The Commentariat -- April 17, 2015
Internal links removed.
Afternoon News.
Jaime Fuller of New York: "New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen introduced legislation on Wednesday that would recommend that the Treasury Secretary 'convene a panel of citizens' who would debate which woman could replace Andrew Jackson on the $20. A grassroots campaign, Women on 20s, has earned major buzz for pushing this idea -- hundreds of thousands of people have voted on the group's website for which woman they would like to see on U.S. currency (Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks are favorites)."
*****
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The leaders of Congress's tax-writing committees reached agreement Thursday on legislation to give President Obama 'fast track' authority to negotiate an ambitious trade accord with 11 other Pacific nations, beginning what is sure to be one of the toughest legislative battles of his last 19 months in office. The 'trade promotion authority' bill -- likely to be unveiled Thursday afternoon -- would give Congress the power to vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership once it is completed, but would deny lawmakers the chance to amend what would be the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The Washington Post story, by David Nakamura & Paul Kane, is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Adam Behsudi in Politico Magazine: "The most important trade bill in a decade has pitted Harry Reid against President Barack Obama. Liberal Democrat Rosa DeLauro against moderate Democrat Ron Kind. Labor unions against pro-business Democrats. And Elizabeth Warren against virtually everyone who supports a landmark piece of legislation that would allow the president to close what could be the biggest free-trade deal in history. The open warring among Democrats over fast-track trade legislation, and the party's broader existential crisis on free trade, grew more pronounced Thursday as senior lawmakers announced a breakthrough on the trade bill." ...
... Deirdre Fulton of Common Dreams has more, including a host of objections to the bill. ...
... Russell Berman of the Atlantic: "Don't look now, but congressional Republicans are once again on the verge of handing over more power to President Obama. The announcement Thursday that House and Senate negotiators had struck a deal on 'fast track' trade authority ... could lead to the ratification of the biggest international trade agreement since NAFTA, along with the most significant legislative achievement that the GOP Congress delivers to Obama.... Despite their rhetorical attacks on his imperial presidency, Republicans sometimes see enlarging Obama's authority as the best path to enacting their desired policies."
David Nakamura: "The Obama administration will attempt Friday to convince a federal appeals court to lift a lower-court ruling that has blocked the government from implementing the president's executive actions to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation and to grant them work permits. In a rare oral argument before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, Justice Department lawyers will have at least one hour to make their case that a federal judge in Texas erred in February when he halted Obama's deferred-action program as he deliberates over a lawsuit filed by 26 states." ...
... The New York Times story, by Michael Shear, is here.
John Bresnahan, et al., of Politico: "House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster is dating a top lobbyist for the leading U.S. airline trade association, an organization that spends millions of dollars trying to influence his panel. The Pennsylvania Republican is currently at the center of high-stakes negotiations to enact the most sweeping overhaul of the Federal Aviation Administration in decades. The package could include changes to the nation's air travel system, including the privatization of the air traffic control system. Airlines for America's members -- all of the nation's largest airlines -- have a major interest in the legislation. Shuster and Shelley Rubino, vice president for global government affairs for Airlines for America, have been romantically involved since last summer, according to multiple sources...." ...
... Sleeping with a Lobbyist -- Is Probably Perfectly Legal. Margaret Hartmann of New York elaborates, noting Shuster's close & longstanding relationships with other Airlines for America personnel.
Steve Stromberg of the Washington Post explains why the delay in confirming Loretta Lynch to be attorney general is all Mitch McConnell's fault & has nothing to do with abortion, a provision in a sex trafficking bill or anything else. Reporters & headline writers are getting it wrong by linking -- as McConnell has -- Lynch to the Senate's failure to pass a trafficking bill.
CW: Rebecca Leber of the National Journal finds some somewhat tenuous evidence, IMO, that Republican leaders aren't really stupid about climate change; they're just pretending to be, as a political expedient -- they're afraid of losing primary challenges to flat-earthers. So is this also true about their far-out stances on war, economics & social issues? If so, does it matter what they really know & think if they continue to push bad policies?
Paul Duggan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Doug Hughes, the under-the-radar postal worker who airmailed himself into the Washington limelight in a putt-putt flying machine, was charged with a felony Thursday and sent home to Florida to await prosecution, a day after he landed his gyrocopter on the U.S. Capitol grounds.... Meanwhile, as members of Congress vowed to investigate how the flying mailman managed to penetrate Washington's air-defense system, the Secret Service on Thursday denied a report that it was tipped off to the impending incursion moments after Hughes's takeoff."
Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: "With Syria's neighbors increasingly shutting their borders to refugees and thousands trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of safety, the war in Syria is creating the worst global refugee crisis in decades, putting new pressure on the United States and other Western countries to open their doors -- and in turn, prompting domestic political backlash." ...
... AFP: "The UN security council has vowed to take action against those responsible for deadly chemical weapons attacks in Syria after hearing graphic first-hand accounts from doctors working there. The US ambassador, Samantha Power, who said many council members were reduced to tears by the reports, told reporters after the closed-door meeting that the security council would seek to identify those behind the attacks and ensure they faced justice."
So if President Obama expresses disagreement with a person's views, he is apparently "suppressing domestic dissent" a la Castro, if not outright violating that person's First Amendment free speech rights, according to Tom Cotton. This we learn from Charles Pierce, in a post titled "Tom Cotton Says Something Dumb: A Continuing Series." CW: As for me, I'm thinking that if Harvard College & Harvard Law concentrated more on educating the kids than on maximizing their endowment, they would not be turning out such dunderheads.
Gimme That Old-Time Macro. Paul Krugman: "If you want to feel really depressed about Europe's future, read the Op-Ed article by Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, that was published Wednesday by The Times. It's a flat-out rejection of everything we know about macroeconomics, of all the insights that European experience these past five years confirms. In Mr. Schäuble's world, austerity leads to confidence, confidence creates growth, and, if it's not working for your country, it's because you're not doing it right.... In recent years..., innovative economic ideas, far from helping to provide a solution, have been part of the problem. We would have been far better off if we had stuck to that old-time macroeconomics, which is looking better than ever."
David Graham of the Atlantic on the revolving door between financial firms & their regulators, today starring Ben Bernanke (with Deval Patrick in a cameo appearance): "Bernanke is going to work for Citadel, a $25 billion hedge fund that is one of the country's largest. While Bernanke is a talented economist, he has also never worked in the industry, so it's fairly clear that what Citadel wants is inside information -- either things he knows because he remains close with people in positions of authority, or his insight into ongoing negotiations. That's why he's been in high demand by financial-industry powers ever since stepping down last February.... Perhaps what makes Bernanke's case so worrisome is that he has an almost universal reputation for probity. If the revolving-door system is so powerful that it can make even him look suspect, is it beyond redemption?"
Jonathan Chait writes an interesting piece -- a must for political nerds -- on how "negative partisanship" has changed voting patterns. "... the understandable reliance on the models of the past, and the assumption that nothing ever changes, may be missing the fact that something very important has."
Presidential Race
We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all -- even if it takes a constitutional amendment. -- Hillary Clinton, in Monticello, Iowa
... Charles Pierce: "Of course, Rodham Clinton is absolutely right, but she is stuck with the towering, immortal irony that she might be pitching for this constitutional amendment from atop a billion-dollar presidential campaign that is not going to be funded by widows and orphans." Read the whole post. ...
... Amy Davidson of the New Yorker on the Clinton Foundation's dodgy ethics. "... there is something particularly disorienting about the size and geographic scope of the Clinton operation. And it is strange, going into the 2016 Presidential campaign, that Hillary Clinton isn't more wary of that.... Presented with a conflict, the Clintons just don't seem to see why they should have to make a choice." ...
... So this comes as no surprise. Sam Stein & Paul Blumenthal of the Huffington Post: "Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign will accept donations from lobbyists and political action committees, a difference in policy from the man she's hoping to replace...." ...
... But this is a pleasant surprise, if true. Philip Mattingly of Bloomberg: "Hillary Clinton is planning to name Gary Gensler, a former top federal financial regulator and strong advocate for strict Wall Street rules, as the chief financial officer of her campaign, according to a Democrat familiar with the decision. Gensler, in his role as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, was a leading player in the drafting and then implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act, the financial rules that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010 in the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Gensler also served in President Bill Clinton's Treasury Department. For Clinton, who has been fighting her left flank's concern that she is too cozy with Wall Street, Gensler is a notable hire."
Dubya Redux. Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "If Jeb Bush is elected president, the United States won't be on speaking terms with Cuba and will partner more closely with Israel. He'll tighten sanctions on Iran and urge NATO to deploy more troops in Eastern Europe to counter Vladimir Putin. And he'll order the U.S. military to root out 'barbarians' and 'evildoers' around the globe. Far from running from or playing down the views once expressed by his brother George W. Bush, Jeb Bush is embracing them -- and emphasizing them." CW: Hey, maybe Jeb will assemble the whole team: Cheney, Rummie, Tenet, Yoo, etc.
Jeffrey Frank of the New Yorker compares Marco Rubio -- unfavorably -- to then-Vice President Richard Nixon. Remarkably, Nixon -- who had no abiding interest in Cuba -- had a better handle on Cuba than does Rubio, who has been intimately involved with U.S.-Cuba relations all his life. The quality of today's GOP presidential candidates is scarier than a Nixon Halloween mask. ...
... Arit John of Bloomberg: "A day after being called the 'candidate of yesterday' by CNN's Jake Tapper over his opposition to same-sex marriage during a CNN interview, Rubio told Fusion's Jorge Ramos on Wednesday that he would participate in a gay wedding involving someone he loves. At the same time, he called homosexuality a choice and compared a gay wedding to a divorcee's second marriage. 'I'm a member of the Catholic faith,' the Florida senator said. 'It teaches that marriages -- after you get married the first time, if you've been divorced you can't be remarried, and yet people attend second marriages all the time.' Rubio ... has said he believes ;marriage should only be between a man and a woman...." ...
... Oddly enough, Steve M. finds Marco's tap-dancing hypocritical: "Right, Marco. So why not take that a step further? Because I've noticed an interesting thing: Even though you think they're immoral, you and your fellow Catholics aren't trying to make divorce and remarriage illegal."
Lee Bergquist & Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "As Gov. Scott Walker moves closer to a formal announcement that he will run for president, a new poll shows his approval rating in Wisconsin is slipping.... Some of Walker's budget proposals were overwhelmingly unpopular, the poll found. For instance, 78% of voters opposed Walker's plan to cut aid to schools by $127 million. Nearly as many, 70%, oppose Walker's plan to cut $300 million to the University of Wisconsin System. Walker, who is in Europe this week on a trade mission, told reporters in a conference call that he expected to be able to prevent the cut to schools and possibly could reduce the size of the budget reduction for UW." The story has info on the Johnson/Feingold poll -- see also Senate Race below.
A Gathering of Awful. Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "With every major Republican presidential hopeful descending on New Hampshire this weekend for the state's first candidate forum, attention will turn for the moment from Hillary Rodham Clinton's entry into the campaign to the fluid Republican race.... the audition there offers a chance for one of the 19 prospects expected to attend to break out of the pack in a state where there is no clear favorite."
Senate Race
Wouldn't It Be Lovely. Daniel Strauss of TPM: "A new poll finds former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) beating Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) by double digits in the 2016 race for Johnson's senate seat. The Marquette University Law School poll released Thursday found that 54 percent of registered voters say they would support Feingold in a 2016 matchup, while 38 percent said they would support Johnson.... Johnson defeated Feingold in 2010. Recently Feingold stepped down at the State Department and people close to him have told TPM he's gearing up for a rematch."
Beyond the Beltway
Dylan Stableford of Yahoo! News: "The 73-year-old Oklahoma volunteer sheriff's deputy who accidentally shot and killed an unarmed suspect after confusing his stun gun with his handgun got firearms certification for field training he never received, the Tulsa World newspaper reports. According to Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz, [Robert] Bates had been certified to use three weapons, including the revolver he fired at Harris. But according to Tulsa World's report, supervisors at the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office 'were ordered to falsify [Bates'] training records, giving him credit for field training he never took and firearms certifications he should not have received.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The image of a sanctimonious bastard.Heartless in the Heartland. Peter Holley & Elahe Izadi of the Washington Post: "There's nothing fun about being on welfare, and a new Kansas law aims to keep it that way. Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed House Bill 2258 into law Thursday. The measure means Kansas families receiving government assistance will no longer be able to use those funds to visit swimming pools, see movies, go gambling or get tattoos on the state's dime. Those are just a few of the restrictions contained within the law that aims to tighten regulations on how poor families spend their government aid.... Under the new welfare law, TANF recipients can still spend their benefit money on guns, the Wichita Eagle reported." ...
... CW: Meanwhile, many Reality Chex readers, not to mention millions of other taxpaying Americans and me, too, filed our tax returns yesterday, wherein we received breaks -- that is, benefits -- totaling well more than $5,964, the maximum a family of four could receive in Kansas welfare benefits over the course of a year. Nobody shamed us, nobody told us we couldn't go to the movies, nobody said we couldn't get our nails done or go on the next sea cruise out of Wichita. Nope, we're the lucky duckies who take our benefits without Sam Brownback & a bunch of self-righteous dumbfuck legislators getting in our wholesome, shiny faces. "God Bless the USA." I believe I'll get me a tattoo that says just that. Because I can. ...
... CW: My intention was to give Sam Brownback this week's Governor's Cup for Extraordinary Cruelty, but there's a close runner-up. Tara Culp-Ressler of Think Progress: "Thanks to a measure that was approved by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) this month, insurance coverage for tens of thousands of his constituents could be placed in serious jeopardy if the Supreme Court decides to limit the availability of Obamacare's subsidies in the states that haven't fully implemented health reform. The legislation, House Bill 2643, is being framed in terms of giving the state 'sovereign authority' over its policies. In practical terms, it bars state employees from doing anything to cooperate with the federal law -- which may prevent Arizona from setting up its own state-run insurance marketplace under the Affordable Care Act." Congratulations, Your Royal Sovereignty.
News Ledes
Yahoo! News: "The parents of the youngest victim of the Boston Marathon bombing are pressing federal prosecutors to drop their quest for the death penalty for convicted bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, arguing that a life sentence without parole would 'end the anguish' of a continuing trial and what is likely to be years of appeals. Bill and Denise Richard, whose 8-year-old son, Martin, was killed by the second of two pressure cooker bombs detonated near the finish line of the 2013 marathon, said in a lengthy statement published in Friday's Boston Globe that Tsarnaev's conviction in the guilt phase of the trial earlier this month ensures 'justice will be served' and that it's time 'to bring the case to a close.'"
Washington Post: "A top aide of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been killed during fighting against Sunni insurgent forces, senior Iraqi officials claimed Friday, in a potential blow to factions opposing the government in Baghdad. But previous reports over the years about the death of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri have proven wrong. Photos purporting to show Douri's body circulated on social media, but not from any official sources. Iraqi officials said a DNA analysis of the body was planned. It was unclear when results could be released."
Washington Post: "Last week in Milwaukee, a 2-year-old darted into the street and was struck and killed by a motorist. When the motorist got out to aid the child, he was shot and killed by someone in the street. Also shot and killed was the toddler's 15 year old brother, who had run to the scene after the accident. On Thursday, the child's uncle, who police suspected opened fire as an apparent act of revenge, took his own life as authorities closed in on him." ...
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story is here.
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Reader Comments (16)
Yes, they're coming, all those eager would-be Republican kings--um, presidents--to NH. Gosh darn, I'm going to be out of the state this weekend and will miss them. I may not be able to duck Chris Christie, though, as he's going to be in the neighborhood today. But I had to laugh, after a double take, at the headline in one of our area newspapers: "Christie touts need for a new direction; Plans stop Friday in Exeter." If you read "plans" as a noun, as I initially did, rather than as a verb, this is terrific news. Who knew Exeter had such power? Must be all that higher learning that seeps out of Phillips Exeter Academy. Republicans who prefer low-information/knowledge voters perhaps should take note.
The Marquette poll also shows how deeply unpopular Scott Walker's agenda is in Wisconsin, with large majorities disapproving of his cuts to education and the UW, as well as other issues. His statewide approval rating has fallen to 41%. Are Wisconsinites finally realizing that Walker is trashing the state to further his presidential run?
Walker doesn't care! Asked about the poll, he expressed his opinion that his numbers will rise, rather than address the concerns of the citizens. He's used to leaving behind a smoldering ruin (see Milwaukee County) as he takes on the next stepping stone to his ultimate goal of the presidency.
He has only one "big, bold idea": that the US should put an undereducated simpleton from a state whose electoral votes he couldn't deliver in the White House. Aside from that, he's got nothing.
Hats off to Doug Hughes, the Flying Postman of Florida, who decided to put on the line his life, his fortune and his sacred honor to bring attention to the serious threat to our polity caused by Citizens United and McCutcheon.
Now all the talk by legislators (who never received Hughes' letters, which he wanted to deliver by personal air mail) is about how he could have flown in undetected and unopposed -- Sen Graham in particular opined that he should have been shot down.
No one on the news, or in the Congress, is commenting that Hughes may represent a valid concern, or observing that when citizens engage in risky civil disobedience there may be some underlying problem that is not being addressed by the "normal" political process.
And, FYI, flying as Hughes did is called "nap of the earth" flight, by which you stay about 50 feet above obstacles all the way in, and there is no ground radar in the world that can track you for more than a few seconds. Your radar reflection gets lost in the gound clutter. It is standard tactical approach flight. In the next few weeks, look for someone to suggest that we need to have AWACs command aircraft, with down-looking radar, loitering over the Mall 24/7. Or better yet, that big tethered blimp that can read your license plate from 50 miles out, which last year was a civil-liberties no-no in the U.S., but which will look just right to the Secret Service and Capitol Mall Cops by now.
Which still leaves the Q: do you shoot down small aircraft over an urban environment?
Here's a PBS Newshour segment on the Welfare problems. Boy, oh, boy, do I wish Brownback, the guy that has one of the worst records as governor, that has put his state in dire straits, the worst of luck. When he was in Congress I couldn't stand his arrogance, now he just disgusts me.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/hard-get-welfare/
Jon Stewart blows Cheney away:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/17/jon-stewart-dick-cheney-iran_n_7084762.html
Because I spend to many years in the classroom, it's no wonder I apply the classroom model to most everything.
In the case of Cotton, the "dunderhead" and those Koch-Confederates who MAY deny climate change for expediency's sake, I see them as purported leader-teachers who, fearful of their ignorant students' wrath, ask their students for the answers, mark correct everything they write on their tests, and give everyone "A's."
It's not an uncommon problem in schools, as it obviously is in politics, and my experience one of the reasons teachers are properly hesitant to allow student reviews to comprise more than a minor part of their own evaluations. I have known too many "popular" teachers who were "popular" because they did not challenge their students. Of course, they were popular only to those who did not want to be challenged. Other students avoided them.
See any parallels here? Now I wonder if that division of students, evident so early in the classroom, is a predictor of political affiliation?
Patrick,
There are two reasons--no, make that three--that Lindsey Graham wanted this guy shot down. First, he's afraid of his own shadow, so he wants to take every opportunity to impart his fear-mongering militarized siege mentality to every American. Second, and most importantly, Mr. Hughes wanted to complain about the unchecked dark money flooding Washington since Little Johnny and the Dwarfs declared unlimited cash a necessary component of the First Amendment, and anyone complaining about that does indeed deserve a cruise missile in the back. And finally, Mr. Hughes demonstrated to Graham, one of the many Confederates who hate all things government (except the Pentagon), that the USPS will go to great lengths to make sure you get your mail.
It's expected that politicians, especially those in thrall to big money (nearly all of them) will avoid talking about the reason for this stunt and instead make it one of HOLY SHIT, NATIONAL SECURITY!!!, but it's unconscionable that the press, for the most part, are stenographing right along with them. A perfect opportunity for some sharp reporter or editor to say "Hey, let's do a piece on the problems this guy wanted to talk about!"
Nope. More fun to talk, as you say, about a low flying AWACS hovering over the Capitol dome and "strategic strikes".
Graham certainly is the poster child for unreasonable hysteria about these issues, but there are plenty right in line behind him. I've heard talk about having this guy sent to Gitmo for giving our enemies a good idea for how to kill congressmen. First, I don't think that's all that bad an idea (the second part). But, seriously, our enemies came up with a (you have to admit it) pretty ingenious and dangerous plan of flying jets into buildings. I'm pretty sure they have guys working non-stop on other ideas and have probably determined that, 1. A gyrocopter wouldn't be able to support the kind of weapons payload that would make it worthwhile, and 2. the pilot could probably be shot down by security forces on the ground using sidearms.
And leave us not even mention the problem of arming, aiming, and firing a missile in the middle of a major metropolitan area and hoping there will be no collateral damage.
I suppose guys like Graham don't give a shit about collateral damage (obviously: he voted about 100 times for more destruction in Iraq) as long as they get to crawl under a table in their hidey holes and let the average citizens take the punishment of their "shock and awe" approach.
Hear, hear, for Doug Hughes.
....But not enough years in the classroom, it seems. That should have been "spent too" many years, I see. Should also have been "in" my experience. That's what happens when age meets ringing phones and one submits before one reads.
On the lemonade side, though, now that the phone call is done, maybe an excuse for continuing the thought.
So what do these students and teachers have in common? Laziness, to be sure. But when we're considering the purported leaders, the teachers or the politicians in question, we could also point to a fundamental misapprehension of their social purpose, or more likely the absence of any sense that their position has or--the moral element here--should have one.
Leadership always combines personal and social elements. Parenthood, teaching, private enterprise, the halls of Congress all demand a balance of the two. Certainly some positions, those in the business world come immediately to mind, invite and encourage more of the personal, and we're not surprised when the what's good for me consideration predominates. In public service, like teaching and politics, we expect a more generous perspective, behaviors designed to benefit the wider community.
When we don't get that necessary balance from those leaders, we are right to be disappointed, even angry. They are wolves in sheep's clothing, getting fat off their flock.
Whether these leaders are cynical or just plain dumb, I can't always tell.
I do know I'd pity their flock more if I liked them better.
Ken,
Interesting take on Confederate dunderheadedness (if I can employ so awkward a construction).
But I think these people are more than just dunderheads who are mostly dense and stupid. It's not like outside information doesn't get through. It does. But when it is received in the Confederate cortex, data is twisted and turned in on itself so that it is interpreted "correctly" according to wingnut ideology.
Thus, for Tom Cotton, anyone expressing an opposing point of view is not simply someone exercising their first amendment rights and offering a different opinion, they are actively seeking to curtail someone else's right of expression. In this way, he is complaining that something that should be a sacrosanct right (the right to express an opinion) is only a right for those who agree with him. See the flip?
Examples flourish in Right Wing World, like mold spores in a Petri dish.
The nice people over at Wonkette refer us to the tale of one horribly oppressed Michigan mechanic, Brian Klawiter, who is so fed up by being victimized by the Gay Agenda and nasty liberals, he has threatened to sabotage the car of anyone who shows up at his shop even smelling of "gay".
But here's where that Confederate cortex flip comes into play again. This guy, clearly, is a bigoted douchebag (oh he does say that he'll offer to cut his bill down if you show up armed, to show his support for the Second Amendment. I would hope that if he was a supporter of the First Amendment and I showed up and gave a speech, that he'd give me a deal too, but as we've already seen, in the Confederate mind, they are the only ones allowed to voice opinions. Anything else is active repression--but I digress) but rather than admit his discriminatory tendencies, he instead claims that anyone who has the temerity to point out his bigotry are themselves the bigots, and need to be slapped. Or shot. Or something.
It's a wonderful sort of mental gymnastics isn't it? The only problem is that instead of an Olympic level performance and nailing the landing, these guys tumble off the bar, fall on their asses and expect the gold medal.
But the really interesting thing here is how internally inconsistent these ideological flips become. On the one hand, the Confederate mindset is diligently authoritarian, patriarchal, and occasionally violent, with demands that everyone do what they say, but they see themselves as perpetually helpless victims who need to secretly sabotage cars of gay people in order to "stick it to the man" (so to speak!). It's just so fucking weird. "I'm in charge here! Stop victimizing me!"
But in a way, this goes along with your observation that those who should be leaders really never lead at all. They follow.
So, to review... If opinions are expressed and yours oppose theirs, you are a tyrant who doesn't deserve to speak, even though they go out of their way to state the importance of free expression ("free country, in'it?"). And if you take the trouble to point out some particularly nasty bigotry on their part, you are the bigot. Not them.
So it's not just dunderheadedness (although there is plenty of that to go around), it's that their entire thought process has been Confederatized to the point where up really is down, on is off.
Which is why these guys really, really shouldn't be allowed to carry loaded weapons. Sheesh!
One last thought. Have you noticed how often Confederate screeds demanding that rights for one group or another be curtailed or completely abridged are immediately followed, as a way of excusing their extreme position, by something like "After all, it's a free country, ain't it?"
Yeah. For now. At least until you guys take over.
Check out this unsettling graphic of police killings according to countries for a chilling reminder of how far off the path we've traveled when we can't even get reform because this egregious chart is perfectly acceptable to those able to change things.
Take into consideration however that no federal database actually exists to tally the true number... I ponder why?
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-shocking-extent-of-fatal-police-shootings-in-the-us-in-one-graphic--lJkmbhc5yb
Safari,
I read this stat a few weeks ago. Pretty startling, the idea that US police killed more citizens last month than have been killed in the United Kingdom (not just in England) in 100 years.
I was going to link this but because it was such a wild number, I was hesitant. I did a quick search to try to corroborate the statistic. I came up with figures in Britain going back to the 20's but no earlier so I decided not to link it. But the Independent is a pretty responsible paper. Nonetheless, I would have no qualms about claiming that if you were to take statistics from the US and the UK for the last 115 years, the death total in the US would look like casualty records from a small war.
I'm also sure that the easy access to weapons in this country is another factor, thank you NRA and Republican Party.
Violent death is an unavoidable aspect of Confederate ideology.
Elizabeth,
If you run into Christie today, ask him to please not close any bridges while he's in NH.
Funnily enough, I read that headline the same way you did, thinking, for a nanosecond, that he was throwing in the soiled towel.
It reminded me of some of my favorite poorly worded headlines:
"Bishops Agree Sex Abuse Rules"
"Tight End Returns After Colon Surgery"
One from the Seattle Times from 2012:
"With Dicks in, All 6 WA Congressional Democrats Favor Repeal of Gay Marriage Ban"
(That's a real one. I couldn't make that up.)
So now I'm waiting for "Fmr. NJ Gov Christie Begins Prison Sentence Today"
No misunderstanding there.
About women suitable for the $20 bill: Nations other than the USA sometimes remember the achievements and character of citizens who were not only, or primarily, active in politics or civic activism -- composers, artists, scientists, historians, etc. If this were our practice, it would be difficult to think of a person more worthy of recognition than Marian Anderson. Best,
Keith Howard
Keith,
Great choice.
Seeing the face of Eleanor Roosevelt or pretty much any woman of color on a twenty dollar bill will cause numerous Confederate heads to explode. If they don't go with Marian Anderson or Tubman or Parks, I'd opt for them using a picture of Roosevelt with her girlfriend Lorena Hickok.
They'd love that.
Marian made it too late to the Metropolitan Opera but at least she made it. And breaking that barrier made it possible, a few years later for one of the great sopranos of the century, Leontyne Price, to grace the stage of the Met.
An excellent idea, but unlike many other countries, we're don't exactly hold artists in high esteem.
Hey kids,
How 'bout a new game? I call it "Assignment Editor". Pick an event and assign a writer or reporter and a photographer or videographer to cover it. The reporting team can be comprised of the living or the dead, actual or fictional characters. You can even specify the paper, magazine, TV network, or website ( or even TV show) if you'd enjoy some extra layers of signification.
But before we (meaning me) go too crazy, let me give you an example.
So this weekend, the entire phalanx of Confederates vying for control of the vertical and the horizontal are descending on the Granite State, and if the Old Man in the Mountain had not already been crestfallen, he might have to find a way to avert those granite eyes lest he be turned to....er....well, we'll come back to that.
Anyway, how about sending Shirley Jackson and Diane Arbus to cover the gathering of the Confederate Coven for Black Mask, a pulp fiction crime periodical from the 30's and 40's? Whadaya think?
If you've ever read Jackson's short story "The Daemon Lover" you'd agree she'd be an excellent choice to write about demonic personalities who are nothing like what they portray and will leave you wondering wtf just happened if they win.
Hey, Just an idea.
How about assigning Chicken Little to cover Lindsey Graham, and Sweeny Todd to cover Rush Limbaugh's serial atrocities? I might send Edward Gorey to illustrate that one.
Try it out.
As a follow up to my last post about the "Assignment Editor" game, I thought I would assign Dean Moriarty and R. Crumb to follow the legalization of marijuana story. To cover the Ted Cruz campaign, I would assign Dorian Gray as my writer (who better to understand the hidden evil) and Man Ray (to document the outer weirdness), although I might decide to send Elmer Gantry along to do sidebars on the hypocritical stuff (of which there is plenty).