The Oncoming Milton

As I write this, a hurricane formed off the coast of Mexico and is projected to do something few hurricanes do: head straight east towards Florida. The models all predict Milton will hit the Tampa Bay area - between St. Petersburg and Bradenton - by Wednesday night. It's already a Category 5 and threatening to be one of the strongest storms we've ever seen (thank you, decades of climate denialism!). Even if an incoming northern front can break Milton into a lesser Cat, we're talking devastating storm surges along the Tampa Bay shoreline to where everything south of Clearwater and half the landmass in Tampa itself gets washed away forever.

I am living right in the path of that monster. And yet, I have my duty to my workplace: I have to stay and prep the library with my coworkers for any possible damage. By the time we're done with that, I won't have time to get out of the way of Milton. I'll have to do what I've done before: Hunker down with my cats, pray that my place doesn't get destroyed by high winds and that the flooding won't happen in my area, and wait for the power to come back on.

This is going to be a stressful week.

I'll try to blog once or twice before the power goes, but if I don't make it... If you don't hear from me by next week... Promise me you'll vote for Kamala Harris and every Democratic candidate across the board and stop that Shitgibbon once and for all.

(muttering) why the fuck won't that Weather Space Laser flatten the hell out of Mar-A-Lago, huh...?

Four For the Fourth: Closing Arguments

Reminder: here are links to my other Four For the Fourth blog articles, one about a plea for silent firecrackers, one about women's rights to independence, and one about the need for fixing our nation to save our freedoms!

When you don't go to the parties or to the firework shows for a 4th of July, you end up at home switching between the movie marathons on cable or watching the 4th of July specials on PBS or NBC.

Only I can't watch the 4th Specials for too long on the networks. I just can't. 

Because there's too much Country music playing.

I'm sorry. I never got into Country. I grew up in the suburbs of Virginia Beach and later Tampa Bay. I'm a Boy from the Harb. I grew up to Led Zep and Van Halen and every arena hard rock band between 1979 through 1991. I miss the Dunedin Record & Tape Outlet store, it's where I got into L.A. punk and British Sixties blues.

Country to me has too much twang, too much proud ignorance, not enough poetry or wit IMHO when it comes to the lyrics. There are few Country songs I can abide, there's practically only one song - this one from Dierks Bentley - because at least it's got self-deprecating humor to it:

I admit if my parents stayed in Albany GA or we moved to a part of Florida that was out in the boonies, I might have grown up different. But nope, I'm a suburban mallrat, I grew up to heavy drums and loud lyrics and screeching guitar licks and that's what I want to hear for my 4th of July goddammit.

Where's the "Stars And Stripes Forever" march played by Metallica, you fiends.

LET'S MAKE SOUSA A METALHEAD NEXT 4th!!!

Avoid trump's Fourth Fallacy at All Costs (w/ Update)

We were warned as far back as February that the Eternal Shitgibbon wants to hijack Washington DC's Fourth of July celebrations, and yes unfortunately that means this coming Thursday there are a handful of things to avoid:

• Do NOT travel to Washington DC for the 4th of July celebrations. Just saying, traffic is still a bitch in the Beltway, and the Metro rail system has been breaking down lately. Getting in and out is a nightmare anyway (I can attest to personal experience when I traveled there in 2015). Just having trump dump himself all over the festivities is making it worse. Although if nobody shows up - like the way nobody showed up for his inaugural - the traffic and Metro won't be bad after all. Just pretend it will be and use that as an excuse if the Gestapo ask you later why you weren't there.
• Do NOT tune in to PBS' A Capitol Fourth television program. Previous years they had musical performances, celebrity speakers, and fireworks. This year, they're having plane fly-bys - a holdover from trump's desire for a military parade - and not entirely sure what else other than trump's ugly face grinning to himself that he's got an audience he does not deserve. I hope to God the previously-schedule performers - especially the ones I like - have enough sense to call out sick or something.
• Do NOT go to any local rally flying trump banners because they're also gonna be flying Confederate Battle Flags and chanting death songs about libruls and Antifa, and that's not what the 4th of July - our nation's freedom, our nation's unity - should be about.

What should you DO?

• Stay home with family and friends who plan on avoiding any political partisan crap, period.
• Do some of your own fireworks, in safe places and following all proper handling with fire and explosives.
• Watch the Macy's Fourth celebration which covers New York City, broadcasting from NBC at 8 PM EDT.
• Listen to the Hamilton soundtrack, or watch the classic 1776 movie on DVD or if you stay up late it'll be on the TMC channel at 10:15 PM EDT.

That should make for a more pleasant 4th of July experience for all involved.

Unless Karen shows up with her potato salad. In which case all bets are off.

(Update 7/1): Cadet Bone Spurs is asking for tanks - AGAIN - to roll down the streets for him this 4th. Never mind how the weight of those things will cause potholes and could break some of the bridges surrounding Washington DC. And he seems to have forgotten - most draft dodgers wouldn't care to know - that the WWII era Sherman tanks are no longer in commission.

Jesus Christ. This is going to be a disaster or a massacre or both.

Upon a trumpish Thief

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WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN?!?!

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN???

Federal officials lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children last year after a government agency placed the minors in the homes of adult sponsors in communities across the country, according to testimony before a Senate subcommittee Thursday.

The Health and Human Services Department has a limited budget to track the welfare of vulnerable unaccompanied minors, and realized that 1,475 children could not be found after making follow-up calls to check on their safety, an agency official said.

Federal officials came under fire two years ago after rolling back child protection policies meant for minors fleeing violence in Central America. In a follow-up hearing on Thursday, senators said that the agencies had failed to take full responsibility for their care and had delayed crucial reforms needed to keep them from falling into the hands of human traffickers.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN???

Every single person who had a hand in sending those kids into the black hole of darkest humanity should be in JAIL RIGHT FUCKING NOW. YOU DON'T DO THIS TO KIDS! YOU DON'T EVER DO THIS TO KIDS!

This is what the harshness of trump's anti-immigration rage is creating: A system ripe for exploitation and destruction and death. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THOSE KIDS???

Yes, these kids were part of families that were coming to the United States, but these were families looking for asylum and safety, and in rejecting that humane concept our own government pulled those families apart and sent 1500 OR MORE CHILDREN INTO GOD KNOWS WHAT HARM.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN???

Right now, I am totally on board with calls to abolish ICE outright. This is insane, and illegal, and evil.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN???

This Is Why Congress Should Not Have the Right to Name Their Damn Bills (w/ Update)

I know I shouldn't keep blogging, I swore I would stop for this month, I've already broken that promise about twice now, but this... THIS MONSTROSITY... THIS STUPIDITY... THIS... GGGGGGGOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNNNNNN... augh, here lemme show ya.

Congress posted their insane, lethal alternative to Obamacare at their website, here's the link to it until they freak out and drop it. Just in case, I screenshot it so you can see here what it is that's PISSING ME OFF.

LOOK AT THAT SHIT.

They are titling it "World's Greatest Healthcare Plan of 2017."

...

...

JESUS MOTHERF-CKING CHRIST PARDON MY SWEDISH, LORD, BUT DAMN THEM DAMN THESE ARROGANT SADISTIC PRICKS.

Greatest?

GREATEST?!?!

Their bill weakens Medicaid, kicks millions off their insurance plans, ups the costs on out-of-pocket fees, makes it worse for elderly coverage, and pretty much destabilizes the health care industry to where hospitals have to close and people lose jobs.

All it really does is cut taxes for the rich.

It's a goddamn disaster.

It's the worst ever.

Everybody other than the anti-Obamacare elitists are shredding it.

And yet Congress is trying to label this package of dogsh-t as though it's prime cut steak with a side of caviar and bread pudding for dessert.

SONS OF BITCHES.

They STILL think governance is all about marketing.

They KNOW GODDAMN WELL people are railing against this.

They have to be SADISTS and CLUELESS MORANS all at the SAME TIME.

/RAGE

(Update 3/20): I've been informed that this particular bill is NOT the RyantrumpCare Bill Of Doom, but a competing Bill of Doom from Rep. Jeff Sessions. (takes a look at the Sessions bill) OH CHRIST ON A BIKE THIS IS WORSE, GOD PLEASE I INVOKE YOU IN ALL SINCERITY TO SMITE THESE FOOLS FOR THEIR HUBRIS.

The Last Day To Panic If You Like

Panicking? Who says I'm panicking?!

Just a little nervous and agitated and horrified we're one vote away from a goddamn bankrupt sexist racist con artist in Donald Trump being in the White House. WHY SHOULD ANYBODY BE WORRIED?!?!?!?!?!

Granted, I'm feeling a little better right now reading up on the last-minute news on the Early Voting surge we had in Florida. Turnout was higher than in 2012 for early voting, which foretells a likely higher turnout overall by the end of Tuesday night. The last-minute turnout of Black voters - who seem to wait for the last Sunday to vote as they organize at their churches and head to the ballot booths en masse - combined with a higher turnout of Latinos is heartening. I'd like to think that with solid returns from Dems and Left-leaning Indys that Florida will go for Hillary.

I'm really heartened by this William & Mary poll that had around 28 percent of registered Republicans in Florida voting FOR Hillary. That's incredible: the partisan nature of party affiliation rarely allows that much crossover. By comparison, Mitt Romney had nationwide about 93 percent support of GOP voters with only 6 percent flipping to Obama. If this division in Florida reflects the overall voter turnout - some state Republicans might be all-in for Trump, others might have more flipping to Hillary - then Trump is seriously toast. Considering how unpopular Trump remains even among Republicans, he could be losing many more voters than Romney did and Romney lost the general election. (I haven't seen any comparable losses for Hillary, who seems to have the Democratic base locked up).

So in terms of Hillary, I'm feeling a bit okay. Where I'm stressing out are the down-ballot races for Senate and House. Kinda know that the House may not be winnable thanks to gerrymandering, but there's a slight probability a voter turnout surge for Hillary in key states combined with women voting against Republicans (out of spite for Trump and other ills the GOP inflicts on women) could make those "safe" districts moot. Thing is, the fate of the House is outside much of what I can do other than voting here in Florida for the Congressional Democrats.

It's the Senate that bothers me. Some of the final pundit predictions are leaning towards the whole thing literally going 50-50, which is simply nerve-wracking (and it may mean each Senate bill has to have the Vice President issue tie-breakers). There's some polling suggesting the Republicans might keep the Senate. If that happens, especially with a Hillary win, we're going to face open and unending obstruction on everything: The Republicans will never "allow" Hillary to win (they hate her more than they ever hated Obama), and will spite the Constitution to do so.

I'd much rather see the Senate flip with a decent majority to the Democrats. I'd much rather see Murphy beat Rubio here in Florida, and the Dems winning in Nevada and New Hampshire and Missouri and North Carolina and Illinois and Wisconsin (FEINGOLD!) and it's possible Louisiana might grant the Dems a shot (they go by run-off with the top two vote-getters) and... and yeah. There's a lot of wishful thinking there.

To my mind, a sane election result should look like this for Hillary:

Utah going to the not-Trump GOP candidate McGuffin, McGruff, MacAndcheese, you know, that guy...

I'm hearing that Iowa and Ohio may flip to to Trump depending on turnout, and I worry about North Carolina where the voter suppression effort may have a real effect on the final tally, but I'd like to think sanity will prevail where it needs to, and that Trump is going to lose that many voters. Still, I know we can't take this for granted... I know, I KNOW...

I'd love the Senate map to end up like this:

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

I'd like to think the voter surge in Florida - combined with the improved polling Murphy gained on No-Show Rubio this past month - means that Florida gives Hillary both the national win and a friendly Senate.

So that's me, that's where my head is at tonight.

Tomorrow morning, I vote.

Tomorrow, many of us vote.

Vote well. Vote wisely.

HINT: That means FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN.

Here's hoping the panic ends Tuesday night.

Update Wednesday morning: ...

WHAT THE FUCK AMERICA.

I Had to RageQuit a Debate Watch Party Last Night

The local organized Hillary office was hosting a watch party for the town-hall format debate this Sunday night, so I decided to be sociable.

I brought an apple pie.

Sat around with about 20 people to watch the Internet stream of CNN. Sat solemnly while the debate organizers spent about half an hour explaining the rules and need for decorum. A lot of attention was paid toward showcasing how these debates "demonstrate to the whole world how a democracy operates."

And then they let Trump out to show how he'll tear it all down.

Dear F-CKING God. Trump could not answer the questions straight. He'd go off on tangents, jumping to talking points that didn't relate, and ending up pointing at Hillary going "she's worse, people. She'll wreck all of it, believe me."

The opening question on campaign decorum turned into Trump attacking Obamacare. It went downhill from there.

And he lied, sonofabitch did Trump lie during this town hall. He couldn't even keep the number of "deleted e-mails" straight.

When it got to the part where Trump went off on his taxes "Oh I pay millions in taxes" I was thisclose to dropping every F-bomb I had and punching out the walls. It was either that or walking out of the watch party in a rage.

So for that, I apologize to my fellow watchers.

It was just... GOD DAMN TRUMP.

Here's the biggest takeaway I got from last night:

If he's elected, Trump is going to jail Hillary. He openly declared this on the debate floor. I think this is a first in all of American History. Granted, we haven't had many years of head-to-head debates - we really started with Nixon vs. JFK in 1960, and didn't make these debates official until 1976 - but I can't recall in my studies ANY other Presidential candidate threatening to arrest his political opponents as a campaign pledge.

That's something dictators do. That's not at all representative of the Democracy Experience we're supposed to be displaying to the world.

Damn Trump. And Damn US if enough of us voters back this con artist into the White House. We're getting every warning red flag possible about the damage Trump can do if he's in power, and he's STILL getting 40 percent support?!

/ragequit

Vulgar

There is no other word to describe this:

Donald Trump bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone — saying that “when you’re a star, they let you do it” — according to a video obtained by The Washington Post.

The video captures Trump talking with Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” on a bus with Access Hollywood written across the side. They were arriving on the set of “Days of Our Lives” to tape a segment about Trump’s upcoming cameo on the soap opera.

It's this bad:

“I’ve gotta use some tic-tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump says.“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful -- I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”

“And when you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s.

“Grab them by the p-ssy,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

Trump is basically claiming acts of sexual assault. Any woman he wants.

Another part of the interview is him talking about how he tried this on a married woman he talked into going with him for "furniture shopping". His words:

“I did try and f-ck her. She was married,” Trump says. (Note that Trump had just married his third wife Melania three months before this interview)

Trump continues: “And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”

“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” Trump says. “Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”

We've known for some time Trump is lewd towards women - the number of stories about women fleeing from him in tears have been out there for decades - but this is in his own words. His own honest-to-God view of women as his objects of lust and acquisition.

He talks in the language of the rapist. Uncaring. Self-absolving. Everything justified because he's a "star" and he can do anything.

How is this abomination of a lifeform even allowed to go out in public to meet people?

I have friends who have endured sexual assaults, unwelcomed advances, moments even in public where guys attack them in variations of what Trump brags about doing (please note: TRUMP IS BRAGGING ABOUT THIS). As a guy who will never have to go through this hell, the best I can do is understand the pain my friends go through every time this shit happens to them, all because there are other guys out there who are sexual predator assholes who don't give a fuck about how women actually feel.

Update: Ezra Klein over at Vox.com pretty much sums up what is wrong with US, with America, allowing this inhuman shitgibbon to even come with 100 miles of being President:

He has done all this in public, and he has done all of it repeatedly, almost gleefully. If we elect him, there will be no excusing our actions to future generations, no pleading ignorance in the face of threat. It was all here. It was all obvious. It will all be visible to our children, and to historians.

Trump told us who he was, showed us who he was, again and again. The test here is not of his decency, but of our own.

What. The. Hell. America.

Any of you think of voting Trump, there is no excuse. None. Not party fidelity. Not your hatred of Hillary or Bill (neither of whom were ever this bad, even Bill despite his own sexual arrogance was more charmer than predator). Not the issues he stands for, which are racist and idiotic on their own terms.

A vote for Trump is a vote for vile vulgarity. It is a vote against every woman who ever lived. It is a vote against every kind and decent thing any American has ever done for others.

Damn you forever if you vote for THAT.

No Eternal Reward Will Forgive Us Now

I love the friends I have gathered together on this thin raft/
We have constructed pyramids in honor of our escaping/
For this is the land where the Pharaoh died...
- The Doors (Jim Morrison) "Texas Radio & the Big Beat"

Welp. It's official and nobody can take it back.

The Republican Party officially nominated Donald Trump - without argument the least qualified human being to ever run for the highest office of the land - to run for President of the United States.

We are now running a great risk that Trump - a con artist with no genuine political skill, running on impossible and vague promises - could actually win in November. As of today, Nate Silver and crew at the 538 website have Trump at 38 percent chance of winning. That's not good.

There is every likelihood that Trump's numbers are improving because there's traditionally a bounce in the polls surrounding the nominating convention week, but we can't take anything for granted.

It'd be nice to see who Hillary selects for her Vice Presidential pick as the Democrats head into their Philly convention next week, and see if she can regain her momentum.

It'd be nice to see American voters try to realize the severity of what Trump represents: racist misogyny driven by ignorance and desperate to sell fear. The punditry have noted that so far the Republican convention has been so overwhelmed by the Far Right narrative - BENGHAZI! Hillary should be in jail! Obama's a Secret Muslim! All of that has been openly said at the podium this week - that it's unlikely that anyone's opinions have changed so far. But the pundits are one thing, the voters are another.

God, I hate feeling like this. The dread of a potential disaster of a Trump Presidency.

Why Trump Still Worries Me

We're heading into a chaotic and potentially broken Republican convention in Cleveland within 24 hours, and these thoughts still plague me:

We are dealing with the fact that a major political party in the United States - the Republicans - willingly and in some cases happily voted for a known bankrupt-burdened, ego-driven constantly-lying con artist with no political experience at all to run for the highest office in the land.

This is something I've seen here at home. Here in Florida, our Republican neighbors happily voted for a confirmed Medicare Fraud in Rick "No Ethics" Scott to run our state as governor back in 2010, picking him over a staid but reliably conservative politician. And because of that, and because not enough Democrats and NPA voters showed up to do anything to stop him - TWICE - we've been stuck with a corrupt, crony-empowering, regulation-cutting, budget-slashing coward who has allowed our waters to turn toxic and our communities to turn into hellholes.

I mean, Christ honestly, this is what I wrote about Scott in 2010:

I've spent more than a few posts yelling and screaming about how the Republicans have failed in their leadership: about how they provide us with con artists, snake-oil salesmen, egomaniacal freaks, borderline racists, and outright liars.  But in previous cases the Republicans at least tried for a pretense of choosing 'sensible,' or least publicly clean candidates that don't have billion-dollar-sized damages trailing in their wake.  With Scott?  Dear fucking God, they're not even trying to hide it anymore.  This guy - responsible for the largest fine in Medicare Fraud history - is openly trying to buy himself an office ($40 million of his own money and counting), and for what purpose?  What do you honestly think Scott is trying to do achieve?  All I can think of is that he's hoping to get into office so that he can use the shield of "Public Trust" to avoid any culpability in the private sector he may have generated...

Just trade out Scott's name for Trump's, and take out how Scott was using his own money to win because I doubt Trump really is spending anything on his run, and what I wrote in 2010 is the exact same thing I'd be writing RIGHT NOW.

Only now it's not just the state of Florida at risk, it's the entire United States of America, and God Help Us the whole fucking planet.

This is why, despite all the stuff I read on other blogs and even in the national media punditry commentary that "it can't possibly go wrong", I am absolutely terrified that something is going to go wrong. That voter suppression efforts in key states might actually work on a large enough scale to flip Democratic states to Republican... That Democratic voters might not show up to vote, either disgusted by Hillary being too Centrist or convinced by the Far Right media that she's pure Evil (like they've been screaming about for 25 years and NEVER proven right)... That enough Far Left voters pull a 2000 Nader and keep Hillary from winning one too many swing state... That like it or not you should never underestimate the Democratic Party's ability to screw up an easy win...

Trump may be so terrible and horrifying and inept a candidate that it seems impossible that he could actually win in November... but if he's on the ballot, he has every legit chance even if it's .0001 percent of a chance when the time comes in November. So it's not really impossible: you cannot deny there is a likelihood however slim of a President Trump.

That we've actually allowed this to even get this close to happening should create nightmares for every sane person outside of the 27 percent Crazification Factor for the rest of the year.

And this is why I have been screaming - will keep screaming - at the Democrats and Moderates and Independent voters and Sane voters to make sure they get the DAMN VOTE OUT this November and that they DO NOT for the LOVE OF GOD VOTE REPUBLICAN... AND DO NOT for the LOVE OF GOD VOTE TRUMP.

In all regards, I won't be paying too much direct attention to the Cleveland convention (I can't believe Tampa's convention was four years ago already...). It's promising to be a hater-fest of epic scale, where the party is openly planning themed nights around "BENGHAZI EMAILS ZOMG" and "Clinton's Penis" (I am not making this up). This is what they've got to offer America: nothing about education, or jobs, or immigration reform (other that BUILD THAT WALL), or an informed discussion on the role of government in modern society. They're not even bringing out a positive, friendly version of their "God and Guns" platform to pull in the moderate faithful. They're not going to do much to promote a party platform - "No Porn" is the more cringe-worthy part, but the entire thing skews so far Right that even Goldwater would have choked on it - they seem embarrassed to discuss.

The Trump convention is going straight to the mudslinging: they're going to pull the Eastwood Chair stunt but multiplied by eleven.

Cleveland is coming up next. God Help Us.

The Danger of Trump's World View

(Update: Oh hey, Crooks and Liars readers linking in from Mike's Blog Round Up! Welcome back. Please check out the latest blog offerings if you can, and by the by I think I got a message from the family of the Port O San guy from Woodstock I blogged about back in 2009 so OMG OMG OMG I am a little distracted at the moment...

Follow-up to the Update: Thank you as well, Infidel753 for the link here!)

Recheck on the Follow-up to the Update: Hello everyone linking from Skippy the Bush Kangaroo! Welcome to my blog, try the veal it's the best in the city...

You seven - I should be saying eight now - regular blog followers know I am a fan of James David Barber's work on Presidential Character. On how it can determine the basic performance of an incoming or sitting or historical President: on if said President was/is/will be Active or Passive in office, and Positive or Negative about the power of the office towards achieving goals.

What he based that Character on were a set of factors, one of the key factors being "World View": how the person running for the Presidency perceives the world based on previous experiences, learning moments, and developing philosophy.

Barber's own definition from his book Presidential Character goes like this:

A President's world view consists of his primary, politically relevant beliefs, particularly his conceptions of social causality, human nature, and the central moral conflicts of the time... these assumptions or conceptions help him make sense of his world, give some semblance of order to the chaos of existence. Perhaps most important, a man's world view affects what he pays attention to... (p.5)

That World View gives us an idea both on how the potential President views his political allies and enemies, and on how he/she will act on the global stage of the world itself.

Well, we've got a really hard case of Presidential Character with Republican front-runner Donald Trump at the moment. My original estimation of Trump being Active-Negative - and in the worst way imaginable - remains intact: he's been the self-centered, boasting, bullying, ill-informed blowhard that one would find at the most extreme edges of being Uncompromising and Self-Serving (two key A-N traits).

One of the things Trump has been avoiding has been explaining or codifying his World-View to the public at large - at most he's made clear signals about degrading Hispanics, Asians, women, and anybody who doesn't genuflect to the Trump (tm) brand - by usually hand-waving off questions regarding foreign policy. Now that he's essentially the lone runner for the delegate majority count, Trump has to establish more specific policy goals to define the upcoming convention's platform, so he and his handlers decided on making a "bold" foreign policy speech.

To say it didn't go over very well is a bit of an understatement.

If we can refer to Adam Silverman's article in Balloon Juice:

...I will leave the fiskings and point by point takedowns of the contradictions, flaws in logic, petty vindictiveness, and inconsistencies to others. I want, instead, to focus in on the core of the address, which could, perhaps, be referred to the Trump Doctrine. The Trump Doctrine, at its core, can be boiled down to America (we) will be treated fairly. As I wrote yesterday in my initial impressions, this is essentially National Security Narcissism...

...More than that, however, is that the Trump Doctrine is really the animating force or theme of the entire Trump campaign. The other candidates had better treat Donald Trump fairly, the Republican National Committee better treat Donald Trump fairly, the Republican establishment better treat Donald Trump fairly, the media better treat Donald Trump fairly, the state level parties that handle the primaries and all the delegates chosen better treat Donald Trump fairly. And Donald Trump will make them treat him fairly! And the only candidate, nay the only person in America who can ensure that you are treated fairly is Donald Trump. And if he isn’t treated fairly or the US isn’t treated fairly, then he will get even...!

The average American, in some cases even the above average American, really does not know how policy is formulated or strategy is developed for domestic issues, let alone for foreign or defense issues. Donald Trump’s speech yesterday cut through all of that reality – that how the official business of America at the Federal, state, and municipal levels is done is often arcane and messy – and reached right for his supporter’s guts. Donald Trump has consistently been telling Americans... that they are being taken advantage of and that only Donald Trump can stop this. All he’s now done is formally extend it into the realm of foreign and defense policy and connect the pieces together...

The only people that should be happy with Mr. Trump’s foreign policy remarks are Vladimir Putin, the leadership of the People’s Republic of China, and the Islamic extremists running the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. Mr. Trump’s doctrine of America will be treated fairly screams a revanchist approach to foreign and defense policy. Should the US not be treated fairly, the US will then retaliate. Maybe that’s taking our things and going home. Maybe that’s getting even. Maybe its something else, but because Donald Trump’s emphasis is on unpredictability there is no way to really know...

Silverman's point is that Trump is projecting his own World View - his narcissistic belief in his own superiority over everyone else - and applying it to foreign relations that cannot and should not kow-tow to such ego-stroking.

The key question about the Trump Doctrine - America should be treated fairly - should be this: What the hell is fair? Who gets to determine what actions are fair or not? Given the person involved, the likeliest answer of Who determines is going to be Trump himself. If it comes down to it, what Trump is advocating is an American foreign policy where all of our dealings ought to go entirely to HIS favor and not even the American citizenry (who will only benefit by proxy in Trump's estimation), which violates a lot of precepts about deal-making and international agreements.

What Trump is pushing is a World View where everyone else HAS to Respect the hell out of US, while our nation won't have any reason to show any Respect to them.

This is troubling on multiple levels.

Our existing alliances would come under scrutiny, and the political situations in Europe and Asia would collapse over the first sign of slight in Trump's view. Which could be over anything that would tick off his ego.

Said allies would rather cut ties up front over coping with any conflicts with Trump's administration down the road. As Silverman pointed out, that would weaken NATO's stance against Putin's Russia, and it would certainly be a death-knell to any NATO attempt to support Ukraine against Putin's border war with them. The Middle East, another flashpoint where NATO and Russia are occasionally at odds, can turn into a greater cauldron of hell than it already is.

As others pointed out, Trump's dealings in Asia would agitate an increasingly dangerous China, and if Trump were to pull out of our alliances with Japan, Taiwan, even the Philippines it would grant China greater control of the water trade routes of the Southeast Pacific at best (at worst, good God, is full out invasions of Taiwan, Japan, and anywhere they like).

It's a variant of the strand of Isolationism that is common to the United States' political discourse. As much as an "America First" mindset - which has some pretty sick associations - as it is a kind of arrogant Nativist stance that places the nation above all mundane concerns to everyone else's destruction (there's a kind of "Let 'Em Crash" smugness to it).

What Trump is selling here is the argument that the United States is unfairly treated by other foreign powers including our allies, and that our national pride is at stake if we do not elect him to make those foreign powers respect us. What he's not seeing - because his willful ignorance of anything that doesn't serve his immediate needs - is that our foreign policies should not be based on PRIDE but on political and economic stability at a global level. We can't gain that stability if we destabilize our own alliances and create more chaos.

How far Trump can go on this message and World View, all depends on how many American voters buy into the same World View. The best we can hope for right now is that those numbers are way below 40 percent of the electorate currently backing his run.

This is not good politics. This is not good foreign policy. This is not good for America. And we're two steps away from being stuck with him.

All that joking about what a Trump Presidency would look like? It's not funny if he gets elected. Not one damn bit funny if that happens.

Syria Refugee Crisis

We as a nation need to do more than offer to take in 10,000 more refugees from the Syrian Civil War.

We need to send more aid.

We need to resolve the fighting and that means getting Russia and Syria and Turkey and Israel and Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Jordan AND Iran to the diplomacy table and stop the goddamn bloodshed.

IT HAS BEEN FOUR YEARS OF BLOODSHED AND IT'S GETTING WORSE.  A majority of Syrians no longer live in Syria because of it.  The refugee centers are now the size of small cities.

We need to isolate ISIL more effectively, cut off their supplies of funding better, cut off their manpower.  By getting every major nation in the region involved, that could work.  But it needs to happen now, and like it or not it means the United States is going to have to commit troops.

This isn't some delusional hunt for imagined WMDs, and it's not some plan to make Dick Cheney richer.  There is a legitimate threat to global security and stability operating in Syria, and the overall instability of Syria threatens the entire Middle East.  A sane, well-planned military operation is needed, with clear goals and strong allied backing among all members.

In the meantime, help the families and children of the Syrian dispossessed.

What The Hell Is Wrong With America

What the hell else can be said after watching a grand jury refuse to bring a (white) cop to court on obvious evidence he used an ILLEGAL CHOKE HOLD to kill a (black) man on the mere suspicion of selling individual cigarettes on the streets of Staten Island.

"No reasonable cause"?!

There's video of it, where Eric Garner is arguing about what's happening to him but being non-violent about it, still getting caught in the cop's chokehold and begging for life gasping "I... Can't... Breathe..."

The official coroner's report came back as a homicide.

What part of "Illegal choke hold" is getting overlooked here?

That old "joke" that a grand jury - basically a tool of prosecutors to sort out the evidence useful to bring charges on a suspect - would indict a ham sandwich?  That's two grand juries in a row refusing to bring a white cop to trial for killing a black man.

That's two different prosecuting attorneys - both of whom deserve to get disbarred for their bias or ineptitude, take your pick - who basically controlled grand juries into doing nothing.

That's two groups of fellow Americans either buying into the "Blue Wall" excuse granting cops full immunity to kill all in their path, or else refusing to see the injustice of not bringing killers to any accounting for the lives they've taken.  Lives that happened to be black men.  Lives taken by those who happen to be white.

Anybody who claims we don't lynch blacks in this country anymore ought to take a look at the body count the last 5 years.

I've said this before: Our cops are not supposed to be executioners.  Our cops are supposed to follow an oath to Protect And Serve.  It's their job to bring the suspects to trial and have the juries and judges determine the guilt.  It is not the jobs of cops to execute with lethal force.  Our cops do NOT have a license to kill.

There are so many legal and effective means to arrest anybody without resorting to pulling out a gun or a taser or a baton or the use of a lethal hold.  GOOD cops do that every day of the year, and we don't hear about those arrests.

What does it tell you that we're hearing and witnessing more and more BAD cops on a weekly, now daily basis, beating the crap out of people, smashing in car windows, blowing up baby cribs, and outright shooting 12-year-olds the second they arrive on scene?  We have one cop shooting a teenager even after other cops - GOOD cops - had stabilized the confrontation, saying "We don't have time for this."  We have cops shooting a guy holding a BB gun in a Wal-Mart, all because some jackass claimed the guy was threatening people with it (in-store video proved he wasn't).  In the only good news out of all this police misconduct, there was a recent incident where the cops arrested and pepper sprayed a black foster child in his own home.  If you can call that good news.

And now our cops are out in the streets blockading the marches and protests, now in New York City as the outrage over Garner's death takes over the city, much like Brown's death took over Ferguson.  

We've got prosecutors who won't hold anybody accountable for death after death after death, after maiming after wounding after false arrest after false reports after lie after lie after more lies.  We've got police departments arming themselves with firepower that matches our army, rolling heavy through our own communities as they escalate the violence trying to impose order in response to the injustice they're refusing to recognize in their own actions.

Don't be surprised if our nation's faith - not just Black folks who'd figured out a while back that their lives don't matter, but Whites who genuinely want this nation to work for ALL its citizens - in the very concept of JUSTICE is dying in the streets just like our own citizens.

What the hell is wrong with America tonight?  We're living under a cloud of fear, living with a legal system skewing more against its own people.

Just a Reminder to All Florida Voters During This Early Voting Cycle

If Rick "No Ethics" Scott wins this November, and if prominent Republican governors like Scott "John Doe Investigation" Walker and Chris "BridgeGate" Christie either lose this November or end up indicted... then Rick "Medicare Fraud" Scott becomes a front-runner for the GOP nomination for the Presidency in 2016.

Think I'm joking?  If Scott wins, it will be even against all evidence that Scott has run a mismanaged and corrupt governor's office.  It'll be in a state where the enthusiasm for Scott isn't even all that great among the average Republican voters (and where the Far Right are more fixated on just winning at all costs against the dreaded Obama).  He would win in a state that voted for Obama twice and has a 500,000 voter advantage for Democrats over Republicans (if you're thinking "oh well maybe the 3 million NPA voters will all go for Scott," no f-cking way).  And winning in a state where the libertarian candidate (who would traditionally pull away votes from right-leaning candidates) is seemingly getting enough votes (8 percent, maybe?) to prevent anyone from getting a solid 50 percent or more turnout.

If Scott wins it will be due to his getting the wingnut factions of the state to turn out in enough numbers to overwhelm what should be, what has been a vociferous and angry left-centrist faction (the hostility I've seen on the anti-Scott webpages is on par to the hostility I've seen directed at Obama: I've never seen other former governors like Jeb Bush mocked and despised at such a level...).  While Scott's victory may be blamed on the Dems stumbling (oh GOD I hope not) over another centrist candidate, that won't matter to the Far Right.  They'll see a Republican governor who won re-election in a state Obama won.  They'll think he won on "the issues" of tax cuts, refusing Obamacare Medicaid funding, and being a swell example of a Randian "make the poor piss for their food stamps" CEO-turned-elected official.

Personally, hopefully, PRAYING that the voters of Florida are angry enough at a bad governor like Rick "Fraud Up The Wazoo" Scott to turn up in droves to drown out the Far Right voters, that Crist is good enough a campaigner to ensure that turnout for him and for the Democrats as a whole.  I am hopeful that we'll see Rick "WHAT PART OF MEDICARE FRAUD DID YOU KEEP OVERLOOKING REPUBLICANS?" Scott running in shame from the cameras after a decisive electoral loss on the night of November 4th.  But hope is one thing, reality another.  The polling has been up and down too much this year to feel comfortable about Crist winning.  WE NEED VOTER TURNOUT PLEASE GOD.  We need 4.5 million registered Democrats AND enough of the 3 million NPA to get out the vote saying "Go to Hell you Medicare Fraud" kicking Scott out the door.

None of us ought to wake up to seeing Rick Scott trolling Iowa for voters in Winter 2015.  /shudder

Great: the House GOP Is Now Sadistic As Well As Stupid

This is one of those moments where you wanna break out a camera and document the atrocity for the sake of preserving history.

The House Republicans just two days ago passed a version of the 5-year farm bill (it's consistent and important enough to have its own Wiki page) that doled out the billions of dollars as expected to the agribusiness industry... and didn't show one red cent for food stamps to poor families.

In our political system, a payout system of subsidies to farmers (in truth, to massive corporations) wouldn't survive on its own as its supporters would be few (mostly rural, mostly corporate forces in agribusiness) because those subsidies distort the market.  In our political system where any system of welfare to the poor (such as a food stamps program) is viewed by conservatives as Dreaded Socialism, food stamps wouldn't survive on its own either.  So for the sake of political comity of getting things done, subsidies and food stamps tended to get bound together into an omnibus farm bill in order to secure enough support from conservatives and liberals.

Problem is, our current political system is not a sane political system.  The Far Right are in control of the House, and the Far Right are so opposed to any financial aid to the poor that they couldn't even pass a farm bill with food stamps in it back in June, making the House look like it's being run by idiots.  It threatened to create a situation where milk prices would skyrocket, for one thing.  And it just looked bad: the Senate was able to pass their version of the farm bill with some bipartisan effort.

So, here we are in July one month later, the House still needing to pass any farm bill at all... and the House GOP decided to vote for a version that simply didn't fund any food stamps at all.  At least the June version was massive cuts to funding: this one full-out killed it.

Now the deal with legislation is that it has to pass both houses of Congress, which means the House of Representatives has to match the Senate: there's usually a committee process that hammers out a compromise version that both sides re-vote on for final signature.  Given the disparity of versions, the Senate has a say on the farm bill and there is absolute certainty the Democrat-led Senate will refuse to accept this from the House.  So there's little threat of food stamps being completely eliminated here.  The outrage by the public would be huge if the Senate caved on this: we would finally get some rioting in the streets to match up with Egypt and Turkey.

But what does it say to the public already about the House Republicans, that they would intentionally vote to starve out poor families like this?  And this IS about poor families across the whole nation.  The Far Right already has this disdain against the growing number of people on food stamps, ignoring the fact that we're in a goddamn recession so of course we've got more people in dire need to feed their kids.  But now this disdain is public and fully on-record: it's not just the punditry foaming at the mouth on the Sunday talk shows, the elected Republicans are voting into law bills that are against helping out the poor (and not just the poor minorities: enrollment for food stamps is 36 percent White families, compare 22 percent Black and 10 percent Latino (where the remaining percentages go, most likely into other ethnicities like Asian, Native American and Pacific Islander).

While the "liberal" punditry like Jonathan Chait is going ballistic about it:

...There’s some policy rationale for this. Some of the farm subsidies drive up the price of food, making it harder for poor people to buy the food and thus making it more necessary to subsidize them. But the main rationale for joining food stamps is political. It gets urban liberals to vote for farm subsidies that hurt their constituents, and it gets rural conservatives to tolerate food stamps that they’d otherwise oppose. And since advocates of both farm subsidies and food stamps fear losing their program more than anything else, they strongly endorse keeping them together.

The coalition between the two has come undone in recent weeks. Why? Because under President Obama, conservatives have gone from not caring much about food stamps to detesting food stamps as the emblem of Obama’s Chicago-style urban socialist welfare dependency administration. Food stamp spending has increased, not because Obama is handing them out like candy but because the number of poor, hungry people has dramatically increased since the Great Recession...

...Now, some House Republicans would like to spend less on farm subsidies, but they’re willing to maintain the status quo. They’re not willing to maintain the status quo on food stamps. Indeed, the incredible position of many conservatives is that the government should be handing out money to people because they run a farm, but should not hand out money to people who happen to be poor...

It’s no longer novel that conservative Republicans have positioned themselves to Obama’s left on domestic spending that benefits their own constituencies. We have seen three years of Republicans attacking Obama for robbing Grandma’s Medicare. But at least Medicare is a justifiable program. The existence of farm subsidies is insane, and the fact that a party that hates government so much it engages in a continuous guerrilla war of shutdowns, manufactured currency crises, and outright sabotage can’t eliminate it may be the most telling indicator of the GOP’s venality. They only hate necessary government spending. Totally unjustifiable spending is fine with them.

There's the established "conservative" punditry like Ross Douthat wondering just what the hell is going on:

...But without a vision of the common good, a party is basically just a faction, seeking only the interests of its constituents, with no sense of its responsibilities to the country as a whole. And the Obama-era Republican Party’s worst tendency has been toward just this sort of factionalism: Not an ideological extremism, exactly, but rather a vision of government that you might call “small government for thee, but not for me,” in which conservatism is just constituent services for the most reliable Republican groups and voters.

This is what produced the party’s unfortunate Mediscare tactics during the 2009 health care debate, and it’s what produced yesterday’s egregious farm bill vote. It should go without saying that America’s agriculture policy has always been a terrible, stupid, counterproductive exercise in self-dealing cronyism. But when House Republicans severed the traditional connection, arbitrary but politically effective, between farm subsidies and food stamps, it briefly seemed like they were looking for an opportunity to put libertarian populist principle into practice, by separating both outlays in order to trim or reform both separately. But no — instead they were just making it easier for the party’s congressmen to vote for a bloated, awful big government program that benefits mostly-Republican states and interest groups, knowing that they weren’t also voting for something that pays out to the (mostly-Democratic) poor as well.

This is egregious whatever you think of the food stamp program, and it’s indicative of why the endless, often-esoteric debates about the Republican future actually matter to our politics. Practically any conception of the common good, libertarian or communitarian or anywhere in between, would produce better policy than a factionally-driven approach of further subsidizing the rich while cutting programs for the poor. The compassionate-conservative G.O.P. of George W. Bush combined various forms of corporate welfare with expanded spending on social programs, which was obviously deeply problematic in various ways … but not as absurd and self-dealing as only doing welfare for the rich...

Reasonable people can disagree, in other words, about what kind of conservatism would best serve the common good. But everyone should agree that any alternative would be preferable to a Republican Party that doesn’t seem to think about the common good at all.

To me, this is just one more bit of evidence of the GOP House's utter incompetence: that they couldn't even pass a no-brainer bill like a farm bill without shooting themselves in the collective foot.  Their stance against food stamps may play well on the wingnut blogs but it's not going to play well over the kitchen tables at a lot of voters' homes.

Consider Machiavelli's question about whether it is better to be loved or feared... the real trick was to avoid being hated, and a political party or elected official intentionally going out of his/her way to inflict pain on a lot of people - on a lot of families - all at once is a very good way to become hated.

The Real Scandal In DC: No One Cares

For all the yelling and screaming we've heard about Benghazi... for all the yelling and screaming we're gonna hear about the IRS investigating Tea Party groups... the real problem in Washington DC is that no one in power really gives a crap about the long-term unemployed and even the lucky-for-now employed average Americans struggling through this austerity-cramped "recovery".

To wit, from Derek Thompson at The Atlantic:

On April 24, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar scheduled a hearing. Fun story, right? A hearing in Washington is like a fern in the rainforest. But this hearing was notable for both its subject and its attendance. It was a meeting about the most important economic crisis facing America today: long-term unemployment. At 10:30am, the hearing began. She was the only attendant...I have two stories for you about Washington and the economy. Both true. But very different.The first story is called: How Washington Saved the Economy. You might begin in 2008, when the Federal Reserve went on an unprecedented spree of asset-buying to un-gunk the banks, push down interest rates, and spur investing in mortally weakened economy. This was followed, in 2009, with an equally historic stimulus package aimed at filling holes in state budgets and sending cash back to families and businesses... There is little question that monetary and fiscal stimulus blunted the recession -- and saved the economy.The second story is called: How Washington Permanently Scarred the Labor Market. You might begin this story in 2011, when Congress (led by Republican obstructionism) embarked on a historic quest to crush deficit spending by any means necessary. Hold the economy hostage over the debt ceiling? Check. Kill the American Jobs Act while scheduling a too-awful-to-be-a-real-law sequester? Check. Allow the too-awful-to-be-a-real-law sequester to become a real law? Checkmate... The deficit fell fast. As unemployment ebbed, the ranks of long-term jobless calcified, creating two separate job markets. One broken market for people out of work for more than six months. And another slowly healing market for everybody else. But the combination of a thermostatic recovery and a deep aversion to stimulus crushed any hope that the long-term unemployed would get the help they needed. Long-term unemployment isn't special just because it's longer; it's special because it's self-perpetuating. Skills atrophy, networks dry up, and employers discriminate, creating a vicious cycle of joblessness that can't be cured by normal economic growth...

Enough to make one rage, don't it?  Pity of it is, there's no lobby group for unemployed people.  It costs money to hire a lobbying firm: unemployed people by sheer fact of no job/no money means they can't afford one.  Meanwhile, banks and anti-union business owners and rich people can afford lobbyists by the limo load, meaning they can drown out the local echo chamber to their hearts' content.  Without dedicated political activism in the place where it really matters - the halls of Congress - the unemployed are screwed.

To the seven people reading this blog: Swear upon your personal honor to find and support any and all political candidates pledged to pass a jobs stimulus bill campaigning for 2014.  Swear it!  Not to me.  Swear it to the millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans who need our help.

.

A Call To Action

Dear Florida residents:

GET THE VOTE OUT TOMORROW TUESDAY NOV. 6th!

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VOTE OBAMA, VOTE NELSON FOR SENATE, VOTE DEMOCRAT FOR YOUR PARTICULAR CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT!  STOP THE REPUBLICANS FROM F-CKING UP CONGRESS!

(gasp) (wheeze) I'm not finished yet...

VOTE NO ON ALL THE AMENDMENTS RICK "VOTER STEALER" SCOTT AND HIS LEGE BUDDIES ARE PUSHING ON US!

VOTE TO RETAIN ALL JUSTICES SO THAT SCOTT WON'T FILL THE COURTS WITH HIS CRONIES!

(wheeze) (breathe) (drink of water)  I AM SERIOUS HERE PEOPLE!  THIS ELECTION EVERYTHING IS AT STAKE!

Signed,
Me

P.S. I do accept most comments submitted for posting.  I will NOT, however, post anything from any coward signing on as Anonymous.  There ought to be a couple of ways of logging in to post with even an online nickname, but I've found Anonymous posters are cowardly trolls not worth the response otherwise.