The Commentariat -- Feb. 21, 2016
I'll be travelling for a few days. I'll try to get up skeleton pages, so you all can comment. -- Not-So-Constant Weader
Presidential Race
Clinton's victory speech:
... Vindictive in Victory. Daniel Politi & Jeremy Stahl of Slate: "Hillary Clinton delivered a victory speech after her Nevada caucus win over Bernie Sanders that emphasized her campaign theme that she was fighting for ordinary voters, while also taking knocks on her rival and, it seemed, his supporters."
Sanders' concession speech:
Amy Chozick & Patrick Healy of the New York Times: "Buoyed by the support of enthusiastic workers in the city's big casinos, Hillary Clinton defeated Senator Bernie Sanders in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, thwarting his momentum and proving to an anxious Democratic Party that she maintains strong support among minority voters that she can carry to a general election.... The Culinary Workers Union, which represents 57,000 members, many of whom are Latino, declined to endorse a candidate. But on Thursday, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who also remained neutral, said in an interview he had spoken to D. Taylor, the head of the union's parent group, to make sure its members could have paid time off to participate in the caucuses, a move that operatives in the state believed helped tip the race in Mrs. Clinton's favor. She overwhelmingly defeated Mr. Sanders in the caucuses that were held at six major Las Vegas casinos...."
John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Hillary Clinton held off a powerful late challenge from rival Sen. Bernie Sanders in Nevada's Democratic caucus vote Saturday, securing what is projected to be a narrow victory that could help her renew a claim to the mantle of presumptive Democratic nominee. With more two-thirds of precincts reporting, Clinton held a four-point lead over Sanders -- a margin more decisive than her razor-thin Iowa win but much closer than the Clinton campaign had anticipated as recently as a month ago, when they touted polling showing the former Secretary of State with a 25-point lead."
The AP called the Nevada race for Clinton at 5:18 pm ET, Saturday, according to the breaking news banner on the New York Times site. Fox "News" & MSNBC have also projected Clinton would win.
The Las Vegas Sun News is liveblogging the Nevada caucuses. At 5:20 pm ET, Saturday, the headline has Clinton & Sanders "in a virtual dead heat," with Clinton currently at 52 percent, Sanders at 48, with 62 percent of precincts reporting. ...
... "Surveys of caucusgoers taken as they entered caucus sites showed that older women turned out in force to support Clinton, pushing her to victory despite her continued struggles to attract young women."
Maureen Dowd is here to put a damper on Clinton's victory: "Hillary believed that there was an implicit understanding with the sisters of the world that now was the time to come back home and vote for a woman. (The Clintons seem to have conveniently forgotten how outraged they were by identity politics when black leaders deserted them in 2008 to support Obama.)" Much of the column recycles old material from the Lewinsky scandal. (Dowd won a Pultizer for her column on Clinton-Lewinsky, so, hey, who can blame her?)
Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times: "In recent days, Hillary Clinton's campaign has questioned Senator Bernie Sanders's commitment to civil rights, trying to cement her support among black voters who could be crucial in upcoming primaries such as South Carolina's." But film footage unearned by a film company, Kartemquin Films, shows Sanders being arrested in an August 1963 while protesting segregation in Englewood, Illinois. ...
... Chas Danner of New York: "It was Sanders himself who confirmed it was him in the video, according to his campaign. In addition, the Chicago Tribune subsequently found a photograph in their archives showing Sanders's arrest as well, which they then released early Saturday morning. (Senator Sanders also confirmed the authenticity of the photo.)"
The polls for the Republican primary in South Carolina close at 7:00 pm ET.
The New York Times is liveblogging both states' results. @6:02 pm ET, see Sanders' statement.
AP: @12:28 am ET: "Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has finished second in South Carolina's Republican primary, according to complete but unofficial results. Rubio edged out Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by less than two-tenths of 1 percentage point. The results are unofficial, pending the state's formal confirmation of the outcome. That will take place by next Saturday."
Eliza Collins of Politico: "Ted Cruz may not know if he's in second or third place yet, but he's chalking up South Carolina as a win. 'We don't know the exact results right now ... but each time [we're] defying expectations,' Cruz said. 'Indeed the screaming you hear now from across the Potomac is the Washington cartel in pure terror that the grassroots are rising up,' he said repeating a line that he's used before." ...
Alex Shephard of the New Republic: "Hey, looks like Ted Cruz also won South Carolina! Marco Rubio won Iowa by coming in third. John Kasich won New Hampshire by coming in second. Tonight, Marco Rubio won by coming in second and Ted Cruz won by coming in third. (Donald Trump actually won by winning.)"...
... CW: Surely somebody lost. Oh. Yeah. ...
According to a breaking news banner on the New York Times site, Jeb! is dropping out of the presidential race. ...
... Ashley Parker & Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush suspended his presidential campaign on Saturday, ending a quest for the White House that started with a war chest of $100 million, a famous name and a promise of political civility, but ended with a humbling recognition: in 2016, none of it mattered." CW: I still think the media should give him First Prize for Contributions to Advertising Revenues. ...
... Dara Lind of Vox: "The slow, torturous twilight of Jeb's campaign offers a couple of lessons. For one thing, it throws the political skills of his brother George W. Bush into sharp relief: W. might have gotten flak for being 'dumb,' but seeing what happens to someone with all the same advantages makes it clear how much of W.'s success was his own. For another thing, it's a reminder that (for all the problems associated with money in politics) it's extremely hard to buy a presidential campaign." Lind recalls some of the "tortured moments of Jeb!'s campaign. Funny, unless you're Jeb! ...
... Gwenyth Kelly of the New Republic on why Ben Carson & John Kasich are still in the race & Jeb! isn't: "Probably a potent combination of denial and lower stakes. Neither Carson or Kasich represent the dying light of a political dynasty, and Carson's campaign has more closely resembled a money-making scheme than a real campaign since the beginning. Both campaigns are clinging to the glimmers of hope given by their very brief surges earlier in the campaign. Kasich's team went so far as to spin his loss as a win in the completely invented 'Governors Bracket.'"
Jonathan Martin & Alexander Burns of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump won a clear victory in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, cementing his position as the Republican presidential front-runner as he enters a tougher test in a series of potentially decisive March contests. Mr. Trump ran ahead of Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, who were locked in a battle for second place."
Marco & Tailgunner Ted are neck-in-neck, trading places a few times for second place at around 21 percent. (Trump's at 34 percent with 26 percent reporting.) Jeb! & Kasich, next in line are both in the 8s.
... The AP is projecting Donald Trump as the winner of the South Carolina primary @ 7:33 pm ET, with less than one percent reporting. Cruz currently tops Rubio.
The Washington Post's liveblog is here. ...
Early results on the South Carolina primary show the race as going to Trump, Rubio & Cruz, in that order.
The Mexican Government Is Totally Awesome. Daniel Denvir of Salon: "Trump honestly seems to believe that Mexican migration to the United States is controlled by the Mexican government, rather than, say, complex economic changes and cross-border social ties. Now, it turns out, he thinks that the Mexican government controls the Pope as well, and tricked the head of the Catholic Church into disliking Trump.... Trump thinks that world events can be reduced to the raw genius or stupidity of a given country's leaders.... Just as Trump represents a poor man's idea of what a rich man must be like, his theory of governance is statecraft as a marketing executive might see it.... It's becoming increasingly clear that Trump isn't just inexperienced -- he's actually living in a fantasy world."
Caitlin Cruz of TPM: "Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) latest move in South Carolina is a mailer that merges President Barack Obama's face with that of Cruz's rival Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). South Carolina state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D) told The Wall Street Journal that she thought the mailer "moved beyond the dog whistle." South Carolina presidential politics are notoriously dirty. 'My first reaction was, "Oh my God, we've moved beyond the dog whistle, we’re just full blown with the race card,'" Cobb Hunter told the Journal."
Other News & Commentary
Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Sunday that a 'provisional agreement in principle' has been reached with Russia for a temporary truce in the Syrian civil war, and it could start within days."
Alec MacGillis, in a New York Times op-ed: Mitch "McConnell's blunt declaration [that President Obama should not bother to nominate a replacement for Justice Scalia] was taken as the starkest exhibition yet of the obstructionism that has characterized the Kentucky senator's stance toward President Obama and congressional Democrats. The resistance from Mr. McConnell has had an enormous influence on the shape of Obama's presidency. It has limited the president's accomplishments and denied him the mantle of the postpartisan unifier he sought back in 2008. But it has also brought the Senate, the institution to which Mr. McConnell has devoted his life, close to rupture." MacGillis postulates the reasons McConnell is going for broke here.
** Bill McKibben reviews Jane Mayer's Dark Money for the NYRB: The Koch brothers "distorted American politics in devastating ways, impairing the chances that we'll effectively respond to climate change, reducing voting rights in many states, paralyzing Congress, and radically ratcheting up inequality.... They merged three forms of political spending -- campaign dollars, lobbying expenditures, and philanthropy at think tanks, universities, and media properties -- into a juggernaut. Mayer highlights the strategic insight of the effort in several ways. She describes, for instance, how various think tanks had worked for years to lay the groundwork for the Citizens United and SpeechNow decisions, which made it far easier for big donors to influence elections.... Mayer devotes considerable space to demonstrating that the Tea Party emerged in large part from the Koch network...." ...
... CW: I recently linked to a post by some librul-thinking pundit (can't recall who) who placed the blame for the 2010 election debacle on President Obama. Yeah, I know everything is Obama's fault, but the fact is that the Kochs & their minions have spent decades & billions of dollars creating long odds for not just liberals but also for ordinary Americans. One president can hardly mitigate that damage.
Beyond the Beltway
AP: "A gunman drove in and around a western Michigan city randomly shooting people in the parking lots of a restaurant, car dealership and apartment complex, killing at least seven, including a 14-year-old girl, authorities said. A 45-year-old man was arrested early Sunday in downtown Kalamazoo following a massive manhunt after the shootings began about 6 p.m. Saturday, authorities said." ...
... William Cummings of USA Today: "Forty-five-year-old Jason Dalton was arrested early Sunday after a massive manhunt in response to the shootings that began about 6 p.m. Saturday, Michigan State Police Lt. Dale Hinz said. Dalton surrendered without incident but had weapons in his vehicle." CW: Of course he did. Look at his mugshot. He's white.
Jennifer Dixon of the Detroit Free Press: "Flint’s water crisis has unleashed a tsunami of lawsuits that could cost Michigan taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. 'The only deep pocket in the vicinity of Flint is the State of Michigan,' said Wayne State University law professor Peter Henning, a former federal prosecutor. 'This could be a tax liability on the citizens of Michigan. This is the worst nightmare when a bureaucracy goes completely off the rails and makes decisions that cause widespread harm.'" CW: Because this is what happens when you have a "fiscally-responsible" governor who doesn't care about black people.
Leah Sottile of the Washington Post: "Peter T. Santilli, host of a right-wing YouTube show ... [who was] indicted earlier this month on felony charges due to the armed occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge [is arguing] ... he was there as a new media journalist and a 'shock jock.'... Santilli’s case has attracted the support of groups as disparate as the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon and the Oath Keepers, a citizen militia."
Way Beyond
Stephen Castle of the New York Times: "Britons will vote on June 23 on whether to stay in the European Union or to quit, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday, announcing the date of a referendum that could have momentous consequences for a divided Britain, and for the rest of Europe."
News Ledes
AP: "Two Serbian embassy staffers who had been held hostage since November died in Friday's U.S. airstrikes on an Islamic State camp in western Libya that killed dozens, Serbian officials said on Saturday."
AP: "Speaking via Skype from Russia, Edward Snowden told an audience of supporters in New Hampshire on Saturday that he is willing to be extradited to the United States if the federal government would guarantee he would get a fair trial."
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Reader Comments (36)
I can imagine it now: "He was a responsible gun owner until he wasn't." That is the problem. The shootings in Kalamazoo, my home town, look like a domestic argument gone bad. The guy had a gun, shot her, then went out in a state of shock, grief, and anger to spread the anger around (pure speculation). If he didn't have access to a gun, he probably still would have injured the first woman but the seven others would still be alive.
Kalamazoo is still a great place, but th crazy seems to be closing in.
Daniel Denvir of Salon- "Trump isn't just inexperienced — he's actually living in a fantasy world." Yes and when is just one person in the media going to say that someone who lives in a fantasy world is seriously mentally ill!
I have got to stop reading Dowd––she puts me in a bad mood. Her animosity toward the Clintons and Obama is never ending and tiresome––is there anyone this woman admires? I don't recall her Pulitzer win, but I'm pretty sure Monica was portrayed as victim, which is laughable on many counts: After Ken Starr got through writing up his nasty reports he inadvertently presented Bill, not as the man he wished to destroy, not as the cold seducer and exploiter of youth and innocence but as the pitiable victim of a predatory female. This plucky lass who tried her thong thingy on one of her college professors before she flipped up her skirt for Clinton, had an agenda: after seducing her prey, she started in on her petulant demands: Clinton HAD to get her a job, first in the White house, then in New York, and not just any old job, but "one where she could obtain without much effort." She even asked for a job at the UN. Blackmail writ large. This in no way lets Clinton off the hook–-not by a long shot, but the little lady in question here is truly the one who fits the "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty" with the latter "little bit" eliminated.
@Marvin: It doesn't seem to matter what negatives are hurled at Trump––he perseveres despite. He's like that insect you try to slap down multiple times, think it's a goner, but it starts crawling away, seemingly unharmed. There is that audience that craves the kinds of messages he's delivering and until that audience finally wakes up to the fact the man is fucking with them, they'll continue voting for him.
@Marvin Schwalb: The functioning mentally-ill are always going to get a pass. In fact, my layman's definition of "mentally-ill" (not a medical term!) relies on the ability to function.
Has Trump had episodes where he couldn't function? It would appear so. I linked a while back to a Vanity Fair post in which the writer laid out an episode where Trump went ballistic over what he considered an unsightly ice cooler. I'd say in that moment, he was in-sane. But a moment later, when he realized a reporter was watching & it dawned on him how his eruption would look in print, he returned to "sanity."
So I wouldn't describe Trump as "mentally ill," at least most of the time, which is not to say that I would deny that he has paranoid tendencies & is a riot of sociopathy. But I wouldn't lock him up, tempting as that might be.
I think for a reporter to describe Trump as "mentally ill" would be irresponsible.
Marie
@PD Pepe: To me the question has never been about Monica's behavior & has always been about the Clintons'. I'm grateful for the blue dress because it confirmed what I suspected & what Hillary certainly knew.
Almost every attractive man in a position of power has been objectified by bevies of sweet young things, & responsible men learn how to handle the inevitable passes. The worst part for me has always been Clinton pointing his finger at me & telling me he did not have sex with that woman. And, no, I don't buy the argument that a grown man thinks "blow job" does not equal "sex." To me, there's a difference between some spouse "lying about sex" to his/her spouse, & a POTUS lying about sex, via the media, to the public.
Also, too, the "getting Monica a job" thing started with the White House. Clinton's in-House bimbo eruption team moved Monica to the Pentagon to distance her from Bill; she didn't like the job & she wanted something different. Blacmail? Yeah, maybe. But it was women in the White House who taught her how that game was played.
Marie
Clinton nailed it in her speech: She stands for equal opportunity, or, in other words, you get up off your lazy ass and make something of yourself. She stands for the now decrepit meme of the US as a land of opportunity, a land of getting rich, of gaining status. What she (says she) wants to do is break down barriers that otherwise stand in people's way of making something out of themselves, still putting the burden squarely on the individual to claw their way up the backstabbing, mean-streets ladder of social hierarchy. Equal outcome? Not so much. For Clinton, at least from this speech, it seems to be all about the hope of winning the lottery. Her best offer is to work toward making the cost of all the tickets more equal. Thanks.
Marie, ask a psychiatrist, I have. And when Joint Chiefs of Staff advises the Emperor of the US, he will dismiss their advice since he already knows everything.
Will forego the Sunday Sermon I had in mind about the Failure of Capitalism and comment instead on the Rise of the Trump and the Fall of the party that was so focussed on achieving and keeping power that it failed to govern.
I believe a large part of today's voting population does not think deeply about the theory and practice of what makes good government. Instead, it operates on a feeling level, and those feelings tell it something is definitely "wrong" with many of the changes it senses taking place in its world.
Some of those changes have to do with hard to ignore color-coded demographic shifts. Others with the grim economic landscape, higher prices for housing, more low-wage jogs, and the concentration of wealth at the top, all of which have re-introduced economic serfdom to millions who had grown up in our democracy believing we had left all that behind.
Maybe the overriding feature of this new, scary world is simply its size. Have a friend whose car features a bumper sticker proclaiming that the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. The sticker is half right. The bigger....the smaller part, but what the bumper wisdom is trying to express applies equally to Walmart and Exxon and in a time when trade agreements grant more power to corporations than to governments, maybe the sticker is not even right by half.
What all this comes to is the absence of individual agency that millions feel and the fear and anger consequent to it. The Republican Party has tapped into and even promoted this fear and frustration for years and in most of the last three Presidencies has done little to alleviate it. Little during the years of Clinton, of Obama's, absolutely nothing, and during Bush II years nothing beyond Medicare Part D but a series of foreign misadventures that only ratcheted up the nation's already high anxiety.
So we had a Party that believed fear and finger-pointing were the path to power and the surest way to retain enough of it to serve their corporate donors, the bedrock of their establishment wing.
But they did nothing for the majority who supported them at the polls beyond keeping them supplied with guns. As their supporters' economic situation worsened, they did little alleviate it, because doing so would have taken money from their corporate puppet masters. And because they spent years tying Democrats to minorities in their supporters' minds, they could do nothing about immigration without being being labeled a RINO and primary-ed out of the Party they had spent decades creating.
Though already inclined to limited government, the Republican Party did not become the Party of No overnight, but the path they have chosen over the last thirty years (apparently gulping the entire store of Reagan Kool-Aid) has now got them in the No Box with no way to escape, and it's so obvious that even their non-thinking supporters know they will continue to do nothing for them.
So now we have no viable Republican Presidential candidates. Instead, we have Trump who has no policies but a marvelous sense of where the voters' frustrations lie. He is their avatar, promising to wipe the immigration problem off the map (by dusting the immigrants themselves out of the country), bullying our foreign "enemies" into submission (maybe by telling them they're fired), selectively attacking targets of obvious egregious corporate greed, and as I've said before, assuring the masses he won't get rid of the government goodies and make their economic situation even worse.
For an angry, non-thinking voter, what's not to like?
Wonder how the few remaining traditional GOP supporters feel, who have finally figured out that the box they are in is history's dustbin?
Old maybe but so grand, I'd guess.
'. . . I don't recall her Pulitzer win, but I'm pretty sure Monica was portrayed as victim . . .'.
PD Pepe -
Respectfully, I must disagree with your statement.
Dowd - week after week - slut-shamed and bullied Monica Lewinsky.
Dowd also, at times, felt compelled to follow (stalk?) Monica, as if she were some embedded journalist assigned to war coverage. (Well - Dowd was, indeed, 'on a mission'.)
Dowd made generous use of poetic license for the purpose of distorting - nay, fictionalizing - what was truthful. And since sex sells, as do "reality" TV narratives, Dowd's arsenal, aimed at Lewinsky (brings to mind Trump's magnetic pull of the mindless), along with her cruel, misogynistic tirades against Lewinsky, earned her a devoted (devouring) readership and - lordy, lordy! - a Pulitzer!
This was not just a blow-job: It was a mutual relationship that involved much more than sex, which made it all the worse (heartbreaking) for Lewinsky. (Yet unimaginably worse when the US Government & Kenny Starr stepped-in.)
As mentioned in an past comment, Monica - in person - was (and still is) an incredible beauty. I could readily imagine the attention she drew from her looks alone. But she was also intelligent (not a "bimbo"): another draw for (some) men. LOL. And yet it was Billy-Boy's responsibility to keep it zipped.
Over-And-Out
Jeffrey Toobin writes a brutally honest assessment of Scalia's tenure, with some apt nods to F. Scott Fitzgerald as literary icing on the cake.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/antonin-scalia-looking-backward
@Ken Winkes: awesome post, with which I so agree. What did Republicans expect when they relentlessly attacked government - that no one would notice they were PART of said institution?
@Ophelia M: You said it well. It was Bill's responsibility to keep it zipped. He failed miserably, with some long term and far reaching consequences for all of us. I often wonder if we would have had Bush as our disastrous president if not for Bill's lack of control. A chilling thought, what might have been....
Today's news presents an interesting question: what to promise Snowdon if he returns to the US? I don't doubt we can promise him a fair trial, but all the other political misegosh (sp?)? I guess I'm a coward. I'm happy to leave this for the next guy to handle.
It is such a pleasure to read so many reliably thoughtful and so often witty comments at a single spot. Thank you all.
Victoria and Ophelia, but what blame, if any, applies to Hillary? It annoys me no end that the right paints her as an participant in Bill's follies. Follies which, in my opinion, were not worthy of impeachment. And if I were the wife of such a man and still found myself loving him, I don't think such a relationship between my husband and another young woman would even necessarily drive me to divorce.
Victoria,
I've always seen Bush II as the misbegotten child of a threesome. The zipper failure you mention, A Rehnquist Court, and a Gore that caved over the Florida vote, when he should have fought and given the Supremes a real case to handle.
I have always wished Gore was made of sterner stuff, but then I remember he did win the popular vote, even with Clinton's open zipper as disturbing backdrop.
Victoria D. -
<< I often wonder if we would have had Bush as our disastrous president if not for Bill's lack of control. A chilling thought, what might have been.... >>
I have wondered, likewise, regarding 'Bill's lack of control'.
'A chilling thought', indeed.
Ken Winkes -
A deeply thoughtful & meaningful offering - Thank You.
@ Haley Simon: I agree with what you say about Hillary's reaction. I could no more judge her ill for staying with him than I could if she had left him. It was entirely her decision to make.
Marriages are complicated and it is generally a mistake to second guess choices made by the parties. Hard enough to keep one's own marriage on track at times. :-)
But it's hardly surprising that the right is trying to tie Hillary to Bill's mistakes. They want to tarnish her in any and every way they can. Similar is the aim of the Bengazi hearings which may be the longest running legislative special investigation in American history. (But may finally wrap up, conveniently, about October. )
CW: Much as I adore you and share many of your views, I feel impelled to ask that you cease linking to Maureen Dowd's column. PD is right: Dowd has used her considerable talents for vitriol to excoriate Hillary for decades, for the most part completely unfairly. God knows Hllary is not perfect (who among us is??), but she does not deserve the unending poison spewed out by the Queen of Snark. Nor should that poisonous snark be allowed to infect this holy website.
@Marvin Schwalb-
My husband is a psychiatrist and I am an LCSW. We actually met in a mental hospital, where he was the Director. Anyway, I must sadly inform you that none of the Presidential candidates come close to being labeled "mentally ill" in the sense of being appropriate for hospitalization. Psychopathy is rampant in the ruling class--not just in America--and these people are more psychopathic than insane. Also, narcissism is a much admired trait in America. Now THAT is insane, IMHO--the being admired part. I agree with, however, that they sure talk crazy!
There is one candidate who qualifies for a psychiatric diagnosis: Marco Rubio. He obviously has Panic Disorder and suffers anxiety attacks. We have all seen him sweat profusely and suffer bouts of aphasia. I doubt he is being treated with cognitive therapy, but he may be taking anti-anxiety medication or an SSRI. At any rate, he certainly does not qualify as being labeled mentally ill. We usually reserve the term "mentally ill" for those who are psychotic--i,e, people who suffer from schizophrenia, bi-polar illness, delusional disorder or another illness that prevents them from even minimal functioning--without being treated with anti-psychotic medications.
I think Ben Carson comes closest to being mentally ill. He appears to have delusions that are fixed and immovable. However, that may just be part of his Seventh Day Adventist belief system.
Kate,
Thanks ever so much for offering your take on Marco. I thought his behavior was extremely odd: the thirst, the sweat, the robo-speech, but I couldn't identify it. Panic attacks, of course. Ha. Just the guy we want answering that 3 am call.
@Haley Simon -
Hillary & Billy's Willie:
". . . but what blame, if any, applies to Hillary?. . ."
None whatsoever.
Our society is simultaneously sex-obsessed & puritanical: two sides of the same warped coin.
Some relationships/marriages/partnerships are decimated by infidelities. Others manage to withstand, heal and carry-on - - even become stronger & further evolved.
I'll now defer to the wise response you received from Victoria D.
Two Transliterations:
1) Mishegas = Craziness (the word you were aiming for)
a first cousin of
2) Meshugenuh = Crazy or Idiotic Person
Cheers -
Ophelia,
Many thanks for the spelling. Those words are well known to me, but I had no idea how to spell them.
Good morning all,
My observations have been:
No one really knows what goes on in any relationship, most often including one or all of the people in it.
When you've heard one side of a story, you don't know half of it.
When you've heard all sides, you don't know all of it.
Best to all, safe travels Marie, sorry to hear about Umberto Eco.
FEB. 22:
Jeffrey Toobin writes that after nearly three decades on the S.C. Scalia devoted his professional life to making the U.S. less fair, less tolerant and less admirable democracy. He throws in lines from The Great Gatsby that add just the right flavor.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/antonin-scalia-looking-backward
Had the pleasure of being with my thirteen year old grandson over the weekend who tells me, and then shows me, how he and his chums have a blast imitating Donald Trump. If nothing else the Donald has spurned the youth of America to pay attention to politics. Diego and I had a rousing discussion about the political season. I found him quite knowledgeable.
The Good Old Days:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/voters-long-for-candidate-who-only-wanted-to-screw-some
Sigh...
As the wingnuts survey what's left of the field, we find Confederate voters are left with a poser. For the sake of argument we'll boil the bunch down to Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and Carson. No Kasich because, well, Kasich. And Carson prob'ly should be excised as well but I throw him in because, as Kate suggests, he may the closest to being truly mentally ill and what's a Republican presidential field without at least one of those?
And what does that give us? Among these four we have less in the way of useful service to the public (especially considering legislative accomplishments on the part of the senators which is what they're supposed to be doing) than the head of a board of zoning appeals in a moderately sized city whose job is to oversee zoning variations, curb cuts, and easements.
Seriously. It's that bad. There are probably a million city and town councilors around the country whose individual achievements far outweigh all four of these losers put together.
How does this outcome comport with the GOP's so-called Deep Bench so widely touted a couple of years ago? To hear their media flaks and party apparatchiks tell it, the up and coming wingnut superhero star power was tantamount to a combination of the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the Justice League of America, and several dozen delta squad black ops teams.
What happened? Oh....let's see....some of the original Big Names off the Deep Bench, Chris Christie and Scott Walker have been plagued by criminal investigations and terminal incompetence. One other Big Name, Bob (Jailbird) McDonnell, was indicted and convicted on federal corruption charges. Oops. Another Super Gov, Bobby Jindal, drove his state to the very bottom of nearly every index for jobs, education, and livability and is routinely considered, along with McDonnell and Walker, one of the worst governors in living memory. And Jindal, if you recall, was the one who warned the GOP against being the Party of Stupid. Words fail.
Then we had "Young Guns" Paul (Lyin') Ryan and Eric Cantor (don't you just love the macho nomenclature routinely employed by these schmoes?). Cantor, supposedly one of smartest, most powerful Confederate Heroes, was booted by a raving teabagger "economist" named Brat, and Ryan, running as a backward baseball hat wearin' sidekick to the Rat, couldn't even deliver his own state for the party. Guess all those workouts didn't maximize any political (or brain) power.
Rand Paul, Most Serious Man in America was lucky to get voters who had absolutely nothing to do, to listen to his palaver for more than a few minutes at a time. That is, when they weren't wondering about all the plagiarism.
Jeb(!) demonstrated that coming from a family of secretive and connected gangsters with money and power won't help if you're stupid. His even stupider brother (although I'll entertain arguments in favor of Jebbie) only made it to the White House because buddies on the Supreme Court called the game on account of partisanship and awarded him the game ball even though, later on, it was clear that the other guy had won. Sooooorrrry.
The upshot here is that Confederate Ideology in its incarnation as the Republican Party simply does not produce smart or effective leaders. It produces lunatics, religious nutjobs, and fraudulent manqués (could be pronounced "mon-keys" if you prefer) whose legislative achievements and public service pale in comparison to most high school student body presidents.
The ones who are left, those who are at least titular legislative officers, have done absolutely zero. Zilch. Nada. The RubeBot talks a lot, when not sweating profusely, but hardly ever shows up to vote, never mind steering important, useful (not to mention successful) legislation. The other guy, Cruz? Rubio's may be zero, but Cruz? his accomplishments can be measured with negative integers. He shut down the government and then threatened to do it again. Multiple times.
That's it.
So who do we have left? An orange headed baboon on the ego trip of a lifetime and a possibly mentally ill person.
Some bench.
Marie, I love your column and seldom post due to being way outclassed by your regulars, but I have always disagreed with you on Monica Lewinsky. I'm not excusing Bill, but the fact that Monica saved that blue dress (without washing it) tells me that she was just as big a predator as Bill. And, as someone who made the difficult decision to stay with an unfaithful spouse, it bothers me greatly when someone questions her motives for staying with Bill. That is her business.
My apologies for misreading the Pope's remarks thinking he was somehow hinting at abortions, rather than just contraception the other day. I've been reading too much crazy lately it seems...
I wanted to share this great video of a 106 year old black woman meeting the Obamas in the White House, it's a hoot:
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/22/watch_a_106_year_old_woman_meet_barack_and_michelle_obama_you_can_thank_me_for_it_later/
@ Ak: re: the "deep bench"
Your run down of the deep bench made me think about an article I'd read today in the Washington Post written by Danielle Allen, a "political theorist at Harvard University" which is currently ranked #2 on the website. She claims it's officially time to "Stop Trump" by linking him to the rise of Hitler and stating how terrible he is and would be for the Republic.
Yet, her answer to this dilemma? Bet the country's future on Rubio! Because that's the sensible approach.... No mention that he's just as radical in many ways. And she calls on Cruz to be reasonable and bow out for the good of the country, as well as everyone else renouncing their me-first mentalities for the greater good. Of nominating and supporting Rubio. Really amazing to see such analysis coming from a "political theorist" at Harvard.
For Marie's rules, I'm posting the link. But I wouldn't recommend it but for a waste of time IMHO.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/moment-of-truth-we-must-stop-trump/2016/02/21/0172e788-d8a7-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html?tid=pm_pop_b
Safari,
Bubbles insulated against real world realities, and the sort of hermetically sealed thinking that begets (or stems from?--does it matter?) epistemic closure arise all across the political topography. The fact that the most tightly sealed and parochial ideation emanates from deep in Right Wing World does not prevent such silliness from Ivy League locales.
Ms. Allen's analysis of the Trump Situation seems more than a tad unrealistic. She is, of course, not wrong about the dire way Trump's opportunism and ego-driven amorality has so expertly played the GOP's grand instrument strung with hatred and resonant with inchoate delusions. They thought that perhaps they (the Elite) were the only ones who would be able to work the bellows and sound the siren calls to the masses they felt would follow only their orders? They're learning differently, aren't they?
Allen's reference to Hannah Arendt's studies of totalitarianism neglect to remind readers that Arendt was mostly concerned with how the engine of Nazism was tended to by morally corrupt but not necessarily sociopathic monsters such as Adolf Eichmann. Left to the side (not because she was unaware of it, but because it was a given and not the focus of her work) is the necessary groundwork laid by the truly committed monsters who set the stage for the lesser (relatively speaking) cogs. In our time frame, it's the Kochs and the Roves and the Aileses, vicious immoral opportunists who saw their path to power through the bending of minds and hearts toward the dark side.
Which brings us to the thoroughly unworkable portion of Ms. Allen's plan: cooperation from these same operators and those in thrall to them. Cooperation with Democrats in any form is anathema to Confederates. They learn this at their mother's knee. "Demmycraps are Satan, children, pay attention, now. Jesus hates them! And so does the NRA!" Many would rather vote for a new Hitler than conspire to see their choice overrun by a Hillary Clinton (or Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders or...). And Rubio? Please.
She mentions the need, on their part, for some kind of civic conscience, for goodwill in the face of a possible Trump ascension. They have none, so fuggedaboutit. And for many of them Trump is what they want anyway. They've been told so by the Kochs and Roves and Aileses for decades now. They're gonna change 'cause some Harvard political theorist says so?
Fuck no.
This isn't to say that there isn't a way to stop Trump. A little truth and just a teensy bit of honest reporting from the press might help. Trump may yet blow up when forced to back up his bluster with actual policy outlines. Then again, he may not.
I do think Trump has a lot of the totalitarian, the fascist, in him, but I'm not ready to brand him Hitler Redux.
Not yet, anyway. Hitler believed in something, a warped ideology based on victimization, antisemitism, and a yearning for military conquest and a vision of a thousand year Reich.
Trump believes in penthouses, personal displays of wealth, and himself, none of which makes him less dangerous as a candidate but it don't make him Hitler neither. If people are gonna float "Stop Trump" ideas, at least let's hear ones that sound plausible. Begging Confederates to put Hillary Clinton in the White House for the betterment of the country ain't gonna make it.
And again, leave us not even talk about Rubio. Might as well as vote for Rex the Wonder Dog. Except that Rex can fetch without falling over.
Sheesh.
Ladies, get ready. Do you know women who are not doing the godly thing for their husbands (ie the Prone Polka or the Horizontal Tango on Demand)?
Well, step right this way. Right Wing Religio World has answers (well, okay, not answers; commands) for you. Yesirree bob, you ladies better get in line or the Sexpert at Biblicalgenderroles.com will git ya.
You know how there used to be talk about how the Confederate Party had to be more welcoming and open and not quite so insane, hateful, racist, and misogynistic? Well, that shit never worked, so they're doubling down on the basics.
This is some wild stuff. I kid you not.
The writer of this website makes a point of saying that girls need direction to get hold of their sexuality and do what god tells 'em to do. If you thought that the writer was a woman, you haven't been paying attention. This asshole basically says that it's a wife's duty to serve (and service) her husband without complaint. If, ferinstance, she has just had back surgery, she can put off requests. But not for long. Git to it, there, little lady. No dawdling and no excuses.
There's plenty more. All disgusting. And if you're wondering about who this asshole is, forget about that too. He's hiding. Just like Jesus did from those nasty, yucky Jews. Ewwww....so horrible. Again, no indication that this moron realizes that Jesus WAS a Jew!!
But this is not simply an exercise in religious nutjob outing on my part. This is exactly the sort of thinking enabled and supported by presidential candidates Cruz and Rubio and Carson, as well as by who knows how many douchebags in congress.
So remember, ladies, according to biblicagenderroles.com and many Confederate "leaders", you better hop to it because "a Christian man never has to pay for milk when he owns the cow." (He really says that.)
And if you want to leave a "negative" comment, ie, one that disputes this misogynistic trash, that's something else you can forget about. Jesus won't allow it.
This is the kind of world these people expect us to live in. Elections matter.
Not news but still topical.
Just finished a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a detailed account of his life, work and the 1954 crucifixion that stripped his security clearance.
Took me back to my literal youth, the nuclear arms race, the country's about-face to the Right, the fervid anti-Communism, the McCarthy hearings and all. Much provocative in all this but the primary takeaways are the disturbing connections between that dim past and pronounced elements of the present, all draped against the background of a national paranoia still very much with us.
Wrote yesterday about angst politicians on the Right feed on and accentuate, and wonder today if the threat of nuclear catastrophe which has loomed over us for the last seventy years, more common in the bomb-sheltered fifties and sixties but never absent, might have contributed to the sense of ubiquitous, untethered dread so many continue to feel.
There's so much to be skeered of. Why else have all those guns? Or so passionately hate and fear the Other?
Maybe our paranoia rises from a deep well of guilt occasioned by our bad behavior over time. First, the land from the Indians. Then that little thing called slavery that initially created so much of our wealth. And an economic system that institutionalized and worships wealth, too often at the expense of millions we do our best to ignore.
No wonder the Texas School Board wants to sanitize our history. They don't like some of it either.
But now I'm getting into Kate's territory, so I'd better stop.
Should know better than to psychologize without a license, but sometimes just get carried away.
Ken,
I have to tell you how much I enjoy your thoughtful political exegeses, especially your determined concern for economic inequality, the downfall of unions, and of average American workers.
Last week, while reading about the acknowledgement being paid to black voting blocs via trips to visit Al Sharpton in Harlem, I recalled that, as a kid, I routinely recall noticing that one of the epicenters of Democratic voting power resided with the unions, the UAW, AFL-CIO (even though George Meany was a supporter of the Vietnam war), but labor is no longer the vital force in American politics it once was, a tribute to the efficacy of right-wing schemes that attempt to convince working women and men that they're with them even as they side with the bosses who wish to crush them under their boots.
A new, and much degraded, world.
Which brings me to your very sincerely voiced consideration that much of what ails winger supporters could have its birth in a sense of guilt for the heinous crimes imposed on Americans of different races and cultures.
I don't think so. I wish I were wrong, but if there are some whose sense of continued dread emanated from some moral core, those individuals are in the vast, vast minority. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all those other Confederates are evil-ass, amoral monsters. I'm not. I think if you met a lot of those people (I meet them every day), you'd realize that there is a lot of good in them. They try to do what they see to be the right thing. The problem is that they have been brought to a place where those who are different, who don't share their background and points of view, are, at the very least suspect, and at the worst, the devil. Perhaps, for a lot of them, some inner sense of decency will prompt them to give some of those Others a break. But when faced with issues of Great Moment such as slavery and genocide, they have been provided with massive security blankets by generations of Right Wing media, politicians, think tanks, academics, and flaks:
It's not their fault. It just ain't.
"I never shot an indian." "I never owned a slave." "I'm not to blame." "Liberals are giving these people a handout with my money."
There's no guilt there. They've been taught that they, not millions of tortured slaves, not their disenfranchised descendants, not hordes of murdered Native Americans or their perhaps even more disenfranchised descendants, are the real victims, and that they deserve better.
There's no guilt. There's no queasiness. The guns are all about their sense that weapons will assuage their sense of victimization at the very hands of people who have sided, historically, with those Others, and put the fear of god into the usurpers who might try to steal THEIR AMERICA!!
Christ, I wish I were wrong, but I don't think so. These people are not Ethan Frome, putting up with the pain of their own shortcomings and a sense of being trapped by circumstance and desire, they're General Sherman who see total evisceration, no matter their own protestation of high-minded Christianity, as no impediment to being able to view themselves as holy and righteous forces in the world.
It's a moral clusterfuck, brother.
Thanks, Akhilleus,
I'm still thinking about it. Maybe not conscious guilt but a sense of unease generated by knowing we have it so good and that so many others don't, all bedded in a dim awareness that, despite all who would anoint us as Chosen and Exceptional, we just might not deserve all that has been granted us and that the gods might snatch it away at any time.
(Haven't gotten to today's NYTimes article/opinion piece on the death rate among the poorer white population but when I do, I'll look for a relationship. Maybe I'll find one.)
Speaking of time, time for a bike ride in the rare sun.
Thanks again.
@Cakers: "outclassed?" Bullocks! We need your input whenever you want to put it out. I think all of us here welcome everyone's take on issues and we are so fortunate not to have to put up with snarky, inane, rude, and downright nasty comments that seem to be rampant on other sites.
And I'm with you re: Monica––have been from the beginning. Who the hell saves sperm splayed on a blue dress if not to use it as evidence later-–––unless–– she was contemplating using it as a shroud surrounded by candles for worship later on.
@Ken: Sometimes wisdom comes from just plain living and observing if one is connected–– with or without a license.I'd certainly put you in that category. I think you are correct in that historical "guilt" business.
@AK: Went to that biblical site, started reading but couldn't finish. Holy Moses, Batman, thems some weird stuff happening in that Christian marital world. With the milk flowing freely, the buying of a cow is unnecessary, ladies, so keep them legs crossed until you get hitched and then by gum, it's all barriers down and you better put out or get out no matter what––oh, well, maybe back surgery or flu or...
@AK: I just read your response to Ken. Sometimes guilt is manifested in denial. But your take on it, and you say you wish you were wrong, is probably right. It bears thinking about and I wonder whether the ones who say, well, I never killt an Indian, or I never owned a slave, feel a connection to those historical atrocities or dismiss them outright. Anyway––good discussion–-thanks.
AK and Ken et al., Sorry to post so late - PST. A column today by Andrew Cherlin has an interesting take on the psychology of the right vis à vis their perception of "the other."
A very brief rejoinder to the colloquy on guilt and right wing calumny. I'm not sure if it's my Catholic upbringing or a more expansive sense of humanity, but I'm looking more carefully at Ken's position and thinking he may be on to something. In fact, I'm sure of it.
And to correspond with PD's gracious and pertinent comment to Cakers, we, none of us, have a monopoly on wisdom and basic decency. One of the things I treasure most about this site is the essential humanity, smarts, and perspicacity brought to bear by our commenters and the access they offer to responsible and cogent viewpoints, so many of which challenge me to rethink my own positions.
None of us is as smart as all of us.
I love you guys!
I'm with Cakers... But I trust you all heard JEB! say that he wants his country back...I was surprised to hear that whine come outta that mouth, but my answer would be: What country is that, JEB!? The one Reagan the Vague and your brother and his neocon pals managed to upend? Just what country does JEB! want, hmmmm? Maybe the country that all you others are ruminating on? Things were so much better when the little people knew their places...