Rick Kinnaird

Day 817 Wednesday April 3, 2019

579 Days to the 2020 election and 657 Days to Inauguration Day

I would have written sooner but I’ve been busy. We are at a sad state of affairs. I heard some pundits discussing Trump’s long term plan. Their conclusion? He has none. He fends off and fights every day and that’s about it. The White House staff? There are two lines of thought on them, either they are incompetent or they are really good and try to do their best from keeping this clown from doing something really bad, like closing the border with Mexico.

As to the Mueller Report, no one, except Bill Barr, has seen it. He, for some reason, thinks he should insert himself into the melee and not do what the law says to do. Most folks think Mueller gave the report to the AG with the thought that the aG would turn it over to Congress, which is what has happened with all other such reports. We are now at the stage where Congress will have to subpoena the Attorney General. They say that Barr is a good lawyer, etc. How can he make such terrible arguments as to why it is taking him so long to hand over the report and why he can’t give Congress everything? It’s incredible.

Then there are the right wing folks saying the president is exonerated, when the only thing we know about the  Mueller report is that he wrote that Trump is not exonerated. Let us be clear, the president has committed a crime in plain site. There is evidence to prove it. He is part of a conspiracy to obstruct justice, which we also have clear evidence. He is an un-indicted co-conspirator. These legal points are not in question. these are facts – plain and simple. 

579 Days to the 2020 election and 657 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Edo Ball

Day 814 Sunday March 31, 2019

582 Days to the 2020 election and 660 Days to Inauguration Day

I really like the guests Bill Maher has on his program. I just wish he’d let them talk. He had on Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Pete is running for President. He first came to my attention when he ran to head the Democratic Party. It was at that time that Howard Dean said, “You want someone to head your party that looks like the kind of voter you are trying to attract.” Buttigieg had that, and he had a certain sort of magic backed up with some bon vides as mayor of a city. Instead, the party insiders elected Perez that doesn’t look the part and isn’t very interesting. I was disappointed.

Now Buttigieg is back, and he’s more interesting than ever. I saw his video announcing his candidacy. It was good. It was inspiring. Recently, I have heard stories about him. Good stories. Imagine that! He learned Norwegian so he could read some books by an author that had not been translated into English. He’s some kind of language expert and did a tour in Afghanistan. He knows a bunch of languages. In one instance there was a kid in a hospital in South Bend. He was Palestinian. He and his mother spoke only Arabic. No one in the hospital could speak Arabic. They put a call out on the police scanner looking for anyone who could speak the language. A guy showed up, spoke to the boy and his mom and stayed with them for a long time, until he wasn’t needed. When asked who he worked for he told them, “I’m Mayor Pete.” 

In his interview with Bill he brought up some very interesting intellectual ideas. For a politician to bring up something that is interesting and not pie in the sky is a novelty. It’s the first time I can recall it happening in my lifetime. Inspirational talk – yes, but something that makes you really think about an issue and how to make a positive change? Unfortunately, Bill got sidetracked on something and took up most of the time but still Pete got my attention and my curiosity. First, I’ll mention Bill’s sidetrack, then I’ll tell you Buttigieg’s idea, or the one of several he brought up, I just remember this one. Bill got sidetracked on the question of whether LGBTQ issues were a winning strategy for a presidential candidate. Buttigieg had made an example reference to something about LGBTQ that was an issue and Bill couldn’t let it go. Oh, I remember. Buttigeg mentioned gender identity in the context of making people feel included. He said that if you have to go to the bathroom and which one you use is an issue than it’s a problem for that person and they don’t feel included. Bill kept saying that wasn’t a  winning issue for someone to run on. Buttigieg wasn’t running on it; he was making a point about being included. bill couldn’t or wouldn’t fathom that point and let it go. “How often does that issue come up?” asked Bill.  

“Several times a day for that person,” responded Buttigieg. 

Touché.

Pete’s big point was one of making people feel included. If you talk down or make fun of, or are condescending they won’t feel included. He made this a three level illustration, which is the part that got me to really think about what he was saying. At the top level you have policy, at the bottom level you have outcomes for individuals, in the middle you have “how do we get from here to there” statements (He had a better term than my phrase). It’s the middle area that most politicians are getting hung up, he said. If you have lofty goals but no way to translate from those goals to consequential outcomes for the individual than you won’t be able to achieve much.

Really, interesting ideas. I hope he does well in the upcoming primaries. I think what he says is better than what O’Rourke is saying because O’Rourke is all at the top level. There’s no translation to the middle and consequential outcomes for individuals. At least, that’s the way I see it at the moment.

Then we get to Bill’s panel. He had on Elissa Slotkin, a Congresswoman from Michigan. She told him a something that I thought was really interesting. Rather than hear what she said he went back to saying something that was irrelevant. So frustrating.

What she said was she is in a district that voted for Obama and went for Trump. She said they went for Trump because he was the only one talking about thing they wanted to hear. How hard is that to understand? For Bill it was not only hard it was impossible. He kept saying things like, “But don’t they understand…”

No Bill, don’t you understand? Trump was the only one talking about things they cared about. 

Think about that Bill. Who else was in that election? Hum, lemme think. Oh yeah. Hillary. What was she talking about? High level stuff, and “It’s on y website.” She didn’t talk to them about what they wanted to hear.

What did Slotkin say people in her district are talking about? Two things, the high cost of health care and the high cost of prescription drugs.

What are they not talking about? The Mueller Report, the Barr letter(s), or anything else.

What are they talking about? The high cost of health care and the high cost of prescription drugs. 

The high cost of health care and the high cost of prescription drugs.

The high cost of health care and the high cost of prescription drugs.

The high cost of health care and the high cost of prescription drugs.

The high cost of health care and the high cost of prescription drugs.

Maybe Bill didn’t understand. He was back on “didn’t they realize he’s a conman?”

(Andrew Sullivan and Slotkin both tried to help Bill out, but it was useless. “Yes, Bill they might have understood that but Trump was the only one talking about what they cared about in 2016. It might have been a hail Mary pass, but it was a shot. No one else was talking about what they were concerned about. What are they concerned about now? The high cost of health care and the high cost of prescription drugs.

“Yes but…” 

Oh God. Gag me with a shovel.

He also had on Preet Bharara. Rather than listen to what the former head of the Southern District of New York’s prosecutorial team had to say he kept interrupting and  saying he didn’t understand. Okay. Hey, I have an idea. WHY DON’T YOU FUCKING LISTEN TO SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SOMETHING?

I couldn’t go to sleep last night and watched part of the movie Rush Hour with Jackie Chan and fast talking Chris Tucker. Tucker was pissed off that he had to escort a Chinese cop around town looking for a kidnapped Chinese girl instead of working the case. Chan said nothing after they first met. Tucker got in his face and said in a loud slow voice, “Do you speak English?” Chan didn’t respond until ten minutes later when he answered someone else in perfect English. “Why didn’t you tell me you spoke English?” asked Tucker. “Because you lear a lot by listening,” responded Chan. (I paraphrased – btw.)

Hum, seems to me Bill Maher should watch Rush Hour. Maybe he could learn something. It got so bad at one point when Bill was careening off the rails about something Preet said, “Should I go?”

Still, Bill didn’t get it.

It’s such a shame. He has great guests. If only he’d let them talk. Similar problem to Chris Matthews who has long rambling questions, takes up all the time and then moves on.

On a happy note, The Elite Eight basketball games have been incredible! Some of the best, most dramatic basketball (or any event), I have ever seen.

582 Days to the 2020 election and 660 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Keeping an Eye on things. ( “Portrait of a Venetian Gentleman” 1510/15 by Cariani )

Day 813 Saturday March 30, 2019

583 Days to the 2020 election and 661 Days to Inauguration Day

Three Words: Agency, Transparency, Transactional

I know what one of them means. The other two, I’m not so sure. I’ve been hoping to ferret out their meanings when used in a sentence, but no luck.

When someone says the people of so and so need more agency or were given agency – what does that mean? Because I don’t really understand the word I may not be using it properly. 

Transparency as in “we need more transparency,” means tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It’s kind of an upgraded term from some older term. That reminds me of George Carlin’s routine on “shell shock” the World War I term that every war gets a bigger and wordier term for the same thing. In this case they’ve gone the other way and shrunk it down to one word from many. Not sure I like it, but I think I understand the word and how it is used.

Then there’s transactional. Trump is transactional. Jared Kushner is even more transactional. In fact, he’s the most transactional person the Saudis have ever met and they are deeply alarmed by this and I take it from the context of what I’ve read that being transactional is bad, being very transactional is very bad. Therefore Trump is bad, but Jared is worse. Now, if I only fully understood what that meant. Ah me.

But first, some clarity. William Barr, the now Attorney General, has issued what is called a two page letter, which is more like one and a half, and if you take out the address headers is more like one, to clarify what his four page, actually three and a half page, earlier letter was supposed to be and not to be (Hey, wouldn’t that make a great line in a play “to be and not to be”? It’s close. Needs a little tweaking. (Not tweeting: or twerking. Ha, I’m a riot.) :::))) )

William Barr’s new letter was issued to clarify his last letter. His last letter has been called a summary by some. Mr. Barr has made clear in his new letter that his old letter was not a summary but was in fact a summary, his new letter is a not a summary either, but is a summary. For some reason, and let me summarize, some people ain’t taking this shit. I think Mr. Barr wants agency and is hoping via this transaction to be transparent but he’s not. This is so far beyond farce, tragedy, and the sublime ludicrous that it’s hard to find puffed up words to express the utter stupidity of this. I would like it a whole lot better if they all put on Kabuki masks, Samurai outfits, and acted out their parts on a stage with giant drums and a dragon.

Okay, going to look up agency then use it in a sentence … 

def – (number 2) “action or intervention, especially to produce a particular effect,”

“a thing or person that acts to produce a particular result.”

Hum, producing a particular effect by an action, intervention, person or thing – huh?

“William Barr’s writing summary letters are agency of outrage…” Not quite right.

“The agency of Barr’s writing summary letters has produced outrage..” Better?

Okay, let’s do transactional … 

(The last time I saw transactional used a lot was when the book “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” came out and they talked about Transactional Analysis. Which is the interaction between two or three people. Oh wait was that “Games People Play”? Yeah, think so. Both are great books and everybody should read them. (That’s the kiss of death.))

def – transactional: 1) “relating to the conducting of business, especially buying and selling,”

2) “relating to the exchange of social evolution.”

Okay, so definition number 2 is the one I’ve know about. Definition number 1 is the one that relates to Jared and Donald. In other words, they’d sell their grandmother into slavery to make a deal. The implication I’ve gotten from how transactional has been used recently is that the person involved wants to make a deal (ie buying and selling) without regard for long term consequences. 

In another fascinating tidbit of news it’s been reported that Trump has spent $4.5 million in facebook ads attacking people he doesn’t like. This is more than double what all the Democratic challengers have spent so far combined. These ads are highly targeted to his base. The ads reportedly are pure playground type bullying ads. They are mean, petty, and lacking any real content or positive suggestion. That is where we are. 

583 Days to the 2020 election and 661 Days to Inauguration Day

PS DC Taxi sign – Know Your Rights – “Passengers Have the Right to be Taken to Their Destination” Who knew?

 

 

Know Your Rights

Day 812 Friday March 29, 2019

584 Days to the 2020 election and 662 Days to Inauguration Day

Yesterday I wrote about:
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Today I write about:
The Stupid, The Hypocritical, and The Insane
But first:
BACON

Yes, that’s right bacon. I had a dream. (Seems like that could be a good line for a speech, tense isn’t right…)
Most of the time when I dream they are very vivid and I know I won’t forget and by the time I wake up I can’t recall exactly what was going on, but I can tell you this – I’ve never dreamed about bacon before.
In this dream a bunch of people, me included, were debating whether we should have bacon at funerals. I think it was at funerals. I went with someone to the bathroom. On the way we had to go by trays of bacon already cooked. They were laid out on big flat baking sheets. We had to literally part the tables to get to the bathroom. It occurred to me at that moment in the dream, “What are we arguing about? Is it the cost of the bacon or is it who is going to cook the bacon?” It did not seem to enter into the dream whether bacon was the proper thing to serve at a funeral.
This led me to rethink something I had seen earlier in the day on facebook. It was a copy of a tweet by Rand Paul asking people to send him money so he could defeat socialism. Underneath the copy of the tweet the question was asked, Isn’t Rand Paul using socialism to ask people for him to defeat it? Indeed, he is/was.
So we can label that either stupid or hypocritical. With Rand Paul hypocritical seems to always fit better.

Then we get to the Republican attempts to once again repeal the Affordable Care Act and “replace it with something great.” They are now trying to throw out the whole law in the courts. The head of Trump’s reelection campaign outlined the strategy last night: first, repeal Obamacare, then put really smart people in a room to come up with a really great plan, and Congress will have to pass it because they will have a gun to their head and nothing gets done in Washington unless there’s critical deadline.

Okay, let’s review. The Republicans have tried to repeal the ACA almost 70 times and haven’t succeeded. The ACA was created by getting some really smart people who knew health care really well and putting them in a room. The plan was the one proposed by the very conservative Heritage Foundation. A plan they loved until a black man, a Democrat no less proposed it. The Dems also held open hearings, lots of them to get input. They reached across the aisle to include Republicans. They also based many of the practical parts of the ACA off the plan instituted in Massachusetts, by the Republican governor of that state Mitt Romney. In reaching across the aisle the Democrats and President Obama added most if not all of the concessions into the bill that the Republicans demanded. Then it came time to vote and not a single Republican went along with it.
After the bill was passed the Republicans bitched about it. What did they specifically point to? What did they not like? What did they say didn’t work and wasn’t working? Why the very things they wanted put in the bill.
That’s hypocrisy for you. It’s also stupid, maybe insane.
But wait, there’s more (hypocrisy, stupidity, and insanity.)

Let’s recall that the Republican idea of putting a bunch of really smart people in a room to figure out what to do has been there operating mantra for quite awhile. It was Paul Ryan’s. It was Trump’s election promise. It is also Howard Shultz’s plan.
When asked like the Iowa voter did of Chuck Grassley, “Why not fix what’s there?” They seem to have no answer other than it was done by the Democrats and to fix it would give a kudow to the Dems and they couldn’t do that.

The last time I know of in American history that a bunch of smart people were put in a room to figure out a plan was the Panic of 1907. There was no central bank at the time. The central banking function was being done by J.P.Morgan, not the company but the man himself. (Okay, and his bank of the same name.) Before that it had been done by Fiske and Gould until they got greedy overextended themselves and went bankrupt. In fact, if you go back through the history of our country before the Federal Reserve’s creation this country was in a perpetual cycle of boom and bust. (Something both Rand and Ron Paul ought to review to realize that their ideas on this are nuts, but that’s a different tenet of another story.)

In the Panic of 1907 many banks had over extended themselves. Morgan got all the bankers together and literally put them in a room and told them to come up with a plan. He sat outside the door and played solitaire and smoked cigars.
He was a big man. I think six foot seven and weighed 350 pounds. To be fat in that day was a sign of wealth, no one else could afford enough food to be fat. He also wore a beaver skin stovepipe top hat so all in all he must have cut a high wide swath when he walked. He was also driven. One time he climbed a roped runged ladder up the side of a ship. He had to because a lot of people were watching. Climb he did, with a cigar clamped in his mouth. He got to the top swung over the side and promptly collapsed.
The bankers came out with a plan. Morgan looked at it and said it was no good and sent them back into the room.
They came out with another plan. Once again, no good.
They came out with a third plan. He looked at it, said it would work, picked up the piece of paper, strode down Wall Street, went into the Stock Exchange, held up the paper and said he had the answer. Thus ended the panic.
We don’t have men like that anymore.

There are two important pieces to the put-smart-people-in-a-room scenario. One) they have to know about the subject they need to deal with. Two) there needs to be someone outside the door who keeps them in the room and knows even more than they do about the subject matter.
Given the people Trump has appointed, and given the people that Congressional Republicans have called on before for such tasks, there is little question in my mind that they couldn’t find a group of people to find their way out of an open paper bag.

So their plan, such as it is, is insane, because there is no plan. They have no smart people, and if they did they’d pick the wrong people for the task, and they certainly don’t have someone smarter than the bunch to lead.

What they will do is say the right things, criticize the other side, and then if they get in power appoint their plutocratic and religious bigots to do something. Either steal from us or constrict our freedoms depending on which group they put in place.

Can anyone name a time when the Republicans put a group of really smart people in a room and came up with a plan? How about a reasonable plan? I can’t. So why would we choose to let them try it now?

Moving on: The most depressing thing I saw while in Washington DC were groups of young students with some in their midst sporting new red sweatshirts or hats with Make America Great Again emblazoned on them. They were all young boys with that kind of smirky look like the kid who stood in front of the native American.
We need some t-shirts and hats with RESIST in cartouche style being sold.

584 Days to the 2020 election and 662 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Tintoretto “Paradise” 1583 at The National Gallery until July 7, 2019.

Day 811 Thursday March 28, 2019

585 Days to the 2020 election and 663 Days to Inauguration Day

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

First the Good, because we haven’t had much of that. Yesterday I went to the National Gallery of Art. In the West Wing they have a show on Tintoretto. If you’re a History of Art aficionado you know the name. He is one of the men responsible for the Italian Renaissance, the High Renaissance. I still remember my Jansen History of Art book that stated the Italian High Renaissance was due to six individuals, and Tintoretto was one of them.

However, his work got overshadowed in my mind by other names: Titian, Michelangelo, Da Vinci. 

Three of the six men were known to be gay. They were conflicted by their religion and their sexuality. Often tortured in their minds between their faith and their desire. Men of extreme talent and ability. Tintoretto  was Venetian. He was thirty years younger than Titian, in whose studio he first worked until the old master kicked him out. Tintoretto was brash, trained by fresco painters and furniture stainers who had to work quickly he brought these techniques to the studio and was not welcomed for it. He painted on canvas in oil when many were still painting on wood. His real name, Jacopo Comin (and most historians thought it Jacopo Robusti) was replaced by the nickname based on his father’s profession of dyer or tintore. He was the eldest of 21 children. (Yikes! His poor mom!) His motto which was painted on the wall of his studio said “Michelangelo’s drawing and Titian’s color.” Indeed the lumpy muscled figures are pure Michelangelo but the colors jump out at you. A master, like Michelangelo, of foreshortening he often draped wax figures to understand how the cloth would look, and he used candles in a small cardboard boxes to understand how the light would play. 

The work is startling brilliant, and the National Gallery has most of his major works. Some are painted on walls and can’t be moved, but most of the rest? They have them here. If you are interested in the Italian Renaissance, this show is not to be missed. And make sure you go downstairs to see the drawings and go past the fountain upstairs to see the two large paintings that aren’t in the main exhibit area.

The Bad – How many headlines have appeared in the last few days that are just darn discouraging?

Betsy DeVos cuts all the funding for Special Olympics. It’s one third of the amount we’ve spent protecting Trump while he plays golf. Yet she has allotted over three times the amount the Special Olympics costs to those phony schools, charter schools, which is another way to drain money from public education and give it to individuals trying to make a buck or to some phony Christian school. (Of course, in Betsy DeVos’ defense some think she is so stupid that she may not have realized that is what was being done.)

AG Barr has gone against legal practice and precedent with his issuing a four page letter with his conclusion about what Mueller found and now he’s stalling in handing over the full report or any part of it.

The Trump administration will not defend the law of the land when it comes to Obamacare thus eliminating 21 million from coverage and another 131 million will have hugely increased medical costs.

Trump wants to put a proven economic idiot on the Federal Reserve Board.

And so it goes …

The Ugly – See the Bad above, and below.

Perhaps the most discouraging thing I saw yesterday was young kids on field trips and some were wearing MAGA hats or sweatshirts. Very sad. 

As I watched and listened to all this ugliness I asked myself this question, “Who was supposed to tell us, the American People, that we were under attack?” Whose job was that? The President? The head of the Joint Chiefs? Someone in intelligence? In Justice? The Congress? 

Forget about the potential criminal implications, we were under attack. All these people in government knew it and kept their mouths shut. No one said the theater is on fire, why? Don’t we need a procedure that keeps us informed as to how bad the attacks are? 

In other news, the Freshman in Congress are making their mark and thank god. They are speaking up. Not like the old guard. 

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has been shown saying essentially, Hey, the Green New Deal is cheaper than waiting and we will pay one way or the other. It has also been pointed out that the top twenty folks in both the House and the Senate that have received money from the oil and gas industry are all Republicans, save one. So the opposition to the Green New Deal has nothing to do with politics, or facts. It has to do with being bribed.

Tom Malinowski asked Mike Pompeo what’s to like about Kim Jong Un? Pompeo begged him not to make this political. What? Malinowski pointed out that North Korea is the most communist regime on the planet and the president likes Un (or is it Kim? Who cares?) What’s to like? All Pompeo could do was beg for mercy. 

These supposed conservative Republicans are all tough talking until the light is shown on them and then they cry like little puppies.  

I say make ‘em cry. 

585 Days to the 2020 election and 663 Days to Inauguration Day

PS The Trump Hotel sign: before and after. Who would do such a thing as to spit on that sign?