Monday
Aug242015
The Commentariat -- August 25, 2015
Internal links removed.
Afternoon Update:
** Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post: How fast operators purchase structured settlements for a fraction of their face value from victims of lead poisoning -- like Baltimore resident Freddie Gray (killed in April by Balto police) & his family. CW: Notice how people destined for the Eighth Circle of Hell get away with their scams. Preying on the disadvantaged is about as depraved as it gets.
Daniel Drezner of the Washington Post: "... the scariest thing [about Black Monday] was how one day of financial volatility was enough to make four presidential candidates -- Christie, Sanders, Trump, and Walker -- say really stupid things about the Chinese economy and the Sino-American relationship.
New York Times Editors: Jeb!'s visit to the border town of McAllen, Texas on Monday provided "a chance to see how the supposed expert on this fraught subject handled [the immigration issue]. Short version: He was awful. In less than 15 minutes, Mr. Bush managed to step on his message, to give Mr. Trump a boost, and to offend Asian-Americans, a growing population that is every bit as important as Latinos in winning presidential elections. And he failed to give Latino voters any persuasive evidence that he had anything better to offer them than his opponents in a revoltingly xenophobic Republican campaign." CW: Read the whole post. Whoever did the actual writing of this editorial had some fun.
*****
Neil Gough, et al., of the New York Times: "After a three-day rout that erased nearly $3 trillion in value from stocks globally, markets other than China’s on Tuesday showed signs that selling pressures were easing. Shanghai stocks closed down 7.6 percent on Tuesday, after Monday's 8.5 percent plunge, and Beijing officials sought to stabilize financial markets by cutting interest rates and reducing the amount of money banks are required to keep on hand to guard against risk." ...
... New Lede: "Stocks in the United States came roaring back from a three-day rout on Tuesday morning. In late-morning trading, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index was up 2.4 percent, and the Dow Jones industrial average had risen more than 370 points, or 2.3 percent, after falling almost 10 percent over the last week." ...
... Newer Lede: "The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index closed down 1.4 percent, to 1,867.62, after earlier rising almost 3 percent from Monday's close. The Dow Jones industrial average finished the day down 1.3 percent, off 205 points, at 15,666.44. The Dow was up as much as 441 points in the morning." ...
... Neil Gough & Chris Buckley of the New York Times: "China's central bank on Tuesday cut its benchmark interest rate and freed banks to lend more, the latest signs of the government's growing distress over slumping stocks and slowing economic growth. The central bank's action followed a global stock market rout in which China led the declines. The main Shanghai share index plunged another 7.6 percent on Tuesday, to its lowest level this year."
... CW: In contrast to the GOP candidates' "assessments," (see Paul Krugman's comment below) James Suroweicki of the New Yorker has a fairly straightforward reality-based explanation of the U.S. market's downturn: "The short-term reasons for the sell-off are easy to enumerate: the continued decline in oil prices; worries about a possible interest-rate hike by the Fed in September; and concerns about the struggles of emerging-market economies like Brazil, Malaysia, and, above all, China.... But behind all of these issues was something more fundamental: when stock valuations are high, even small changes in investors' expectations about the future can have a big influence on stock prices in the present.... The price of a long-term perspective ... is sometimes short-term turmoil.... At the moment, this looks like the kind of healthy correction we should periodically expect in a richly valued market."
Clifford Kruass & Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: The depressed price of oil is bringing or threatening political as well as economic instability in oil-rich countries throughout the world.
Kevin Cirilli of the Hill: "Liberal activists are descending upon a global economic conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., to criticize Federal Reserve officials for adopting an 'insane' economic agenda that doesn't benefit minorities. The liberal Center for Popular Democracy has launched a "Fed Up" campaign to urge the central bank's chairwoman, Janet Yellen, and her team of policymakers against raising interest rates."
Mike Lillis of the Hill: Nancy Pelosi "is hitting the phones to whip on-the-fence Democrats behind the [Iran nuclear] agreement in hopes of building the numbers proponents may need to seal the deal in the face of GOP efforts to scuttle it.... And she's invited the ambassadors from each of the six world powers that negotiated the Iranian deal -- the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- to meet next month with House Democrats on just their second day back in Washington after the long summer recess." ...
... Greg Sargent puts Pelosi's whip campaign in context.
Obama v. the Crazies. Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "On his first day back from vacation, the president hit the road to attend a clean energy summit in Las Vegas hosted by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and headline a fundraiser for the retiring senator's possible Democratic successor, Catherine Cortez Masto. Obama said he rode to the fundraiser with Reid late Monday, when they spent time reminiscing and 'figuring out how we're going to deal with the crazies in terms of managing some problems,' according to a pool report."
Charles Pierce on the Sunday showz: Ken Burns is no Maureen Dowd. CW: Yes, funny how Burns somehow picks up that birther, anti-immigrant Donald Trump is a racist, while MoDo altogether misses that little tic. Maybe it takes a documentarian.
Presidential Race
Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "The White House on Monday said President Obama may offer an endorsement in the Democratic primary, which could pit his former secretary of State against his vice president. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the front-runner for the party's nomination, but Vice President Biden is looking at the race. 'I wouldn't rule out the possibility of an endorsement during the Democratic primary,' press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday." ...
... Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... Mr. Earnest noted that Mr. Obama had said in the past that adding Mr. Biden 'to the ticket as his running mate was the smartest decision that he had ever made in politics.' Jon Karl of ABC quickly pounced, noting that the statement must mean the president would support Mr. Biden if he decided to run. 'I mean, this is obviously a better decision than the secretary of state he chose, so. You said it was his best -- the best decision he made.' 'Yeah, it was. It was,' Mr. Earnest said, though he quickly added that 'the president has spoke at quite some length about the appreciation, respect and admiration he has for the service of Secretary Clinton.' The Republican National Committee took only moments to leap at the chance to point out the awkwardness.... (Though the G.O.P. conveniently left out the part where Mr. Earnest praised Mrs. Clinton.)" ...
... Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Major Democratic fundraisers have been invited to meet with Vice President Joe Biden at his residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory after Labor Day, part of a series of conversations he is having with senior party players as he contemplates jumping into the 2016 race. Among the guests invited to the gathering are top bundlers who raised large sums for the Obama-Biden campaigns in 2008 and 2012, according to people familiar with the outreach. The sitdown is scheduled to take place during the week following Labor Day." ...
... CW: In case it isn't obvious, I'll tell you how Matea Gold -- (and now you) knows this, as well as how you know all the other Biden for President stuff that's come out the past couple of weeks: Joe Biden wants you to know. This doesn't necessarily mean he's the source, & it doesn't necessarily mean he'll run, but it does, at minimum, mean he likes the attention.
** Steve Coll of the New Yorker: "... the tenacity of Republican opposition researchers does not by itself explain why Clinton and her husband are so often beset by accusation. Both of them too often co-author their dramas by obfuscating and tolerating conflicts of interest, such as when, between 2009 and 2013, with Hillary Clinton guiding American foreign policy, the Clinton Foundation accepted large donations from foreign governments, including several that abuse human rights.... Hillary Clinton's vulnerabilities as a Presidential candidate are visible and often remarked upon -- conspicuous wealth, a self-protecting style, and the baggage accumulated during three decades in public life. Her strengths are less often acknowledged."
** "Maybe This Time Really Is Different." Norm Ornstein, in the Atlantic, takes a long view & determines that the Republican party is flat-out wingnut crazy: "History may prove a guide, but it's no longer clear where it's pointing." Ornstein sees the possibility of a raucous GOP convention.
Paul Krugman: "... a stock crash in China triggered a big decline around the world.... Trust the Republican field to declare that it's all Obama's fault. Scott Walker wants Obama to cancel a state dinner with Xi; Donald Trump says that it's because Obama has let China 'dictate the agenda' (no, I have no idea what he thinks he means). And Chris Christie says that it's because Obama has gotten us deep into China's debt.... Remember: all the experts said that the GOP had an unusually strong field, a very deep bench, a lot of talent running for president."
Sam Frizell GOP pollster Frank Luntz conducted a focus group of Trump supporters that left Luntz's "legs shaking" because the participants were so mad at Republican politicians.
... CW: Here's my favorite bit: "... a woman who added she comes from a military family [said]. 'I look at where we are now as a country where entitlements are just totally out of control.'" Really, Lady? Let's just assume for argument's sake that your "military family" includes a father & husband who were career military men. That means you've been living on "entitlements" -- direct income plus housing, health care, pensions, etc. -- your whole life. STFU. ...
Jeb! & Marco Knock Asian "Anchor Babies." Michael Bender of Bloomberg: "'This is ludicrous for the Clinton campaign and others to suggest that somehow I'm using a derogatory term [i.e., "anchor babies"],' Bush said at a news conference in McAllen, Texas. 'What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed where there's organized efforts -- and frankly it's more related to Asian people -- coming into our country, having children in that organized effort, taking advantage of a noble concept, which is birthright citizenship.'... On Fox News last week..., Marco Rubio also identified Chinese women coming to the U.S. to have babies.... Bloomberg Businessweek reported in May on the increasing number of agencies bringing pregnant Chinese women to the country. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the IRS have been investigating the growing business of 'birth tourism,' which operates in a legal gray area, for at least a year.... Bush traveled to McAllen in part to ridicule Trump's immigration plan...." CW: Sounds like a great success. ...
... Laura Clawson of Daily Kos: "Presumably this is a clumsy reference to this story from last spring, but it's more fun to think it's a veiled shot at Bobby Jindal. In any case, the immigrants that Republicans get really worked up about are not the ones who can pay $50,000 to 'birth tourism' operators and stay in luxury apartments, but nice try at deflecting, Jeb! He then went on with another deflection attempt, saying 'I think we need to take a step back and chill out a little bit as it relates to the political correctness that somehow you have to be scolded every time you say something.'" CW: Well, yes, every time you say something racist or sexist or homophobic, some "politically-correct" lefty snob will whack you for it, fair or not. ...
... CW: Oddly enough, the wealthy mothers of these infants born in the USA return with their newborns to their home countries within weeks of their brief American "tours." So if, years later, their presumably well-educated children come back to the U.S. to establish residency, would that be so terrible, Jeb!? Jeb! & other Republicans are trying to conflate two types of instant citizens: (1) the babies of (mostly mythical) poor Latina mothers who race across the U.S.-Mexican border, sans papers, the moment their water breaks; and (2) the babies of wealthy women, from China, India & elsewhere, who visit the U.S. on legal visas for the purpose of giving birth & establishing their newborns' U.S. citizenship, a right the children may never choose to exercise. ...
... Also, don't be surprised if the GOP is gearing up to attack Chinese -- & Indian -- immigrants. In 2013, there were more immigrants to the U.S. from China (147K) & from India (129K) than from Mexico (125K). ...
... Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "After enduring those slings and arrows [from Donald Trump] for weeks..., Mr. Bush ... and his aides have decided to ... borrow a page from Mr. Trump's playbook: Hit back, with force and creativity, over and over again in the coming weeks. It is a turning point in Mr. Bush's campaign that was on display Monday in McAllen, Tex., along the border with Mexico. There, Mr. Bush called Mr. Trump's immigration plan 'unrealistic,' described his policies as un-Republican and acidly recommended that the businessman read Mr. Bush's book 'Immigration Wars' to acquaint himself with a practical solution.... In a phone interview Monday, Mr. Trump laughed at the suggestion that he read Mr. Bush's book on immigration. 'That would be exciting,' he said dryly." CW: Yeah, calling a nutso mass-deportation plan "unrealistic" is mighty forceful & creative. ...
... The Unrepentant. Nick Gass of Politico: "Donald Trump marked the return of Megyn Kelly [to her Fox 'News' show] on Monday night with a series of tweets and retweets blasting the Fox News host and continuing his ongoing war of words with Republican rival Jeb Bush. 'I liked The Kelly File much better without @megynkelly. Perhaps she could take another eleven day unscheduled vacation!'... Trump also ... retweet[ed] someone who called the former governor of Florida 'crazy' and urging him to speak English, not 'Mexican,' in reference to Bush's border visit earlier Monday in which he spoke in Spanish.... [CW: and English.]" ...
... Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "... Donald Trump ... fired his latest salvo in his attack against GOP rival Jeb Bush, criticizing the former Florida governor for saying his use of the term 'anchor babies' applied more to Asians than Hispanics. Trump sent a pair of tweets blasting Bush early Tuesday.... 'Asians are very offended that JEB said that anchor babies applies to them as a way to be more politically correct to hispanics. A mess!'"
Nick Gass: "Lindsey Graham excoriated Republican presidential rival Donald Trump on Tuesday morning for his immigration plan, calling it both 'stupid' and 'illegal.'... Graham also took aim at Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus who in an interview over the weekend said that Trump is a 'net positive' for the party. 'I think that's dumb, too,' he said." CW: Last I looked, Graham is running 15th among 17 in the GOP presidential polls. ...
... Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "Rather than a populist, Trump is the voice of aggrieved privilege -- of those who already are doing well but feel threatened by social change from below, whether in the form of Hispanic immigrants or uppity women (hence the loud applause he got at the first GOP debate when he derided 'political correctness'). Far from being a defender of the little people against the elites, Trump plays to the anxiety of those who fear that their status is being challenged by people they regard as their social inferiors. That's why the word 'loser' is such a big part of his vocabulary."
The Flippity-Flip-Flop Flop. Dana Milbank: "Scott Walker has for two decades won primary elections by refusing to allow any Republican to outmaneuver him on the right.... Nobody has been hurt by Trump more than Walker, who has seen his support drop nearly in half in the last month, to single digits.... His donors and supporters are jittery, and ... he tried to reassure them with a vow to emphasize his conservatism with more passion. That could explain the birthright-citizenship fiasco.... There is no way to outflank Trump on the right. Trump, without a care for Republicans' long-term electoral viability, is making a parody of the conservative-dominated Republican primary process by embracing the most extreme positions, particularly on immigration. The showman has reduced GOP politics to absurdity -- and you can't trump that." ...
... CW: Trump has a huge advantage over standard-issue politicians, who have to pretend they're sincere, even when they execute a politically-motivated flip-flop. Nobody thinks Trump is sincere, & nobody is surprised by his flip-flops. Even his ardent fans would probably say Trump "tells it like it is" -- at the moment. Most of his positions are ripe for flip-flops. Even as he labeled Mexican immigrants rapists & criminals in a campaign that breathes & breeds racism, Trump said, "I love the Mexican people. I've had a great relationship with Mexico and the Mexican people." & he predicted he would win the Hispanic vote. Could President Trump soften his hardline on immigration? Claro que sí. ...
... Amateur Hour.Joshua Keating of Slate: Scott "Walker seems to think that these concerns ... cyberattacks, militarization of the South China Sea, human rights abuses ... would be best addressed by snubbing Xi altogether, even though he himself met with Xi in a 2013 visit to China, when relations weren't significantly better than they are now.... To state the obvious: China isn't deliberately crashing its market to punish Wall Street.... It's hard to avoid the impression that Walker simply saw that China was in the news today and decided to make some tough sounding noises about it. "
Nick Gass: "Ohio Gov. John Kasich's standing continues to rise to an all-time high among voters in the Buckeye State as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, according to the latest results from a Quinnipiac University poll of swing states released Tuesday. Voters approved of Kasich's job performance 61 percent to 28 percent, with even stronger numbers among Republicans at 84 percent to 10 percent." CW: This contrasts with Scottie, who "remains miserably unpopular among the voters who know him best.... His Wisconsin "approval" rating: 39/57 percent."
Sometimes You Have to Bribe Pay Politicians to Get What You Want. Because Kentucky law forbids a person to run for two offices on the same ballot, Rand Paul "talked" the state's Republican party into changing its presidential primary to a caucus, thus allowing him to run to retain his Senate seat on the ballot & run for president in the state's new caucuses. Here's the kicker, as Akhilleus laid out more fully in yesterday's Comments thread: Eugene Scott & Tal Kopan of CNN: "The change is estimated to cost between $400,000 - $600,000, according to Scott Lasley, Kentucky GOP 2nd district chairman. 'Sen. Paul reaffirmed his intent to pay for the caucus. $250,000 is to be raised or transferred to (the Republican Party of Kentucky) by September 18. If the money is not there by the 18th, it will revert back to a presidential primary instead of the caucus,' Lasley said in an email to CNN. 'Details on the remaining balance will be determined as the process unfolds.'" ...
... The Check Is in the Mail. Tom Loftus of the Louisville Courier-Journal (August 18): "Despite what he said in a letter to members of the Republican Central Committee days ago, Sen. Rand Paul has not transferred $250,000 to the Republican Party of Kentucky to help pay for the presidential caucuses Paul is seeking.... Paul said in a letter to members of the 334-member committee this weekend... [claiming] 'I have transferred $250,000 in an RPK account to begin the funding.'"
Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "The chairman of [Rick Perry's] campaign in Iowa, Sam Clovis, is leaving the campaign, Mr. Perry's team said on Monday. Despite the departure, Mr. Perry ... still plans to campaign in the crucial caucus state, a spokeswoman said."
Beyond the Beltway
Paul Waldman: "... the place where the GOP is really exercising its creativity is in coming up with new ways to restrict abortion rights. In the latest inspired move, Republican state legislators in Ohio have introduced a bill to make it illegal for a woman to terminate her pregnancy because she has discovered that the baby would have Down syndrome. The bill is expected to pass, and though he hasn't yet taken a position on it, it would be a shock if Governor John Kasich ... didn't sign it.... Look for identical bills to come up in state after Republican-controlled state. Anyone who objects will of course be accused of wanting to kill children with disabilities."
Rachel Cote of Jezebel: "Freshman women at Old Dominion University were given a very special welcome last week when they arrived on campus: Large banners that read 'Rowdy and fun/Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time,' 'Freshman daughter drop off,' and 'Go ahead and drop off mom too.'... Several members of Sigma Nu [fraternity] live there...." ODU's administration & its student government association are not amused. ...
... CW: Of course if freshman daughter or Mom gets PG as a result of rowdy fun good time with these excellent young men, it would be wrong for her to have an abortion. Nope, there's nothing wrong with our culture.
News Lede
Washington Post: "A man who had climbed a wall near the White House earlier this year was shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy Tuesday after cutting another deputy with a knife inside a Pennsylvania courthouse, authorities said. The incident took place inside the Chester County Justice Center in West Chester, Pa., west of Philadelphia. A man named Curtis Smith of Coatesville, Pa., walked into the lobby of the courthouse, 'pulled out a knife and attacked a deputy sheriff, slashing him,' Thomas Hogan, the Chester County district attorney, said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon." ...
... The Philadelphia Inquirer story is here.
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (12)
Ah, McAllen! Having grown up there, right on the Mexican border in South Texas, I listen with interest when Republicans pontificate about immigration. The problems are so clear-cut and the solutions so obvious! All that’s needed is a president smart enough to “manage” the situation!
The region along the Texas border is the poorest in the nation. Poorer than Appalachia. Dirt poor. So, what happens when you “secure the border” by increasing the number of state troopers on patrol?
“Local law enforcement agencies fear higher state salaries will lure away their employees.”
http://www.texastribune.org/2015/08/19/border-counties-fear-loss-veteran-police-dps/
The Rio Grande Valley is a long, dreary drive from anywhere. So, what happens when the state beefs up enforcement there?
“… the current practice of rotating [state] officers in and out of the Rio Grande Valley, where a law enforcement surge has been in effect since the summer, wears on officers and state resources.”
http://www.texastribune.org/2015/02/11/dps-border-surge-lacks-efficiency/
The Reynosa–McAllen Metropolitan Area is one of the fastest growing urban areas in the country. A river runs through it, but the population sloshes back and forth quite freely. Which is a problem, because this river is also an international boundary. A sturdy wall would make it easier to control all this traffic. Why not? It worked in Berlin.
Talking about how to protect “us” from “them” is so much more palatable than confronting the humanitarian crisis that is at the root of the immigration problem.
An interesting take on American BBQ, its historical roots, and how African-Americans are being erased, through omission, from its history in some corners of the world (see: Fox News, confederates).
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33994947
Andy Borowitz notes a disappointing racist event " Organizers of the (Trump) rally were quick to defend the size of the turnout. “There is always a lot of competition ....Plus, a lot of racists now prefer to stay at home and stream racist content on the Internet."
This excellent, if mournful, David Bromwich essay is linked today at Naked Capitalism.
http://www.thenation.com/article/the-same-people-who-pushed-for-the-invasion-of-iraq-now-want-to-scrap-the-iran-deal/
Safari,
Interesting. But it's not the first time something popular coming out of black culture has been appropriated by white Americans to the point of erasing all trace of origin or provenance.
During the 50's, popular white musical stars covered rock and roll songs written and performed by black artists. The idea was to remove to the blackness, especially any overt sexuality. Listen to Little Richard singing "Tutti-Frutti" then listen to two bars of Pat Boone's recording. By the way, the original lyrics written by Richard Penniman (Little Richard) and Dorothy LaBostrie were way too salacious for any white audience in the 50's. Nonetheless, the Pat Boone version hit number 12 on the Billboard charts. Little Richard's original only made it to 17.
Black artists had it up to here with that sort of crap. Many white musicians gave credit where credit was due, but plenty more did not. In 1959 when Miles Davis was getting ready to record his masterpiece, "Kind of Blue", John Coltrane (a genius in his own right) was furious that Davis had brought in a white piano player, Bill Evans, to record with them, but Evans' playing is essential on that record. Nonetheless, Coltrane's anger bespoke a time, the late 50's early 60's, when things were coming to a head. Black performers saw their work and their ideas stolen time and again by whites who went on to make millions. Even though Elvis Presley never hid his debt to black performing styles, his success elicited knowing shakes of the head from plenty of black performers who, after creating the form (rock and roll) had to eat his dust.
Many years ago, I was invited to give a demonstration/lecture on the origins of rock and roll to a high school class. Some parents were there as well. At the end of the hour an incensed dad approached me. I knew right away where this was going. He asked if I was stupid (always a good opener) and did I not know that Elvis Presley was white. And did I also not know that all the great rock and roll performers were white. I wasn't in too much of a mood to put up with racist bullshit, so I asked him if he was perhaps asleep for the first 50 minutes of my presentation.
That was 38 years ago. And today we still have people denying that black culture has anything to do with anything other than black culture.
It's like walking for 50 years and realizing that you can still turn around and see where you started.
Trump explained, kinda:
The ultimate source of all our fears? Death, probably.
But short of death is "the other," and there are more of those others to frighten us every year.
Worldwide, the migrant populations, those displaced from their country of origin relatively recently (long since WWII and certainly even longer since the Irish potato famine), hover around 230 million. The growth rate of those movements doubled between the 1990's and the first decade of this century accounting to more than 4.5 million per year for a while, steadying after 2010 to about 4 million. That's a lot of unfamiliar faces to be worried about.
Fortunately for the simple-minded, many of those faces are color-coded, but it seems even the simplicity of color-coding can lead to some confusion. In the United States, for instance, only 52 percent of our undocumented population is Mexican, though common perception would have it otherwise. If we sent every undocumented Mexican back to Mexico we would still have at least five million undocumented people living in the U.S, not all of them conveniently colored. More confusion.
We would also have a few jobs to fill, six or so million of them. At least five states rely on undocumented workers (Texas, CA, Nevada and New Jersey among them) for 8-10 percent of their workforce, one would guess few of them at the executive or managerial level.
Seems clearer every year that those quaint geo-political (and economic) boundaries we have known as national borders are going the way of the dodo.
It's a major change in the way the world works, which we don't yet know how to accommodate. Of course we're disturbed, and disturbance and uncertainty always provide plenty of rhetorical space for demagogues.
Hence, Trump and so much more.
Irony abounding, but the joke's wearing thin:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/25/1415271/-This-One-Weird-Pic-DESTROYS-Ayn-Rand?detail=email#
Ken,
Great picture. Sad and emblematic, but true. And it's all of a piece with Confederates' thought process. How they think about the world and their place in it. Mostly, it has to do with magic, or at least a kind of magical thinking which bridges all manner of internal contradictions.
Let's consider Trump. Trump bashes Mexico and China but he himself has imported, according to his own calculations, thousands of workers from Mexico and other Latin countries for jobs in his casinos. Jobs that could have been given to Americans. And his clothing line is made in China. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to find that his cheap looking "Make America Great" trucker caps are made in China as well.
None of this seems to register with Confederates supporting Trump. Or if it does, the hypocrisy is far outweighed by the magic. By the fantasy. By the pull of historical inevitability. No matter what, our side will win. Jesus says so. And so does Trump.
That he appeals to many hard core conservatives isn't surprising. As much as they try to deny it, the modern conservative movement came to life in order to oppose the civil rights movement. Trump, whether he can put a name to this or not, senses it and he's up on that horse. He might as well have on a Nathan Bedford Forrest uniform. Ken Burns has it exactly correct. Membership in the Birther Movement, of which Trump is a charter member, is another way of saying "nigger". It's just a more polite, sophisticated way. Trump tries to deflect charges of racism by saying things like "The blacks love me". But having your picture taken with Michael Jackson does not a civil rights marcher make you. I knew a guy in my neighborhood who had a massive collection of R&B and soul records, even James Brown records, when not one in ten white kids could tell you who he was. But this guy dropped the N word as easily as breathing. His record collection didn't save him from the unthinking natural born racism he inherited from his dad.
Republicans love to play the victim card but in some ways they truly are victims. They are victims of a desire for magical thinking, for easy solutions to hard problems, for the need for villains against which to pitch their own virile heroism. In addition to the anti-civil rights conservatives like Reagan and Nixon, they have always been victimized by the demagogues, the McCarthys and Palins and Cruzes who whisper in their ears about enemies and traitors and conspiracies. They've been told that the only True Conservative is one who will never give up, never give in, never Compromise(!) with the Enemy.
This, of course, is the polar opposite of the kind of mindset necessary to run a government. But they don't really care about that either, because government is evil. Ayn Rand says so. The guy whose house was saved by firefighters paid by the government says so as well. The fact that guys like Paul Ryan say that too, guys who have never cashed a paycheck from any other source, never seems to register as a tad hypocritical either.
And it's no surprise that Trump was then able to play that same Demagogue card on Fox itself by pointing at them and shouting "UNCLEAN!" because it seemed they were looking for civility, for common decency, both of which smack of COMPROMISE!
They're in a black box and there's not clear way out. Because there are no magic solutions. When everything you have been taught to believe, religion, Confederate "truths", conspiracies against you and yours, solutions to all your problems (jail the blacks, deport the browns, tell women to STFU, shoot the liberals, and bomb everyone else), are nothing but fantasy, nothing but magic tricks, you can either wake up and start anew or hold tight and go down with the ship.
Nearly all will choose the latter.
Out-Bullying the Bully
That master of bullying, that sachem of shameless, stupidly irrational, alarmingly immature ad hominem attacks, Roger Ailes, is outraged--outraged, I tells ya--by Donald Trump's shameless, stupidly irrational, alarmingly immature ad hominem attacks.
Ooooh the mordant acerbity of it all.
Ailes wants Trump to be reasonable. He wants him to play nice. He wants comity and decency and respect.
Bwah-ha-ha!
The poor man. Were I capable of weeping for a bloated bigoted cynical confederate douchebag whose life's mission was to poison American society and politics to make himself rich, I might be able to squeeze out .000001 oz. of a tear.
Then again....probably not.
And Bill O'Reilly! Loofah Boy is defending....wait for it....the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT! Against attacks by Ann Coulter! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha. Has the world turned upside down?
It's like a great William Trevor revenge story. Adapted by the guys who write The Simpsons.
With a display of unrestrained one-upsmanship of GOP hate and stupidity, how in the Hell could you pick just one guy ( or Fiorina)? I could not have imagined a reality where a narcissist buffoon coiffed in road kill uses hate and ignorance to establish a pathway to the Presidency for the GOP candidates.
John McCain, what a dick. When is he going to realize that he lost the election 7 f-ing years ago and he isn't campaigning now?
During his trip to Estonia, Latvia, Norway and Sweden last week, together with John Barrasso (R-WY) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), why would he feel the need to criticize Obama while puffing himself up?
In this article from Sweden's Dagens Nyheter John said, "I don't believe that the president understands Putin. But I do."
Besides that, why does he thinks that he needs to warn those countries? Like, they have no concept of having been a part of the former soviet republic or had any prior experience with Russian incursions into their space.
I wish he would just go home, any one of them, stay there and STFU.
(Use Google Translate if you aren't able to read the original Swedish. It's not perfect but close enough.)
Here's a related article in English.
Unwashed,
McCain is the unappreciated genius of his age. He also understands Putin. Another horse's ass. But his political savvy and acumen are second to none. That's why in his one and only shot at the brass ring he picked.....Sarah fucking Palin, a dim bulb demagogue who couldn't even finish a full term as governor, whose expertise in American history and civics ended at the fourth grade, who couldn't string together a passable sentence with an elementary school primer and Sister Mary Semicolon holding her hand, and whose general IQ is somewhere south of room temperature.
His one big chance and that was who he picked to help him win the election and run the country.
So pardon me if I'm not overly impressed by this astounding revelation of his superior knowledge of a sociopathic megalomaniac. And I don't mean Trump.
It says something about the guy and his desperate need for attention that he'll wander into some bar in Stockholm and start bloviating about how much he knows and what would be done if only he were in charge, and not that horrible nee-groe.
McCain's sell by date expired the minute he hopped aboard The Decider's Baghdad or Bust Train.
Buh-bye now.