that idea, but for every Republican serving. I think every meeting in which they participate should start with a request that they resign. In fact, I have a great idea. I think Mike Pense and Donald Trump should resign. 

The resignation deal (it should be a deal right? I mean he is “Mr. Art of the Deal”, right?) should be as follows:

Donald J. Trump should resign immediately. In exchange he will be charged with no crimes except for the ones he picks out of a hat of all the possible crimes he could be charged with. He only has to draw five times.

Michael R. Pence will immediately be sworn in as president, and thus will be listed officially as the 46^th President of the United States. His official photo will be taken and a painting of him as president will be unveiled. He will then resign and Nancy P. Pelosi will be sworn in as the 47^th President of the United States. Her job as President will be to clean up the mess these two idiots and their toadies created.

Here is a sample resignation request: 

“Dear Mr/Ms/Mrs/Honorable XYZ, The American people have lost faith in your ability to govern or lead. You are therefore asked to resign immediately and give up all official and unofficial government jobs, functions and capacities, and you will not seek nor accept any such jobs, functions, or capacities either in government or in any political party or lobbying position. In exchange, you will not be charged for any crimes you committed while in office, you will be allowed to keep your pension. You must further agree to a permanent gag order and never speak in public again; not on social media, not on cable TV, no where.

Humbly submitted by a real patriot and protector of the public interest.

Signed,

“

Is that too much to ask? Maybe, we can get all of them to resign en masse if they get to keep their ill-gotten gains, and aren’t threatened with prosecution?

I dunno. I can dream.

In other news. I guess it’s news. We are watching Trump, who has packed the top of the IRS, Treasury Department and the Justice Department with toadies and flunkies now try to have a lawyer in private practice tell those entities how to run things. In a letter that is a joke from beginning to end this guy suggests that they should ignore the law, which is plainly written. The law says that the head of the House Ways and Means Committee can request the tax returns of anyone or any entity and that those returns “shall” be handed over. This isn’t up for debate. This is the law. Period. Full stop. Seeing as how the Trump administration has taken a cavalier attitude toward enforcing the law: some they enforce, others they ignore; I guess they figure they can do this with a co-equal branch of government. I don’t think so… But, I don’t know what the remedy is if they so choose to ignore the law and not hand over the documents requested. It will be interesting to see what happens. 

It will also be interesting to see what the House learns from the president’s tax returns. Here are my guesses:

– He wasn’t under audit.

– He took money from Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China. Much of this money will be tied to money laundering, illegal contribution schemes and bribes when compared to bank and insurance applications he has made. In other words the tax returns at a minimum will show bank and insurance fraud when compared to other documents.

– His assets will be under valued.

– His net worth will be way way under a billion dollars.

– He, his children, and his companies will show a pattern of cheating and illegality that will be breathtaking and hard to deny. 

How the Republicans and toadies will try and spin this will be – well – interesting? Sad? Pitiful? 

Hopefully, our institutions will hold and justice in some form will be done.

Oh yeah, then there’s the Mir-a-Lago fiasco. For $250,000 you can become a member and hang out with like minded seemingly rich fat entitled folk. It has been if not a royal road at least a super highway for Chinese people to get their picture taken with Trump. Remember the outrage of the one photo Hillary had with a person that was her equal as Secretary of State that also contributed to the Clinton Foundation? Yeah, well this is the real deal. This is buying your way in on steroids. 

So they caught a Chinese national with a bunch of cell phones and thumb drive with malware on it. She said she was going to the pool to swim, except she had no swim wear. Slipped right by the security folks. Then she said she was a friend of Charlie. Charlie is a Chinese guy who has an organization that sounds like it’s part of the United Nations, but it isn’t. It’s a PR “I’ll get you close to big shots” outfit. 

How was this woman found out? Why a receptionist thought something was fishy. Yup, a receptionist. Mir-a-Lago is a nightmare for the security folks because anyone can walk into the place. It’s a club. Great.

Why not have a photo booth set up and sell photos of you with Donald? Five thousand a pop. Come on. A guy’s gotta make a buck.

What’s that game where you have a plastic mat with giant colored dots on it and you spin a pointer and it shows you which colored dot you place your hands and feet on? Twister! That’s it! Watch for the legal version of that this week to play out as seemingly adult people try to deny the law and reality.

Stay tuned. It’s not over yet.

576 Days to the 2020 election and 654 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Georgia O’Keefe “Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. 2”