Archives for January 2021

Monday January 25, 2021

I read news about Navalny returning to Russia and being immediately arrested. There are protests in the streets. Will it be enough? I doubt it. Putin will not easily cede power to the will of the people. Unfortunately, their institutions do not have a long history of being strong or able to stand up to the abuses of one man. Look at how close we came?

I think about that woman who took a private jet from Texas to participate in the riot in D.C. Her justification was that the president asked, and therein lies her problem. A person asked her to break the bond to the Constitution. That is for her a fundamental misunderstanding of what this country is all about. Now she wants to say, “Oh gee.” To which I say, “Sorry honey, if you had paid more attention in civics class you might have known.” I don’t want to be too harsh in my judgement. Maybe 25 years? And let her off in five? 

These false patriots are the epitome of what authoritarians use and love. Symbols of patriotism to invoke insurrection so they can seize power. It’s not like this is a new thing. Politicians and priests have been using these tactics for as long as their have been leaders. If you can get someone to believe you can control them. Typically, you can use the symbols lying around in the culture, appropriate them, and have your troops march forth. Hitler did it. Genghis Khan did it. The popes of the Dark Ages did it. Donald Trump did it. 

The question then is not, “Will they do it?” The question is, “Will we stand up to it?” People like the woman from Texas and Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley need to be held to account. Why?

“Peace in our Time!” Remember that? Neville Chamberlain to Hitler. “Appeasement,” that was a favorite term of these idiots when W was running – remember? Yeah, well. If you let them off the hook they will do it again. And why not? Remember after the first impeachment of Trump? He and his followers took it as a sign of victory. They won!

No, it must be made clear: legally, symbolically, legislatively, and any other way that this can not stand. You can say, “Oh, I didn’t know” or “Oh, I’m really a patriot.” And do what these people did.

For the sake of our democracy they need a hard lesson in democratic civics.

Sunday January 24, 2021

I happened to turn on the TV this morning and George Stephanopoulos’ show on ABC was on. He was interviewing Rand Paul.

Paul accused Stephanopoulos and the rest of the legitimate media of accusing him and other “conservatives” of lying. A claim he repeatedly made in his six and a half minute interview. Let me be clear. Stephanopoulos made no such accusation. 

Here is a typical quote from Paul:

“You said people are liars if they want to investigate what happened in the election.”

Paul brought up that there were ballots he claimed had no return addresses on them and they would have been thrown out in a “normal” election. (This is not what Stephanopoulos said. Not even close. Not even implied. Yet Paul wouldn’t let it go.)

This went on and on for most of the interview, finally George said, “I asked you a very simple question, ‘Was the election stolen or not?’ “

Silence:

One, Two, three, four seconds

“I think there was a great deal of evidence …”

Yeah, we heard that before. You think there is evidence of fraud and you think that the fact that some ballots mailed in did not have return addresses on them suggest fraud. Oh excuse me, illegality. But that isn’t fraud now is it Randy boy? You suggested also that there was illegality in Pennsylvania, but you didn’t say why or how. Maybe, someone forgot to put a period on their mail-in ballot? I don’t know. But this is typical of Paul. Accusing and having nothing. He said that none of the cases rejected were rejected “for standing” and if they had gotten to the court they would have found the illegality.

Excuse me, but the reason the cases didn’t make it any further was there was nothing, as in no evidence and hence no reason to proceed.

In other words Rand baby you wouldn’t say the election was stolen because you know the answer. The answer is it wasn’t stolen. Yeah, you can cry and whine and maybe find a few errors, even an illegality. Maybe, not having a return address on a ballot is a no-no but fraudulent? Illegal? Come on. Grow up. Baby.

Here’s the video:

https://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/senator-rand-paul-75456580

Saturday January 23, 2021

I’ve always thought Kevin McCarthy to be smart, until he opens his mouth and then like the old Chinese proverb* he proves himself to be an idiot. 

*”Even a fool is considered wise until he opens his mouth.”

Once again Kevin opened his mouth and proved how stupid he is. This time he said that if you listened to what Satan said on January 6^th he doesn’t bear any responsibility for what happened. This contradicts what McCarthy said a few days before. Shocking, I know.

Then we have Mitch who wants Democrats to reach across the aisle, I guess so he can bite their hands off. He has already signalled that he has no intention of working with them or helping the American people. “The American people” was one of his favorite phrases when he was holding up Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination. While in the minority we can look forward to McCarthy and McConnell doing everything they can to sabotage any attempts to do anything. That’s what they did when they were in charge, don’t expect anything else from them now.

In a cynical way McConnell may go along with impeaching Satan and finding him guilty as that would eliminate him from ever holding office again. 

The Republicans face several difficult problems. One, if not Satan whom do they have to run in 2024? If you go down the list of possible candidates there really isn’t anybody who is decent, not only as a candidate or as a person. 

The other problem they have is that their are two distinct wings of the party and they need both to win. There are the average non-Trump Republicans and there are the racists, bigots, Nazis, and fascists that make up the Trump supporters. 

They have managed to win by cheating. I keep wondering how long that can last. I’m always surprised. I keep hoping that the election cycle coming up will be the one of the big change. It hasn’t happened yet. Their ability to stoke fear and then do nothing once in office seems to be a winning formula.

In the old days, (read Nixon and Eisenhower) there was at least a tacit understanding that they had to do something to help people. Now, that is gone. They are hewing to a circle the wagons approach and trying to undermine our democracy by putting in as many mindless goons as they can wherever they can. 

Now however the average Republican and the Trumpers are being faced with a stark choice. Stand with democracy or be against it. If you are yelling “Stop the Steal” or believe that the election was stolen despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary you have made your choice. If there are people like that in public office, or the military, or our police forces they must be rooted out and gotten rid of. If they wish to believe that nonsense that’s up to them, if they wish to act on it. They should lose community support, their jobs, and be criminally charged if appropriate. 

There should be no clemency, no accepting of “Oh, I didn’t know,” none of that. They are backing an authoritarian my-way-or-the-highway government. Like the Communist party that was made illegal so should any efforts to promote a different way of governance that leaves no room for others. 

Trump lost. He lost the election. He lost in court. He lost in public opinion. He lost. He has now advocated overthrowing our democracy and he told his troops to fight like hell. They did. They raised their flags over our Capital. They stormed it in an attempt to overthrow the Constitutional process that was taking place. They were looking for the Vice President to hang him. They were looking for the Speaker of the House to put a bullet in her head. (Their words, not mine.) They destroyed government property. One woman stole a laptop in an attempt to sell it to Russia. I don’t know how much clearer it needs to be but let’s not be fooled again. Let’s not believe that they want to work with us. If they want to come join us great. But let us not change our vision and our mission to save this country one bit to appease these traitors, dummies and charlatans.

Friday January 22, 2021

I turned on the TV yesterday about 4:30 p.m. I was going to watch one of my archaeology shows. The channel that I was on had the Presidential Press Conference. Here was the woman with the red hair and that odd four or five letter last name at the lectern calmly taking and answering questions. People were civil. They weren’t shouting. She called on people largely by name.

I was disappointed from the day before that she didn’t start her first press conference off with “This Inauguration was the largest crowd ever…” and then stop and say, “Oh sorry, that was left over from four years ago,” and put it aside and then continue. But she did get in a few good ones that first day. 

At one point someone asked her about Biden’s first trip abroad, and she responded with. “We are seven hours into this administration and you are asking about world tours?” Then she answered the question (“Haven’t talked to the President about that yet.”) She finished that first press conference with “I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

Wow. Think about that. They are going to have four o’clock press conferences, like maybe, everyday? And in those meetings questions will be asked and answers given, and those answers will be honest and address the question asked? How refreshing. How adult.

So let’s do a little review of where we were and where we are. 

First off there have been he side by side comparisons of the first press conference of this administration and that of the last. In that first press conference Sean Spicer came out and set the tone by telling a bold faced lie. He did it with anger and hostility in his voice and his manner. Then he left the room. That pretty much told you all you needed to know. It continually amazed me how willing people were to do the last president’s dirty work. How they were willing to not only grovel in the mud but in the excrement.

Let’s look back on a few data points then and now:

– Troops in Afganistan: then 12,000, now 2,500 (against the advice of the military)

– Unemployment: then 4.7%, now 6.7%

– Dow Jones Average: then 19,827, now 30,814

– Federal Budget Deficit: Then $584B, now $3.3T (or $3,300B)

– Republicans in the House: Then 241, now 211

I also think it’s worth pointing out that the Republicans have only won the presidency in this modern era once with a majority of the vote.

There is talk of their “structural advantage.” How states with few people vote Republican and how the Republicans when they gain power game the system to their advantage. There is no sense of decorum or fairness in these power grabs. 

There was talk of the old guard type of Republican last night, and how those sort of politicians have been replaced with as one commentator said, “ambitious brats,” like Hawley, Cruz, and Cotton. Cruz wins for being the slimmest, Cotton the most despicable, and Hawley the most naive, but here we are. There was talk of Ivanka challenging Rubio for his seat. The worst part of that is that if she runs she could win, and wouldn’t you like to see that empty brained person in the Senate and then making noises about running for president? Not that Rubio is any prize, but …

There is also talk about what has happened to the Qanon people. They have lost Parler and kicked off of Facebook. They are now being actively recruited by White Supremacists. Great. We need a campaign to get those that can be saved back to reality. I don’t know how you do that, but it seems a clandestine effort needs to be mounted.

Meanwhile, I’ll bask in the glory of a boring return to truth, belief in science (did you see Fauci up there on the podium yesterday?), and hopefully boring political speeches.

Then there’s Biden’s working on getting Covid under control. Wow. He’s using the Defense Production Act. Why his predecessor didn’t and wouldn’t use it, other than to force the meat packers to their deaths by making them go back to work in Covid infested conditions, is beyond me. As far as I know there was no explanation for that. Wait. There was a sideways one. It wasn’t the Federal government’s job to take control of this pandemic. Naw, let someone else do it. Like the states and cities. That’s right. What stupidity wrapped in arrogance and ignorance. 

Then outgoing CDC director Redfield thought folks were being too harsh in their criticism of his agency because they, in his words, had laid the groundwork and people were getting shots. Yeah. Okay. Then Ron Klain pointed out the facts that the old administration had no plan for getting people vaccinated and that they had fallen way short of their claimed goal. In fact, they had fallen so far short that this administration had a supply of vaccine that was being held back for second shots. Seeing as so few people had been vaccinated they could release more of that for primary shots.

Now we get to the ongoing work of chasing down the criminals. At least the ones not pardoned. But even with the pardons we can still get some of them. Yes, the orange one did pardon some really disgusting people. At least, if Biden pardons anyone the other side won’t have a leg to stand on. However, we might be able to get Manafort and throw him in jail and Stone too. Their pardons were written in such a way that they were pardoned for the crimes they were sentenced for, not the ones they committed. In Manafort’s case he even plead guilty to some of them. The case against him and its prosecution would go like this. “You Honor, the defendant pledge guilty to these crimes. He had not been sentenced to these crimes and he has not been pardoned. We ask that he be sentenced.”

That’s about it. 

Oh then there’s the entertainment after the inauguration. That was the best inauguration entertainment ever! We, the people, got to enjoy it. So much better than seeing shots of the President being hauled from one ball to the next. Hey, wanna do a side by side comparison to what’s his name’s entertainment? I mean Scott Baio, Kid Rock and that no name band compared to J-Lo, Lady Gaga, Garth Brooks, Tom Hanks, Katy Perry, Foo Fighters, Demi Lovato, Bon Jovi, Tim McGraw? No even close. But as Joy Reid pointed out the right has always been jealous of the talent that the rest of the world has compared to them. I guess that’s because the right is a bunch of soulless bastards.

Joy also was up on the fashion angle. She knew who was wearing what. I thought back on the previous inauguration and I don’t remember a word about what any of the women wore. The only fashion statements I remember was when the former first lady went down to show sympathy and wore that coat that said, “Ask me if I care?” or something like that. Classless to the end.

Then there was the fireworks display. OMG! I have seen fireworks displays from around the world but this one was super spectacular.

Enough for now. 

Get to work.

Yesterday was Day 1474 of Trump and Day 1 of Joe Biden’s Presidency

Last night my wife asked me if I was going to continue to blog about whatever this is I have been blogging about. I didn’t know the answer. I still don’t. I have used this forum to rid myself of all the awfulness that had been foisted upon me by Satan and his band of terriblés. (That’s French, or close to French, typically used in the phrase infant-terriblé with one of those funny French accent marks over an “e”.)

There is some unfinished business with the previous administration that I must address as it comes up. But there is also the question of “What to do?”

What do you do with an intransigent stubborn unwilling stupid in our body politic? Conservative seems to come to mean “unwilling.” I used to think conservative meant to conserve, as in conserve money, or values, or our way of life, or the environment; but it means none of those things in modern political discourse. 

It seems to mean being intransigent, stubborn, unwilling, and stupid. It seems to mean hewing to a set of beliefs vaguely tied to some weird dogma, which in turn is tied to racism, religious zealotry tied vaguely to Christianity, and an all-or-nothing approach to life, politics, and culture.

I tried to think back to when this began in our modern political discourse and realized it has always been there, as far as I can see. There are those who “believe!” and if you don’t believe as they believe then in their opinion you are going to hell and you’ve been warned. There is no compromise, no “maybe there’s another way” or another explanation. That’s it, they are done – with you, with the world, with those who don’t believe the way they believe.

I have to say this appears to be a human characteristic or at least a way to gain power over others. It’s a divide and conquer strategy. As in “Well, I didn’t get the whole pie but I got a slice.” 

So when did this all start? I asked myself. I thought back:

– To W and Cheney. George W. Bush was a nice if clueless kind of guy. A fellow who never worked too hard and somehow managed to squeeze through, like he did by 372 votes in Florida. (So what if there were irregularities and things that didn’t logically make sense?) He tried. He had an evil henchman as VP. He got us into a war and an overthrow of a government for which we, and the world, are still paying the price. (Let us not forget that the Taliban called the White House three times to hand over bin Laden and the White House did not answer or did not know how to speak in a language that the caller understood. If they had we could have avoided the second war as well.)

– To George H. W. Bush. A man with all the right boxes checked but clueless when he became the chief. One historian (Beschloss? Or was it Meacham?) who described Papa Bush as a man who when he got to The White House really didn’t have any idea what he wanted to accomplish and so he didn’t.

– To Reagan. Again a seemingly nice guy, who had some ideas, but they all pivoted on the idea of screwing the little guy. He took the money from Social Security to balance his budgets. (Johnson was later accused of it, but Johnson combined the Federal budget with the Social Security budget. He didn’t take the money and replace it with Treasury notes, that was Ronnie.) Reagan ended the unions’ strength and the workers in this country have not had a replacement. No one has come up with a better way to negotiate with big business. Not that unions were perfect, they weren’t, but it was better than what we have now. The average person has seen their piece of the American pie get smaller and smaller ever year since he was in office.

– To Nixon. For all the evilness that was Tricky-Dick, he was the last Republican president that actually dealt in reality and tried to make the country better based on facts, than some alternate fantasy. He set up the EPA. He also changed health care. He took it away from the intransigent AMA and gave it to his business buddies who have riden that horse ever since to their benefit and our loss.

– To Johnson. A man who was tough as nails in the Senate and became overwhelmed by the presidency. This was true of Gerald Ford as well. Both men rose to their level of incompetence.

– To Kennedy. The last man to have great vision, until Barrak Obama.

– To Eisenhower. A nice guy who was overseeing a country during a time when we were the only functioning power in the world.

– To Truman and FDR. It was FDR who set the country and the path of the modern era. He was aided greatly by his wife, Eleanor who travelled the country and reported back. Together they fixed problems large and small. In the history of FDR that Ken Burns did, Burns mentioned a letter written to the President, which said, “If you don’t take care of this I’ll write Mrs. Roosevelt…”

– To Hoover. A man who gets a deserved bad rap, but who also did a lot of good, which is forgotten because of his terrible presidency. Before he was president he was a mining engineer. He travelled the world setting up mining operations. He was in London after World War I when the Germans started to invade the Low Countries (The Netherlands, and Belgium). People from his company started leaving there and coming to London. They needed food and shelter. Hoover got it for them. He started sending food to the Netherlands. Lots of food. Being an engineer he became obsessed with counting calories that he was sending there. The ships that he sent were known as Hoover (boats? Ships? I forget.) The Germans sank one of his ships. He went to the German consulate in London and told the ambassador that if another one of his ships was sunk he would stop sending food to the Low Lands and he speculated that the Germans would have a lot harder time keeping the population subdued if they were starving. No other ship was sunk and on this good record he was nominated to be the presidential candidate of his party. History records him as being overwhelmed or not up to the task, but I think it goes to another tenet, that of belief.

Hoover, like Coolidge, believed that “the business of business was business.”

– Coolidge. Silent Cal, as quoted above, was just that. He oversaw the Roaring Twenties and then the crash that came from the unregulated business. Although the Crash of ’29 was terrible; it was the credit squeeze of ’32 that really sank out economy. Let me see if I can explain the credit squeeze of ’32 – bankers refused to loan money.

That’s it in a nutshell. Back in ’32 you could get a mortgage for six months. Every half year the local bankers would get together and decide if they could loan you money for another six months. If not – bye-bye.

FDR set up FNMA to buy mortgages from the banks. He devised the thirty year mortgage. Hailed as socialism at the time.

– Wilson. Well intentioned but lost his mind near the end.

– Teddy Roosevelt. He understood that the monied interests were arrayed against the people, the country, and the government. He took them on and won the day. They’ve been fighting back ever since.

But this is not where it began and I would argue it’s always been with us.

When James Burke finished his series on America, which he did after his wonderful “Connections” series, he finished by quoting de Tocqueville who said that America seemed to be in a race between its vitality and its rotteness. To me that seems to be the predominant theme throughout our history. It certainly is the one present in today’s America.

But there is something else, another two themes or principles that we need to be aware of: The Peter Principle, and the lesson of The 10,000.

The Peter Principle says, “Everyone rises to their level of incompetence.” In other words, you keep getting rewarded for doing a good job until you don’t (do a good job). Then you are stuck in this place where you aren’t being effective or very useful.

The lesson of the 10,000 is based on history. I could also call it a John the Baptist moment. Cyrus the Younger attempted to overthrow his brother who was the king of the Persian Empire. He hired 10,000 mercenaries, mainly Greeks, to help him. Cyrus was killed in battle and the Greeks were deep within the Persian Empire. They had to fight their way out. They did, arriving at the Black Sea and trudged home to Greece. This was a generation before Alexander.

Alexander took this example as confirmation that the Persian Empire could be defeated.

What do we say about the events of January 6^th ? Is it a harbinger of things to come? 

Mr. Biden is willing to work with everyone. That’s great. Are they willing to reciprocate?