Month: October 2018

Midweek Cafe and Lounge, Vol. 88

Welcome back, music lovers. It’s Wednesday somewhere, yeah? I have another hectic week that is only half behind me So it goes anymore.

I promised some themed diaries. Last week featured ABBA (I hope an ABBA fan or two appreciated it). This week it is Queen. Reviews of the biopic (Bohemian Rhapsody) have been decidedly mixed. I have not had a chance to see it, or really any other films due to a lot of time constraints. Whatever the shortcomings of that film may be, the band itself was solid, especially at its peak.

Let me start with a hit from the early 1980s (which seems to be my go-to decade), featuring David Bowie:

The 1980s was unkind to a lot of progressive rock bands. Somehow Queen seemed to make the transition from the 1970s to the 1980s with their artistic integrity essentially intact. There was always a bit of creative curiosity among that lot, and that helped a good deal. Their later LPs didn’t always hit their marks, but it was obvious a lot of care went into whatever was on those later recordings. To this day, I urge caution to anyone who dares to cover a Queen song.

A Zeroed Out Comment, Re-entered.

Hello all.

The sniveling cowards who represent the old-line DNC forces on this blog have again…in emulation of the way the the DNC essentially zeroed out Bernie Sanders in 2016…zeroed out a comment of mine.

But…since they started doing this, I have been saving every thread that contains one of my comments or replies, because I absolutely refuse to be silenced by the kinds of people who essentially brought us Donald Trump with their shortsightedness, hubris and their own entirely self-protective interests. The thread was Booman’s Trump Calls Andrew Gillum a Thief, and poster Raoul Paste made this comment:

Trump is desperate, and I’m sure the lies will be even more hateful in the next few days.
If all of his hair would fall out this week, I would become a believer in cosmic justice.

by Raoul Paste on Mon Oct 29th, 2018 at 03:26:05 PM EST

I liked that comment, and was struck by how funny it would look of all of Trump’s hair fell out.

Read on for my own (zeroed-out) reply:

Comic justice, too!!!

But…to be fair “Pot calls kettle black!!!” is not a new meme.

In this case, of course, it’s more like “Almost universally recognized billionaire thief calls mainstream pol who may have cut a corner or two a thief.”

I mean…even Trump’s supporters know he’s crooked. They just think that he’s their crook. This is very similar to the way impoverished ghetto-dwellers historically support their own gangster groups.

And…it always turns out nasty. Out of sheer greed, eventually the crooks so cross their constituents  that the real deal becomes apparent, and  then…only then…are the marks outraged.

I don’t know if we can afford to wait long enough for that to happen with Trump and his 27+%, though. I actually believe that his lieutenants will do him in…one way or another…once they see him seriously to steer the ship of state straight for the shoals.

Let us pray that this happens soon. I mean…even if the Dems pulled the upset of all time next week and took both houses and a bunch of governorships, they’re still run by the neocentrist (and laughably incompetent) DNC controllers, and the opposition to Trump would crawl along at the usual DC snail’s pace because the centrists of both parties do not want to get caught with their own pants down. That would give Trump at least two more years to pile-drive the government into total failure.

Let us pray…

AG

Not until faithfulness turns to betrayal-and betrayal into trust-can any human being become part of the truth. — Rumi

by Arthur Gilroy (arthurgilroy<at>earthlink.net) on Mon Oct 29th, 2018 at 04:00:50 PM EST

Do not sit by and let this blog be bullied and transformed into dKos Lite/DNCman Tribune by only a few of its members. Call them on their actions!!! The next few years are going to be a turning point of some sort for this country. It’s either going to regress to full Reagan/Trump reactionary bullshit or it is going to open up past the neoliberal/neocentrist/UniParty DC swamper lines that so seriously failed it and thus led to Trumpism.

Open up to a real “people’s” republic.

Fight censorship on all levels!!!

As Lenny Bruce so presciently said, “If you can’t say “fuck,”, you can’t say “Fuck the government!!!”

Thank you and goodnight…

AG

Mixed Messages in the Early Voting

There has some barely perceptible movement recently in Beto O’Rourke’s polling numbers which is causing some people to hope that an upset of Ted Cruz is in the works. The counter to that is that Sen. Cruz is pretty consistently reaching or topping 50 percent in the polls, including the Quinnipiac survey that came out today.  There are very few undecided voters in Texas, apparently, so it’s going to be hard for O’Rourke to gain the remaining ground he needs to cover.

Yet, a look at the early vote in Texas provides at least a defensible reason to believe that the polls may not be modeling the electorate correctly, as the youth vote is absurdly high and Latinos are showing up in greater numbers than whites.

A 508 percent increase in voter turnout among the under-30 crowd is a clear indication that O’Rourke has captured the attention of a generational cohort that normally does not pay attention in non-presidential years.  As for the Latino vote, it’s unclear how strongly they’ll prefer O’Rourke but he surely will benefit at least a little if they exceed their past participation levels.

There are some mixed messages in the early voting from other states. In North Carolina, younger voters are turning out at close to same rate they did in the 2016 presidential race, and that’s good news for the Democrats.

In Florida, the Republicans are maintaining a stubborn lead in the early vote that should concern the Democratic Party.

In Nevada, things look as tight as a tick, but the Democrats are doing surprisingly well in Reno (Washoe County), and that may be enough to carry their statewide candidates over the top.

In all these cases, the results are based on party registration, so it matters a great deal whether there’s a differential in how many crossover votes there are, and it also could be critical who wins with non-affiliated voters.

While it’s true that the Democrats normally suffer in midterms because they have more low-propensity voters, that does not automatically mean that unusually high turnout this year will help them. In a red state, if we have presidential turnout numbers that will probably mean the Republican candidate will win. A Democrat has a better chance of winning in a red state when they can take advantage of a big differential in voter enthusiasm, so it doesn’t help if everyone turns out. Still, one way they could pull off some stunning upsets in places like Texas and Tennessee even in a very high turnout election is if the shape of the electorate is significantly different than it has been in the past. In Texas, much higher youth turnout and Latinos turning out at a higher rate than whites might accomplish this.

In Tennessee, turnout is certainly running high:

We’ll have to see if the shape of that electorate favors the Democrats.

Signs of Momentum for the Dems

Following the basic principles of triage, the Republicans’ strategy this fall seems to have been to focus first and primarily on saving the patients with the best chance of survival, and that has meant taking actions that will help preserve their Senate majority without worrying about the consequences for House candidates. The way the Brett Kavanaugh hearings were handled is a perfect example of this, and it would have been even more stark if retiring Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona hadn’t pressed the pause button and allowed for the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The polarizing effect of the Kavanaugh confirmation changed the shape of the electorate, perhaps only fleetingly, giving partisan Republicans a boost of energy and a badly needed victory at the cost of an even bleaker picture for embattled incumbents running in well-educated and affluent districts around the country.

“Clearly the Kavanaugh confirmation was an inflection point to activate the Republican base, and even pull over some Democratic men,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant based in California. “But that’s an effect that benefits the Senate and leaves suburban members of Congress stranded. It’s unlikely we won back suburban Orange County voters.”

The Kavanaugh effect was a bit like the high you get off cocaine or methamphetamines–short-lived and accompanied by a bad hangover. It probably had some impact on early voting in some states, but other events have overtaken it and left the Republicans desperate for a new bump. There are plenty of indications in the polls that the late momentum in House races has moved toward the Democrats.

There is still some reason to believe that the congressional races will offer a surprise to progressives and the media. As Nate Silver explained last week, the polling has been better for the Democrats in Obama-Trump districts than in Romney-Clinton districts, which is something I’ve consistently said was possible, starting right after Election Day in 2016. There is a lot of regional variation, but working class whites in the Midwest are coming home to the Democratic Party. This is probably despite the Kavanaugh story rather than because of it.  And it is one reason why shoring up red areas didn’t do much for the GOP’s chances of holding onto the House.  Depending on how you define “the Midwest,” the Democrats are favored to gain between 12 and 14 seats, and possibly many more than that.  They’re also looking strong in the Senate and governor’s races, although the Kavanaugh effect may have hurt Democratic incumbent Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Joe Donnelly of Indiana.

Overall, where the Democrats have struggled in the post-Kavanaugh environment seems to be in a bunch of Romney-Clinton races like Georgia’s 6th District and some districts in Illinois and California.  It could be that the short-term effect of the Kavanaugh hearings was to get a lot of suburban Republicans to act like Republicans, but recent news related to the murder of journalists and racially and religiously motivated attacks has changed their focus back to the problems with our president.

In any case, with a week to go, there seems to be a consensus that the polls have some movement in them and that it’s favorable to the Democrats.  Yet, the Democrats are still not favored to take over the Senate, largely because the key races are all being held in states that Trump carried and (other than Florida) have a clear Republican lean. In that political landscape, goosing Republican enthusiasm and turnout pays off even if it hurts in the suburbs.

There is still time for the momentum to shift again, but a lot of votes have already been cast.  If the Democrats can figure out a way to win the Senate race in either Tennessee or Texas and avoid losing in Missouri and Indiana, they still might come away on Election Night with control of both chambers.  It’s not something I’m willing to predict, but it’s possible. It would be extra sweet because the Senate Republicans sold out the House to protect themselves, and they deserve to suffer the consequences.

 

Was Walter Mondale Right on Taxes?

One of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits had Phil Hartman interviewing Walter Mondale (played by Dana Carvey) on a spoof show called “What Were You Thinking?” The basic idea was that running for president while promising to raise people’s taxes isn’t exactly an intuitive political strategy.

Hartman – Mr. Mondale, you ran for president in 1984 on a platform of raising taxes.
Mondale – Yes, I know…
Hartman – Now traditionally candidates have succeeded by vowing to … lower taxes
Mondale – I know, I know…
Hartman – In fact, I believe this applies to all levels of government, including national, state,…
Mondale – I know.
Hartman – …city…
Mondale – I know.
Hartman – …municipal township…
Mondale – I know.
Hartman – …and unincorporated hamlets.
Mondale – I know, I know.
Hartman – So I suppose what everyone wants to know is, what were you thinking?
Mondale – Well… um… I don’t know…

I always thought the piece was hilarious but also highlighted the absurdity of the Republicans’ inflexible insistence on always wanting to lower taxes regardless of the situation, even when we are at war or they have just lowered them substantially or when we need substantially more revenue to meet the government’s obligations.

It’s obviously more difficult to convince people to support you when you’re asking them to sacrifice rather than offering to give them money, but if we never raise taxes and always lower them, eventually we’ll either have to slash people’s retirement security or spend most of our money paying interest on debt. Perhaps Walter Mondale was thinking about these things when he looked at the country’s financial condition in the early 1980s and concluded that we had to roll back Reagan’s tax cuts. In fact, Reagan reluctantly concluded the same thing.

Yet, perhaps we’ve reached a point in this country after several decades of Republican intransigence on taxes that the people are coming around to see Mondale’s point of view. How else would you describe this?

Ten months ago, when the Senate voted to pass a huge tax cut, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared, “If we can’t sell this to the American people, we ought to go into another line of work.”

They couldn’t. They tried convincing the public their tax cuts for the rich will mostly go to the middle class, but the middle class doesn’t believe them. “I would have bet you a lot of money going into this year that if you cut people’s taxes by thousands of dollars per year, that would be politically popular,” Republican consultant Ryan Ellis told Politico. “But it has not worked out that way.” As private Republican polling has confirmed, the party “lost the messaging battle” on taxes.

I am not finding a whole lot to be hopeful about right now, but I am comforted to see the American people rejecting the Republicans last tax bill. It seems like a fresh breath of sanity in an environment that has gone completely crazy.

I hope that sanity will extend all the way down to the level of unincorporated hamlets when people go the polls next week.

Trump Calls Andrew Gillum a Thief

Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum is a graduate of Florida A&M University, which is a highly regarded HCBU (historically black college).  He stood out there, serving as president of the Student Government Association and becoming the first student member of university’s Board of Trustees. Prior to receiving his degree, he won a seat on the Tallahassee City Commission. It’s a proud record for a Gainesville kid whose father worked construction and mother drove a school bus.

However, the president of the United States thinks Gillum’s educational background isn’t worth mentioning.  In a tweet this morning, Donald Trump only saw fit to mention that his opponent Ron DeSantis was educated at Harvard and Yale. Then he called Gillum a “thief.”

The city of Tallahassee isn’t free of corruption, but Trump provided no evidence or context to support his assertion that its mayor is a “thief.”

Trump did not make explicit why he considers Gillum a thief. Tallahassee has been the subject of a federal public-corruption probe, but Gillum has repeatedly said that he did nothing wrong and that the FBI told him in June 2017 that he was not a “focus” of its investigation.

It has been reported that Gillum “used a ticket from an undercover FBI agent posing as a real estate developer to see the Broadway show ‘Hamilton’ in 2016,” and the “Florida Commission on Ethics is also investigating whether Gillum paid his own way on trips with lobbyists to New York and Costa Rica.” These allegations raise questions about whether Gillum improperly accepted gifts, which is no one’s definition of thievery.

It would be fair politics to point out that Gillum is the subject of an ethics investigation and that he appears to have accepted a ticket to a Broadway play from an FBI agent posing as a real estate developer. I’d mention that the FBI has cleared Gillum and that the Florida Commission on Ethics is controlled by Republicans, but I think the people deserve to know about these issues when making their decision on who they want to support for governor. Calling Gillum a “thief,” though, treats him like a common criminal who is liable to break into your house and steal your jewelry and silverware.

This, in combination with the complete dismissal of Gillum’s educational achievements, is dehumanizing language and naked in its racial component. Degrees from Ivy League schools are worth mentioning, but not degrees from HBCUs. The black urban politician doesn’t have a whiff of low-grade corruption surrounding him; he has a history of breaking and entering.

We shouldn’t expect any better from the world’s most famous birther, but we should recognize the pattern. When people say that President Trump is a racist, it’s not some effort to read his mind or see into his heart. It’s an observation built on many examples like Trump’s “thief tweet” this morning. If he can get enough people to see black politicians as criminals then they won’t listen to what those politicians are saying or look at the policies they are promoting. If people see Gillum and think they better grab their wallet and cross the street, the chances are that they won’t be voting for him.

That’s the kind of racial politics we’re dealing with here. Unfortunately, it’s very effective.

It’s also deplorable.

A Merciless Killing

I can’t imagine the inhumanity involved in raising a gun to a 97 year old woman and killing her in cold blood. In general, the victims of The Tree of Life Synagogue shooting were quite elderly.

Joyce Fienberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Cecil Rosenthal, 59
David Rosenthal, 54
Bernice Simon, 84
Sylvan Simon, 86
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69

On one level, their ages don’t matter. Murder is murder. But killing people in their eighties and nineties demonstrates just a little extra disregard for any actual threat, no matter how imagined it might have been. They were killed for who they were rather than for anything they might actually do.

This is how Nazis went about their business, too, killing the young, the old, the infirm, the most defenseless first, on the theory that that extermination was the primary point rather than any kind of self-defense.

I think James Fallows did an admirable job putting this in the correct context this morning.

‘Heroin’s Children’ and more on the opioid epidemic at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards

“I have one last topic to examine, the opioid crisis.  Stay tuned.”  So I concluded ‘Cries from Syria’ versus ‘The Wounds of War’ plus other News and Documentary Emmy nominees about the Syrian Civil War and so I begin this evening by examining “Heroin’s Children” on Al Jazeera English USA’s “Fault Lines,” which earned three nominations, Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report, Best Story in a Newsmagazine, and Outstanding Editing: News, making it the most nominated entry about the opioid epidemic.

Joining “Heroin’s Children” in the field for Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report are another report on the opioid epidemic, “America Addicted” on “PBS NewsHour,” the “60 Minutes” segment “Out of Darkness,” “CNN Special Reports” on “Separated: Saving the Twins,” and “Sunday Morning” segment “Evergreen.”  My usual method of handicapping the nominees favors “Herion’s Children” simply because it has the most nominations, but that’s not guaranteed to be foolproof.  Neither is my other way, which is to pick repeat winners.  For example, PBS NewsHour’s “The End of AIDS?” won Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report last year, so it would be my other choice and in fact would be more likely as I’m sure there are more PBS voters in the electorate than Al Jazeera voters.  With that in mind, here is the opening of “America Addicted” on “PBS NewsHour,” Opioid addiction is the biggest drug epidemic in U.S. history. How’d we get here?

Every day brings another story about the depth of the country’s opioid crisis. A rise of pain killer prescriptions from doctors and a pharmaceutical industry eager to boost sales in the 1990s sparked a wave of addiction that shot up by almost 500 percent in the last 15 years. As a prologue to our series covering the opioid crisis, “America Addicted,” William Brangham reports on how we got here.

To watch the rest, here’s the playlist.  If  my readers do, they’ll encounter Huntington, West Virginia Fire Chief Jan Rader, one of the people profiled in “Heroin(e),” one of two Oscar nominees that are competing for Outstanding Short Documentary and the one I think is the favorite.

For the next two categories, it’s time for me to be a good environmentalist and recycle beginning with the relevant passage from ‘Charlottesville: Race and Terror’ tied for most nominations at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

The competition for Outstanding Editing: News appears just as stiff, as Al Jazeera International USA’s “Fault Lines: Heroin’s Children” has two other nominations for Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report and Best Story in a Newsmagazine.  The other nominees, “50 Years of 60 Minutes” and fellow “VICE News Tonight” reports “Battle for Marawi: On the Hunt for ISIS Militants” and “Libya: Intercepting Migrants,” only have nominations in this category.  My take is that the contest for this award is between Charlottesville and opiates/opioids.

Now to recycle from ‘Cries from Syria’ versus ‘The Wounds of War’ plus other News and Documentary Emmy nominees about the Syrian Civil War.

The final category for which “The Wounds of War” earned a nomination is Best Story in a Newsmagazine, where it is competing against fellow “60 Minutes” segment “Investigating the Opioid Epidemic: The Whistleblower and Too Big to Prosecute” produced in cooperation with The Washington Post, the “Fault Lines” report “Heroin’s Children” from Al Jazeera International USA, another nominee about the opioid epidemic with two other nominations for Outstanding Science, Medical and Environmental Report and Outstanding Editing: News, and two episodes of “Frontline,” “Battle for Iraq” and “Inside Yemen.”  The former also has a nomination for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story, while this is the only nomination for the latter.  Based on its total number of nominations, I think “The Wounds of War” is the favorite, but it is facing stiff competition for the trophy, particularly from “Heroin’s Children.”

With this quote, I’ve managed to name all the nominees about the opioid epidemic, as “60 Minutes” segment “Investigating the Opioid Epidemic: The Whistleblower and Too Big to Prosecute” produced in cooperation with The Washington Post, which is also nominated for Outstanding Investigative Report in a Newsmagazine.  In that category, it is competing against “20/20” in partnership with The Investigative Fund’s “Life and Death at the Border,” fellow “60 Minutes” segment “Friendly Fire,” “Fault Lines” report “Haiti by Force,” and the “On Assignment with Richard Engel” report “Panama.”  Only “Investigating the Opioid Epidemic: The Whistleblower and Too Big to Prosecute” has more than one nomination, so I’m picking it as the favorite.

Just as I embedded all of “Charlottesville: Race and Terror,” I am sharing all of Heroin’s Children: Inside the US opioid crisis | Fault Lines.

The United States is going through the worst drug crisis in its history. It now claims more lives than gun deaths, tears families apart – and shows no signs of abating.

That’s it for the nominees at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards, as the winners are being announced as this entry posts.  I plan on resuming the series about the winners of the Creative Arts and Primetime Emmy Awards that has ‘United Shades of America’ and ‘Life Below Zero’ both win at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards as its most recent installment.  Stay tuned.

Higher Expectations

Last night I was hanging out with a group of my Jewish friends in Philadelphia and it was a joyous occasion. Yet, when the subject turned to politics I became pretty glum and it was clear that I was feeling pretty down about the present mindset of a lot of my fellow Americans. One friend of mine attempted to cheer me up by putting things in context and after listening to him for a while I had to concede, “No, you’re right. Things are bad but this is not the Holocaust.”

The subtext of this was a little barbed, though, because the basic idea is that I am suffering from unrealistic expectations for my fellow man, and, really, humans are a lousy lot who are capable of far worse. So, I should be more cheerful than I am since at least people aren’t rounding people up in cattle cars to lead them to their execution.

My friend didn’t really succeed in improving my mood but I appreciated the attempt and agreed with his points. Then I woke up to this.

I’m still appalled that the GOP is going to win elections in these midterms. I’m appalled that the president’s approval numbers are as high as they are. I’m not going to change. I’m not going to lower my expectations. We have to start moving things in a better direction because we’re devolving and there aren’t going to be many more chances to turn things around.

So, yeah, I won’t consider it a good election night unless the people really show me something, and barely winning back the House while losing Senate seats isn’t going to cut it for me.

If that’s all the protest we can muster as a people, I am going to be pissed.