Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Due Process

Except Sotomayor wrote about the majority voting in favor of the government, not Trump. Her analysis was as pertinent and proper as Judge Jackson’s remarks about the jury in the Stone sentencing hearing. And the only fairness Trump understands is when he gets his way.
Posted by at No comments:

Monday, February 24, 2020

"Never Trust Anyone Over 30!"

...is now "Everybody over 30 is old.  So what?"

Or maybe it's "You wanna talk medical problems?!  I gotta medical record, it's like a phone book!*  I take more pills than Carter's got!**  Medical history!  I got medical history you wouldn't believe!"

*ask your grandpa, punk!

**see answer above.
Posted by at No comments:

When You are #1....


The only way to go is down.

Oh, I don't mean this will be Bernie's undoing; but he's fixing to find out what being the front-runner means.


And whether Bernie likes the attention or not, his supporters surely won't:


One thing is sure:  the questions won't go away.

As I mentioned before, the Superintendent of Schools of my school district has to get a physical exam every year, and see a copy of the report is sent to the School Board.  And a Superintendent of Schools is hardly a POTUS.  The degree of privacy you give up to live in the White House and sit behind the Resolute Desk is high, but it is necessary.  Put up, or shut up.

Meanwhile, the guy in charge is clueless:

And the guy who would replace him thinks Castro is cool:

Nothing against Castro, personally; but why go out of your way to be contrarian on that non-issue that is now an issue?

Is there any possible future in which we aren't completely screwed?
Posted by at No comments:

LEGALIZE HEROIN


It's not just Florida, man.
Posted by at No comments:

You Say You Want a Revolution, well, you know....


If you were wondering, THIS is the kind of revolution I can get behind.  Accountability is the populism I favor.

I also like what Bernie says should be done.  I just know he won't be the one to do it.  LBJ could get it done, but we don't have an LBJ now, and we don't have a Congress that even vaguely remembers the New Deal, or World War II, or a society with the optimism of the '60's, when we could get things done that we are convinced now cannot be done except by Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk.

Don't get me started....
Posted by at No comments:

In 5...4...3...2...


Trump tweeting Weinstein was unfairly convicted and nobody knows what for and the jury was biased and the sentence is totally unfair and WITCH HUNT!

No, it hasn't happened; but on the theory Trump responds to prosecutions of crimes he's already committed, ain't it due?

(Or maybe the exception is these are state charges and he can't do anything about it.)
Posted by at No comments:

Yeah, I was wondering


Yeah, except:

This is an M.O that comes from the top: We are pure; you are not. You are with us or you are corrupt Establishment criminals. If you challenge us, we will call you names, bully you, threaten you.

This is not all Bernie Sanders supporters. In fact, it’s a minority; many truly believe in the cause, in income inequality destroying the fabric of America, in universal health care being a universal right, in all of it. Fine.

But there were no great policy debates on the floor of that convention; they weren’t even debating emails servers or Wall Street transcripts. This was raw fury, nasty enough this weekend in Las Vegas to disrupt a convention in the name of … what? What is the endgame here?

Take over a state party that may be the best in America? Stop Hillary Clinton from winning the nomination? Make a lot of noise, eat a lot of pizza and look down on everyone?

These are small-picture people. Instead of accepting the plain facts that Clinton won the caucus and out-hustled Sanders at the state convention, they want to talk about arcane rules being imposed, whether chairs were really thrown and if anyone should make a fuss out of chalk on walls and sidewalks (even if the messages were hateful).

These are people who think it’s fine to scream obscenities at a sitting U.S. senator, Barbara Boxer, believe it’s part of their First Amendment rights to call a state party chair corrupt and who insist they are cheated out of something that was never theirs. If this is the Sanders revolution, give me the Establishment.

That was 2016.   This was just recently:


A lot of people were upset at Chris Matthews comparing the collapse of opposition to Sanders in Nevada to the French being defeated by Nazi Germany.  Most of the complaints were that Sanders lost family in the Holocaust, and Matthews was comparing the Sanders campaign to Hitler (Godwin's Law is real).  Not so much complaining about comparing asking for a candidate's health records (can he do the job?) to racism. (Hell, the local school superintendent here has to have a physical every year, and the school board gets the report.  It's not a secret, it's a requirement to be sure the Chief Executive is in good health and can do the job.)  And Bernie loves to have enemies, too:

Well, except for Republicans and corporations (which most people work for, by the way) and people with money:

Every campaign needs an enemy, I guess.

But how many amorphous and poorly identified "others" do we need?  Is resentment and revenge the only language our political discourse speaks now?

Where are the trolls?  Send in the trolls.  Don't bother, they're here.
Posted by at No comments:

The REAL Voter Suppression


Regarding the Nevada primaries/caucuses:

Nevada has almost 611,000 registered Democrats. Final results will show fewer than 36,000 votes for Sanders. That means for every vote Sanders won there were 16 Democrats who choose someone else—or no one at all.

Is this because of the caucus v. primary system?  I understand Nevada had early voting, which seems to be antithetical to a caucus system, but then again, final results from Nevada haven't been announced yet.  Last I saw, only 63% of the vote had been reported; which doesn't mean Bernie didn't win, but it does mean the count goes on, even as attention shifts to Super Tuesday (and belatedly to Texas.  Voting here started last week.  I don't watch much broadcast TV, but even I couldn't avoid the Bernie and Bloomberg and Steyer ads yesterday.  Of course, I'd already voted....).

Or is it because the real voter suppression (not discounting the very real efforts of Republicans to choose who can vote and who can't) is voter apathy.  Then again maybe this is irrelevant, since most people can't be bothered to vote in primaries.  But that's another problem, isn't it?  That's how we got Trump and now Bernie already anointed.  Then again, that's how we got Dukakis and Gore and Kerry and Clinton, too.  As well as Bill and Obama; as a percentages game, we're not doing well.

What we do know is that a tiny fraction of registered voters could determine who faces Trump. And we now know that there is not much enthusiasm for Sanders in Nevada, a state that is more like America as a whole than either New Hampshire or Iowa, the first caucus state.

Trump won despite only 46% of actual voters favoring him. Trump brags about his not quite 63 million votes, but Hillary Clinton got close to 66 million votes. Add in minor candidates and 74 million Americans voted against Trump.

The big question is whether Trump fatigue weighs so heavily on America that the November election will be determined not by the American people, but by tiny minorities in picking the Democratic Party candidate. Even if Sanders founders in the next few primaries, a minority of Democrats will decide.

And what happens if the vast majority stay home on Nov. 3?

In the end, our government is the result not of what the American people want, but of who votes. Turnout first. Turnout last. Turnout is all that matters.

Ask yourself what it means that in the Nevada Democratic primary the real vote was 9% care and 91% couldn’t be bothered.

I don’t know the answer. What I do know is that we should be actively discussing this. And we should do so not from wishes or fears, but from thoughtful concern about the future, we will soon choose for our nation.
The opening tweet is meant to be ironic.  Rick Wilson, who derides any campaigning that is not directly aimed at attacking Donald Trump, retweeted it.  I'm not sure about the message "don't vote," though.  I agree the parties are failing to produce fit candidates for office, but I don't think I'm "endorsing their failures" with my vote.  Rather, I'm choosing the lesser of evils, which is all the parties ever really offer.  My vote is not so holy it must not be sullied by candidates unworthy of me and my franchise.  We have few enough people participating in democracy as it is.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Another Reason We Are All Romantics, Still

Posted by at 1 comment:

How Long Has This Been Going On?


How many Super Tuesday states have early voting?  Does anybody even notice it?  Because it's been a fact for decades.  "Running out of time"?  In many cases, they ran out of time last week, at least in Texas.  Well, not completely and absolutely, but when does the "narrative" catch up with reality?
Posted by at No comments:

Anecdote


I really don't know how much time voters in Florida spend cursing Castro's name, nor how much influence anti-Castroites have in Florida politics to this day.  I won't argue the point one way or the other.  But I voted early yesterday, as is my wont, and it was interesting.

Texas has extensive early voting.  It started last week and runs through the end of this week.  I can't remember the terms of it (beginning so many days before election day, ending so many days before as well), but it's usually long enough to cover two weekends.  It's damned convenient, as during early voting you can vote anywhere there's a polling place.  I remember the days of having to figure out this time where my voting district polling place was.  This was in the days before we even thought of calling inconvenience "voter suppression" (git offa mah lawn, ya punks!), and Texas fixed that decades ago.

I love early voting, IOW.

Every year I go to the same location and vote in the same room.  I mention this because yesterday afternoon the Lovely Wife and I entered the building and I noticed there seemed to be no action (and no signs pointing out the polling place) to the right of the door, as is usual.  She headed that way almost reflexively (we always go "that way" to vote) and I noticed the signs on the left, indicating a new room open for voting.  The election judge/aide sitting on that side of the lobby perked up enough to say yes, we were going in the right direction, yes, they had shifted the location of the voting machines.

I stood in a short line and voted, which took awhile (LOOOOONG ballots in Texas; from President of the US of A to Court of Appeals Judges on courts I didn't know Texas had, and I'm a lawyer.  I was only surprised I didn't have to nominate a candidate for janitor of the courthouse annex.).  The Lovely Wife took a bit longer (as is her wont) and I stood in the lobby waiting for her (you leave the polling place when you're done.  For some reason you can't use the list on your cellphone, but I could take a list in with me.  When some positions have 7 candidates and you aren't even sure what the office is, you need a list.  Did I mention the long ballots?).  As I stood there, I noted the number of people coming in and, as the Lovely Wife had done before, heading off to the right reflexively.  They, like us, had been there many times before.

They were also almost uniformly older than your Humble Host.  Some used canes, some used walkers, some just shuffled very slowly.  But they were quite determined to do their civic duty. (and it was a joint polling place.  Another advantage of technology:  in the old days, Democrats and Republicans voted in separate rooms, sometimes separate locations entirely, and you had to find yours.  Now you just tell the voting judge which primary you want, and the code for the voting machine (!) brings up the ballot you asked for, as well as the precincts you can vote in based on your address.  Texas; precincts mean Justice of the Peace nominees, City Council members, County Commissioners,  dog catcher, snake wrangler, possum chaser....).  I didn't see any "young people."  Maybe they voted the weekend before.  Maybe they'll vote on Super Tuesday.  Maybe they voted later that same day.  I dunno.  But I didn't see any.  And it was a perfect time to show up.  Sunny, clear, cool; lovely day to be out, and last chance for weekend voting before Super Tuesday.  And, at that point, the polls would only be open 4 more hours that day.

This is a slice of the electorate in general, though.  Old people vote.  Maybe they'll vote for Bernie, I don't care.  But if they live in Florida and still spit on the ground every time Castro's name gets mentioned, and they vote, then Bernie's statements on Castro aren't going to help him any.  And how does he get to the White House without Florida?  Bet it all on Texas?

I wouldn't do that if I were him.
Posted by at 1 comment:

Sunday, February 23, 2020

And when he does not win their votes...

It will prove to him again that “they” are ungrateful no matter what he (thinks he) has done for them.

It’s sad,really, how stunted his life is. Who would trade places with him?
Posted by at No comments:

The End Is Near?

Not what I’m worried about just now.
Not sure of the time frame there, but that’s a shit ton of money to wave away and who is he going to tax to get it? And then canceling student debt and paying for school in all 50 states. Pardon me if it seems...unrealistic.
Sure, why not? How hard could it be? Add that to the $30 trillion?

I know we have to get rid of Trump. By must we jump out of the frying pan into the fire?
Posted by at No comments:

Yesterday All the Past


Thomas More opposed Henry VIII because Thomas More preferred his version of God to Henry's.  Hard not to be sympathetic to More these days, but that doesn't mean More was right; or that arguments over whose God is in charge are any less relevant today than they were in the 16th century.  Listen:

“We believe in things like, what did you do to the least of them?” Dawkins-Haigler explained. “You fed the hungry, you clothed the naked, you went to see those who are in prison.”

“You do not have to be a socialist to be a Christian!” Jeffress shot back. “Socialism is antithetical to Christianity and if they nominate Bernie Sanders, they are not going to be able to attract any faith voters.”

“I totally disagree,” Dawkins-Haigler retorted. “People would have said that Jesus was more of a socialist than anybody we’re talking about today.”
The remarks stopped Fox News host Pete Hegseth cold.

“Why was Jesus a socialist?” he exclaimed.

“Because Jesus did not sit with the establishment, he overturned tables of the tax collectors, he sat with people who were lepers,” Dawkins-Haigler explained. “He made sure he healed people who people thought should not have been healed.”

“So we have to be very careful how we use this language and try to take ownership of who God is,” she added.

“That’s a big claim,” Hegseth interrupted again, giving the floor to Jeffress.

“No! Jesus was not a socialist!” Jeffress opined. “He said render unto Ceasar the things that are Ceasar’s and to God the things that are God’s. He was compassionate. Church is to be compassionate, but you don’t have to believe in socialism, which is nothing but communism light and is absolutely is opposed to everything that is Christian.”

I'm pretty sure Hegseth was saying this is " a big claim":

“Because Jesus did not sit with the establishment, he overturned tables of the tax collectors, he sat with people who were lepers,” Dawkins-Haigler explained. “He made sure he healed people who people thought should not have been healed.”

Except that it's perfectly in keeping with the picture of Jesus presented in the synoptic gospels.  In context, Hegseth seems to be saying "We have to be very careful how we use this language and try to take ownership of who God is" is "a big claim."  But that's the same claim that consumed Henry VIII and Thomas More.  They fought over the ownership of who God is.  And Robert Jeffress ignores that challenge and lays claim to God as a God entirely in Jeffress' image:

“No! Jesus was not a socialist!” Jeffress opined. “He said render unto Ceasar the things that are Ceasar’s and to God the things that are God’s. He was compassionate. Church is to be compassionate, but you don’t have to believe in socialism, which is nothing but communism light and is absolutely is opposed to everything that is Christian.”

I could say Jeffress couldn't define "socialist" if you gave him a dictionary and a head start.  Then again, neither can Bernie (who often argues for Danish socialism as a model for America; but Denmark's government denies it is socialist, but is rather capitalist with extensive social programs.  How many angels can dance on the head of this pin?).  But that "Render to Caesar" citation is not the Pauline instruction to follow the rule of government (especially when government will lop your head off at a moment's notice, a practice only belatedly abandoned for the rule of law, the latter which is a very Hebraic concept of society and social order); rather, it is a response to a trap about what the coin said:  "divi filius," or Caesar is son of god.  There is also the question of idolatry:

A coin of Julius Caesar shows his spirit descending cometlike to takes it place among the eternal deities. A coin of Augustus Caesar calls him divi filius, son of a divine one, son of a god, son of the aforesaid comet. A coin of Tiberius Caesar hails him as pontifex maximuis, supreme bridge builder between earth and heaven, high priest of an imperial people. A silver denarius was a day's pay for a laborer and, if a day laborer meant somebody who worked every day rather than somebody who looked for work every day, it would have been a very good salary. Imagine this situation: If, after three days of hard work, a day laborer held those silver denarii in his hand, how would he, could he, should he distinguish between politics and religion in the Roman Empire?....Rome, and Rome alone, had built a kingdom and only it could approve how to build an underkingdom, a minirealm, a subordinate rule.

John Dominic Cross and Jonathan Reed, Excavating Jesus, revised & updated (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), pp. 178-79.

Capitalism is not in the least concerned with distinguishing between what is Caesar's and what is God's.  Church is to be compassionate, but that compassion is not limited to individual actions.  There is a sound historical argument to be made that Christianity, for all it's failings and alliances with evil men in power, has been the ameliorating source of much of the "progress" in Western society, the reason for what compassion and attention to the individual (there's a telling scene in "The Tudors" where Henry lays siege to the city of Boulogne, France.  As the siege drags on the soldiers starve, while in the royal tent Henry and his Dukes live as well as they would at one of the palaces.  That was not only expected it was practically required.  Why have a king if he's just like the commoners?).  Jeffress casts that aside in preference for personal piety (and who is to say what is in another person's heart?  Who can compel compassion?), but he doesn't defend Christianity.  Except in so far as he defends it against "communism [lite]," which I learned in high school is the wrong understanding of socialism.

But then we're back to that, aren't we?

It's notable Jeffress doesn't provide an alternative view of Christianity; he just upholds it as the defender of the status quo, of late modern American capitalism, where, as Bernie Sanders pointed out (he's not wrong on policy, just on how to implement it) Mike Bloomberg owns more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans combined.  Not a percentage, an actual count of persons.  I don't know how Robert Jeffress squares that with the basiliea tou theou, where the first are last and the last first, and the first of all is last and servant of all (who does Michael Bloomberg serve?), but from this account, he'd never even try.

Compassion is for individuals; the kingdom of God is in the bye-and-bye, and this is the best of all possible worlds for him because Trump's in the White House, and all is right with the realm.  Which ain't even close to being Christian, in my book.
Posted by at 1 comment:

All Over But The Shoutin’

Posted by at No comments:

Saturday, February 22, 2020

There's No Business like Snow Business


“I’m returning home today from a long exile a freed political prisoner,” he told the media Wednesday from the stoop of his Chicago house. “I want to say again to the people of Illinois who twice elected me governor: I didn’t let you down. I would have let you down if I gave in to this. But resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.”

“This is the larger fight that is before all of us as Americans,” Blagojevich said on Fox News Wednesday. “Some of these same people again have tried to do at the Major League-level to a Republican president what they were able successfully to do to a Democratic governor. And they are threatening to take away from all of us our rights to choose our own leaders through free and fair elections.”

Donald Trump?  No; Rod Blagojevich.  But the former governor and felon (his sentence was commuted, not expunged) speaks the same language.  And it's a language that explains why Trump won't (never say never, but still) pardon Roger Stone; or Paul Manafort (who?); or Michael Flynn.  Because Trump needs enemies, and real "victims" of his enemies are better than imaginary ones (the "Deep State" and "Democrats" in general).  Trump's Twitter feed is full of the slightly subtler version of this:

(Yes, all of that is crap and lies; but who cares anymore?  Trump needs enemies, and Hillary is still Trump Enemy #1.)  And of course Great Leader must speak:

Enemies large and small.

But why won't he pardon Stone?  How can he, and still rail against the judges and juries and all the enemies of Trump (and so the enemies of Trump supporters and all right-thinking people.  Sort of like people who don't support Bernie)?  Trump needs enemies, and the more concrete the symbol of those enemies, the better.  Maybe he'd really like to prosecute Andrew McCabe and James Comey, but he's never made any real effort to "Lock her up!"  He needs the rally chants.  Past tense is so last week's news and today's fish wrap.  Birdcages are lined with last week's news.  Trump needs to keep that stuff fresh even if it's no more likely than the sun rising in the west tomorrow.  He's not going to prosecute Joe or Hunter Biden, either.  But if he can bring up something to accuse them of....

We have always been at war with Eastasia.  Except this is better than war.  This is the enemy that keeps on being the enemy.  Besides, where is the constituency for Paul Manafort or Michael Flynn or Roger Stone?  If Trump pardons them, doesn't that mean they were important, they served a role, they actually contributed to the Unprecedented Victory of Dear Great Leader?  Can't allow even the hint of that.  Manafort is in prison, Flynn is sporadically in the headlines, and Roger Stone only came to notice because of the sentencing hearing.  Will Trump do anything now?

And give up show business??
Posted by at No comments:

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

That "lead in delegates" explains Bernie's remark at the last debate (or the one prior?  I can't keep up) that the person with the most votes should win.  Yeah, it doesn't work that way in the general election nor in the Democratic primaries.  Bernie may wind up with 3 more votes, but with fewer delegates, and though he hates the "super-delegates" because they are part of the "establishment" he's "coming for," dese are de conditions dat prevail.  And he knew what the rules were when he decided to try this again.

Aside from the question of how many Democrats lose if Bernie insists its his way or the highway.  I was thinking about LBJ again.  He grew up in Central Texas and saw dirt-poor poverty and the effects of the New Deal.  Many of his programs directly benefited those poor rural areas where he grew up.  But LBJ didn't run on grabbing the levers of power and redirecting government to be what he wanted to see.  He used governmental power to help people.  Trump ran largely to avenge himself on Obama after the White House Correspondents Dinner where he was roasted.  It's not coincidence Trump hasn't attended one yet in his Presidency.  Now, in his third year, he's decided the power of the presidency is his to use to benefit, well:  Trump.  Sanders wants to do the same thing:  he's going to turn America into Denmark (he mentioned it again as the model for America in a recent debate), whether we want to be Denmark or not (do we all have to be melancholy?).  That won't directly benefit Bernie, but he think it is his mission to impose his vision on the nation.  That's the debate in Nevada right now with the Culinary Workers Union:  will they have to give up their health insurance if Bernie gets his way?  Must everything be Bernie's way or the highway?  (Same question with "free college."  Most of those colleges that aren't private are state supported.  Does Bernie propose a takeover of state colleges and universities to put them on a federal tuition plan?)  That sounds more like Trump than any officeholder I know.

And I really don't want a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" election in November.
Posted by at No comments:

If you just exchange...


"Santa Claus" for "President" and "Trump," it says the same thing.  I even hear it in David Sedaris' voice when he describes the Santa Clauses at Macy's talking to the children.
Posted by at No comments:

Well, There Goes The Texas Vote

Posted by at No comments:

Objective Journamalism

It is malpractice to report malapropisms.  Apparently.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)