Author: wrongologist

Monday Wake Up Call: Sex, Lies & Emails Post Debate Edition

Why do the debates have to conflict with Wrongo’s football team’s game? Anyway, watched the debate with Ms. Oh So Right, and desperately wanted to turn it off after about 45 minutes. It seemed clear that Trump was trying a form of the Rick Lazio stalking maneuver, or the way McCain stalked across the stage right up to Obama. Although they started without a handshake, possibly a first in presidential debates, there was a quick one at the end.

  • Trump’s denied that he assaulted anyone. He says “it’s just words, folks”. He’s now opened himself up to a major problem if a woman steps forward with allegations of assault/harassment.
  • The video clip is a result of investigative reporting by the WaPo. There is an element of payback in that Trump has attacked WaPo editor-in-chief Marty Baron personally, and has revoked the paper’s credentials for his rallies. Payback is a bitch, especially if you’re someone like Donald Trump, whose life doesn’t really bear much scrutiny.
  • Here is what Trump really meant about Muslims:

We will set up thought police, where Muslims will be required to report on their parents and children. If you see something, you MUST say something.

  • We learned that tax policy was Hillary’s fault. According to the Pant Load, she wrote the tax code, ran the wars and passed health care. Hillary caused all the inner city problems. She has talked about all of these things for years, but she did nothing.
  • Trump’s message: Bill is more of a perv than me. Hillary can’t be trusted, she has been around for 30 years and things have gotten worse.
  • NO questions on immigrants and jobs, or outsourcing and trade.

Hillary got the better of Trump in laying out policy points, and won on the Trump video tape frat boy issue, but Trump got the better of Hillary with her (non) response on the email issue. Trump comes across as angry, and angry is not likable.

While the idea was for average people to ask questions directly of the candidates, they used each question as a way to swing at the other. There was a lot of Trump’s word salad, and he continually worked the referees. All of that wore thin very quickly. The Pant Load offered lots of red meat to his base, but it was hard to see him making many converts because of his performance tonight.

In a way, it was mean girl vs. the bully, but we are no longer in 7th grade. It’s truly a sad and pathetic commentary on the state of our election process.

We will have to wait until tomorrow to see the ratings that can tell us if and when people began to turn off the debate to watch something else.

To help those of you who stayed up to see the debate and maybe some of the punditry afterwards, you clearly are in need of a wakeup call this morning. There was a rock concert called Desert Trip in Indio CA over the weekend, where the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Roger Waters and The Who performed. The affectionate name for the concert is “Oldchella”, since it involves ancient performers and is being held on the same site as the annual Coachella Rock festival.

It is usually a disappointment to see stars of yesteryear perform when they are in their 70s, and in reviewing many videos of the performances from the Desert Trip, Wrongo prefers to remember them at their best, which apparently, wasn’t on display at Indio this weekend.

Wrongo also has had many happy days at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, where the concert was held. We spent a week every January on the Polo grounds for 10 years, showing our dogs. It is a fabulous venue.

Here is “Rockin in the Free World” by Neil Young & Promise of the Real, recorded on October 8th. Neil is the best guy in the geriatric wing of the Rock Pantheon this weekend. He starts by telling the audience that they are going to play a 40 second version of the song, but they rock on for 8:28. We know you are busy, and probably late for work, but watch to the end.

Now, where are my mushrooms?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOh5ETyyKuE

FYI: Green Bay 23, Giants 16

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Will The Candidates Discuss Syria?

Although it is Sunday, there will be no cartoons today. Sorry. Instead, time to eat our vegetables and prepare for tonight’s second Presidential Debate.

Wrongo thinks Syria should be a featured topic, since it lays bare our conflict with Russia, which has steadily grown since their annexation of Crimea. But, the debate is in a town hall format, with half of the questions coming from the audience, so it is difficult to say if Syria and Russia will make it to the table.

Certainly they should be discussed. On October 3, the Obama Administration walked away from the Geneva negotiations with Russia, aimed at ending the war in Syria. On October 5, the Principals Committee met at the White House to consider four options for Syria:

  1. Create a no-fly zone over Syria;
  2. Create safe zones along the Turkish and Jordanian borders inside Syrian territory;
  3. Bomb the entire Syrian Air Force;
  4. Arm the Syrian rebels (jihadists) with anti-aircraft weapons (MANPADS) as part of a prolonged insurgency directed against the Assad government, which are increasingly dominated by the very terrorist forces that the US and Russia were jointly targeting up until last week.

The first three options require the imposition of a no fly zone over Syria. There are big risks with a no fly zone, if the US imposes it without Russian cooperation. The Russians might refuse to respect it. If they defy the no fly zone and we shoot down Russian planes, it could lead to war. The Russians categorically oppose a Syrian no fly zone, because they believe it will weaken Assad.

Option four means the US aligns with our former jihadi terrorist enemies against Assad, in a semi-permanent war in the Middle East. So, consider these statements:

Any alternative approach must begin with grounding Mr. Assad’s air power…If Russia continues its indiscriminate bombing, we should make clear that we will take steps to hold its aircraft at greater risk.

I would recommend our colleagues in Washington to thoroughly consider the possible consequences of the realization of such plans…

That’s the current geopolitical landscape. What do the candidates think?

The Pant Suit wants to remove Assad and defeat ISIS simultaneously. She supports a no-fly zone. Clinton does not support an American troop commitment. Instead, she wants to arm and supply Syrian and Kurdish rebel groups. Her plan is to replace both Assad and ISIS with another group to be named later. It’s a weak plan, but it appeals to Americans because Clinton’s plan doesn’t require more American troops on the ground.

Trump has no plan, but during the primaries, he said: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

So, I don’t like Assad. Who’s going to like Assad? But, we have no idea who these people [Assad replacements], and what they’re going to be, and what they’re going to represent. They may be far worse than Assad. Look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Look at the mess we have after spending $2 trillion dollars, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over the place–we have nothing.

But during the VP debate, Pence adopted Clinton’s position. Pence said:

The United States of America needs to be prepared to work with our allies in the region to create a route for safe passage and then to protect people in those areas, including with a no-fly zone.

Obama has repeatedly refused to impose a no-fly zone.

Here is some context: Arming terrorists in a sovereign nation is an act of war. Bombing and attacking targets in a sovereign nation is an act of war. Establishing no fly zones without permission in a sovereign nation is an act of war. Stationing troops or Special Forces in a sovereign nation without permission is an act of war.

We have no UN mandate to be in Syria. Congress has not given its approval to be in Syria.

It’s a big fat mess, with no good solution in sight, made worse by the scale of the Syrian humanitarian crisis. And marked by Congress’ lack of courage.

It would be nice if at least ONE candidate would recall that during the Cold War, the number one goal was not to provoke a war between the US and Russia, but to find ways to de-escalate the situation.

Perhaps this is too much to expect, given the temperament of both candidates.

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Trumped!

(This post is for Pat M, a long-time blog reader, who called, expressing outrage at the Pant Load)

From the mouth of Trump comes the ultimate “shorter” GOP:

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

This is Donald Trump admitting to sexually assaulting a woman.

This is why the GOP said yesterday, and will say today and tomorrow whatever they think they need to say to get by the latest insight into the true character of Donald Trump.

You see, racism, bigotry, misogyny were a part of the Republican Party long before Trump. The ugly truth is that the real problem has long been “moderate Republicans” who looked the other way and allowed that hatred to take root in order to garner political power, particularly in the last eight years.

Republicans voted for him in the primaries, the Party’s elite endorsed him. The Republican base still plans to vote for him for president, and NOW, the Party will look the other way as their elderly, frat boy pig of a candidate does it again.

And the best part is that Republicans now wish that Mike Pence was at the top of the ticket. Remember Mike Pence? The vile, bigoted, misogynist who signed a law making LGBTQ folks second-class citizens? The Republican governor who forced women to pay for funeral services for their aborted fetuses?

So Trump’s statement that “You can do anything” resonates with the core supporters of the Republican Party:

  • If you’re a Big Bank, you can do anything, and ordinary mortals be damned. (Remember the GOPs opposition to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and to Dodd-Frank)
  • If you’re Big Pharma, you can do anything, and ordinary mortals be damned. (Remember the GOPs opposition to allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices)
  • If you’re the NRA, you can do anything, and ordinary mortals be damned. (See the GOPs opposition to even collecting data on gun deaths)

It’s the Leona Helmsley Principle: Rules are for the little people. Trump took her tax idea and made it better, showing us that he was smart, while the rest of us are chumps.

Remember Chris Christie shutting down the GW bridge, or Rick Snyder and the poisoning of Flint’s water.

“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

The Republicans won’t take Donald Trump off the ticket, he is one of their kind.

He is the logical conclusion of what it means to be a Republican in 2016.

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Can a Main Stream Party Win Millennial Voters?

Millennials seem to be on the fringe of the political action in 2016. A new survey “The Millennial Economy” by Ernst & Young (E&Y) shows that they are also on the fringe economically, and that they distrust many American institutions.

That may explain why they are disaffected with the current Presidential race. A mid-June survey of 1,200 18-34 year olds was conducted online and via cell phone buy E&Y. It has a margin of error of ± 2.83%. E&Y found that coming of age during an historic economic downturn has severely impacted Millennials:

  • 30% of respondents live with their parents, and it’s 40% if they are still single.
  • Nearly one­-third believe their local community is still in a recession.

Millennial stress levels are high:

  • 78% of Millennials are worried about having good-­paying job opportunities.
  • 74% are worried they won’t be able to pay their healthcare bills if they get sick.
  • 79% are worried they will not have enough money to live on when they retire.

Millennials are the most educated generation in US history, but they are not convinced of the cost/benefit of higher education. Instead of education opening doors, many Millennials feel that student debt has boxed them in. The WSJ reported that among college-educated Millennials, 81% had at least one source of long-term debt, while The Atlantic reports that real wages have fallen for Millennials (and only Millennials) in the past five years, even as education costs have skyrocketed.

E&Y surveyed Millennials’ views of the establishment. They find that Millennials have very little confidence in many of our established institutions, but they are patriotic and supportive of a leading role for the US in the world. This chart is from the study:

millennial-view-of-institutions-png

Millennial men have greater confidence in US institutions than women, with 34% of men expressing confidence in the institutions polled compared to only 25% of women. Overall, Millennials:

  • Had the least confidence in the News Media (73%) closely followed by the Federal Government, Governors, and Corporate America (72%).
  • Had the most confidence in the Military (55%), followed by Colleges and Universities (51%) and Professional Sports (32%).

Millennial men remain more optimistic than Millennial women, although the clear majority of both genders think the country is headed in the wrong direction:

  • Men are nearly twice as likely to believe that the country is headed in the right direction (33%) as women (17%).
  • Hispanic men and black women are the most optimistic group within each gender, with 41% of the former and 27% of the latter believing the country is headed in the right direction.

So the $64 question is: How to win the vote of Millennials? E&Y says that economic uncertainty greatly influences Millennials’ political priorities. They found that Millennials are looking to politicians to alleviate their financial insecurity:

  • 64% of Millennials believe public education should be a top priority for federal tax dollars, a consensus that crosses party lines.
  • Social Security and Medicare were their second priority (46%), while National Security was third at 45%.
  • 47% of Millennials identify as independents.

Finally, as a crib sheet for debate prep, E&Y have this checklist for Millennial hot-button issues:

millennial-vote-checklist

Politicians always play to a checklist. Trump mentioned every battle ground state in the last debate, but fell in the polls. And playing generational politics can result in the candidate seeming completely inauthentic. That has been Hillary Clinton’s problem with Millennials. Al Gore tried it with Social Security in 2000 vs. GW Bush, and it did not work.

Polls show Clinton running far behind where she would hope to be with Millennials. She is winning just under half of Millennial votes, while Obama got over 60% in both of his campaigns.

As we have said, Hillary is not Bernie, and doesn’t stand for what Bernie stood for. So while millennials loved him for it, Hillary will not do as well with them.

Wrongo is concerned about how many young people are considering voting for Gary Johnson. Johnson’s libertarian views are far worse for their interests than anything Hillary stands for.

Johnson certainly would never support the government doing anything with student debt. Yet apparently, many young people will be voting for him, with no apparent concern about how it might help elect Donald Trump.

Perhaps Millennials and the rest of us need to have a busload of faith to get by between here and Election Day in order to survive. Here is Lou Reed live on Letterman in 1989 with “Busload of Faith”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNZm89wLaBw

True to Lou, he sang about a busload of faith, minus the bus, and minus the faith.

Those who view the Wrongologist in email can see the video here.

Sample Lyrics:

You can’t depend on your family
you can’t depend on your friends
You can’t depend on a beginning
you can’t depend on an end

You can’t depend on intelligence
ooohhh, you can’t depend on God
You can only depend on one thing
you need a busload of faith to get by

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Trump ≠ Change

Despite being the presidential candidate of the Republican Party, Donald Trump has positioned himself as the candidate of change in the 2016 election. During the first debate, he tried to hammer home his call for sweeping political change. From Reuters:

Some of Trump’s strongest moments at Monday’s debate were when he categorized Clinton, a former secretary of state and US senator as a “typical politician,” accusing her of achieving nothing in her years in Congress and government.

Polls show an electorate hungry for change, with a majority believing the country is on the wrong track. In fact, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows that 64% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. That number includes 87% of Republicans and 44% of Democrats.

When Reuters asked voters to pick the first word that comes to mind when thinking about the country, the most popular choice was “frustration,” (49%) followed by “fear”(15%) and “anger”(13.8%).

With an electorate once again yearning for change, as they do every four years; who will they turn to in 2016? Many pundits have said that Hillary Clinton is the voice of the status-quo, while Donald Trump is the candidate of change, that she represents incrementalism, while he represents big ideas.

Bill Clinton ran and won on change. Barack Obama ran and won on “change you can believe in.”

But, as Jeff Jarvis says: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

I ended up voting for Barack Obama, but while he was in a [primary] race against Hillary Clinton his campaign slogan drove me to distraction. “Change we can believe in.” What change exactly?

Jarvis makes this point:

“Change” is an empty word, a vague promise. Obama promised “change” and it was a vessel into which his supporters poured their dreams…The proper word is not “change” but “progress.”

But the term “progress” has been devalued and given different meanings by both the left and the right, making it less useful to describe what is required in next stage in our political and social evolution.

Jarvis thinks the key word should be “improvement”: Based on her web site, Clinton will work to improve health care, college costs, infrastructure, criminal justice, mental health, national security, the environment, taxation, campaign finance, and the status of women and minorities.

In this context, Trump ≠ change. He promises little improvement. In fact, his basic message is one of regression: Let’s return to an earlier time in America when many of his supporters feel they had more control over their lives. They say that they have lost their cultural and (possibly) their economic position due to changes they could not control, changes they resent, changes that broadened American opportunity, making it available to others, some of whom are outsiders. Trump is promising to stop these kinds of change.

Change can be of the revolutionary or evolutionary kind, but other than the American Revolution, are there examples of successful revolutionary change in the past 300 years? China, maybe? The French Revolution? Iran? All of these revolutions were accompanied by bloodshed. In our current environment, with instant global communication, evolutionary change is likely to be more successful.

And when you think about what evolutionary change involves: Understanding a problem, preparing and planning for the required change, building a supportive coalition, implementing and sustaining it in law and action, what about Donald Trump suggests to you that he could be an effective change agent?

Alternatively, Clinton presents a vision of a country headed basically in the right direction, but one that needs to address income and other forms of inequality. She is boxed into a position of running against “real” change, because of her career as a member of the establishment, and in part because she wants to run on Obama’s record. She would also like to bring his coalition along with her, but by temperament, she isn’t Bernie.

Still, she has cataloged the many tweaks and changes she hopes to make to policy. They are available online for those who have an attention span longer than it takes to read 140 characters.

This is in contrast to The Pant Load, who values tweets, conflict and personality over substance.

Three AM Tweet Storms are not change, they improve nothing. He promises nothing, and we are letting him get away with it.

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Living With Muslims

Wrongo recently read a first-person article in the June 24th edition of Maine’s Portland Press Herald by Allison Hodgkins. She is an assistant professor of security studies and conflict management at the American University in Cairo. Hodgkins lives with 20 million Muslims for 10 months a year, returning to Maine for the summers. Her point is that they are not so different from the rest of us. Here is a long excerpt from her article: (brackets and editing by the Wrongologist)

The assumption undergirding the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States is simple: More Muslims equal more terrorism and a less secure United States. And while there is utterly no evidence of a relationship between increased Muslim immigration to the US and increased rates of domestic terrorism, as many as 50% of Americans support at least a temporary ban, one poll has found.

The question that no one is asking is: Why? Why would half the US electorate think that banning nearly one-quarter of the world’s population from entry is a good idea? Are we just a country of bigots?

No, we are not. As the push for marriage equality demonstrates, we are actually very tolerant – once we get to know the group or the idea. But that’s precisely the problem with relation to Muslims: We don’t really know many.

Muslims are only 1% of the US population, and they’re disproportionately concentrated in a handful of urban areas. A 2011 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute showed that 40% of respondents had never spoken to a Muslim and 24% had done so occasionally. Only 6% reported speaking with a Muslim daily.

What these numbers lay bare is that for the average American, their only reference points for Muslims are the occasional glimpse of a foreign-looking woman in a veil and, well, the likes of [domestic terrorists] Omar Sadiq Mateen, San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook or the Boston Marathon bombers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

/snip/

Since we barely know the 3.3 million already here, we have no idea what it could mean to live with 3 million, 4 million or 5 million more.

Well, I do. For 10 months out of the year, I live with 20 million Muslims…Since accepting a position at the American University in Cairo, I have lived cheek by jowl with Muslims. Cairo, an urban megalopolis of 22 million to 24 million, is just plain teeming with them… From the moment I open my door in the morning until I close it at night, there are Muslims at every turn. The family down the hall from me is Muslim, as are four of the five families on the floor below. The crossing guard who scolds my son for not looking twice before crossing the street is a Muslim, and so are the guards checking IDs at the entrance of his school. I sit next to Muslims on the bus to work and gripe with them about the traffic.

/snip/

In an environment where being Muslim is the common denominator, it is absolutely certain that the person committing an act of terror will be an adherent of the faith. But Muslims are also the victims, the police coming to investigate, the reporters covering the event, the people queuing to give blood and the leaders charged with devising the best policy to counter what they and their constituents know is radical extremism promoted by groups of extremists.

/snip/

And when you live with 20 million Muslims, you hear them talk about this danger to their lives, their nations and their faith every single day.

Ms. Hodgkins’s point is we should assess the risks of Muslim immigrants to our homeland. Maybe get to know a few facts about Muslim involvement in acts of domestic terror, and meet a few Muslims before we ban all Muslim immigration.

You can hear the argument from the Trumpeteers: Of course the vast majority of Muslims are good, peace loving people who want the same for their families as the rest of us. But we can’t tell the good ones from the bad ones, so NO Muslim immigration until we get better vetting, screening, monitoring in place.

We couldn’t tell the good ones from the bad ones: That was the logic that led us to the internment of American Japanese in WWII.

OTOH, nearly all Americans agree that the vast majority of gun owners are good, peace loving people. But, since we can’t tell the good ones from the bad, how about banning all sales of guns until we get better vetting, screening, monitoring in place?

Sorry, we willingly accept the risk that American shooters will kill Americans. Since we are Second Amendment absolutists, those deaths are just collateral damage in the fight to protect our gun rights.

But if there is one death by a Muslim immigrant, the terrorists win.

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Monday Wake Up Call – October 3, 2016

What with reports of Trump’s $916 million tax loss in 1995, and fat-shaming and other antics by the Presidential candidates, you may have missed that the House voted 246-177 to delay by six months implementation of the Labor Department’s overtime rule.

The overtime rule which is set to take effect in December, will double (to $47,476) the salary threshold under which virtually all workers are guaranteed time-and-a-half pay whenever they work more than 40 hours in a given week. The Labor Department estimates the rule will extend overtime coverage to more than 4 million employees and cost businesses about $1.2 billion annually.

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) who introduced the delaying legislation, warned that the overtime rule:

Burdens hard-working small business owners…and…Jeopardizes vital services for vulnerable Americans.

He asked that lawmakers:

Provide more time to those struggling to implement this rule before an arbitrary and unrealistic deadline.

His oratory convinced House Republicans to support the bill unanimously. Five Democrats joined in: Rep. Brad Ashford (NE), Henry Cuellar (TX), Daniel Lipinski (IL), Collin Peterson (MN), and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ).

Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) noted in the House that when the overtime rule was last updated in 2004 under President George W. Bush, only four months passed between the final rule’s announcement, and its implementation (compared to more than six months for the current rule).

The Senate’s GOP members were not going to sit idly by when wages are about to be increased, so Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) introduced a companion bill Wednesday co-sponsored by Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

It is unlikely that either the House or the Senate bill will become law. The White House said Tuesday that Obama would veto Walberg’s bill.

Regardless of who wins the White House, the GOP will most likely continue to control the House, so control of the WH is the only way to stop this kind of action, and Millennials have a big role to play in who controls the WH.

Time to wake up those Millennials who are supporting Gary Johnson. Maybe when Mr. Johnson wakes up from his latest bong hit, we can ask him about overtime for workers working more than 40 hours, but we already know he is against raising the minimum wage. You can read all of Mr. Johnson’s positions here.

So wake up, Millennials! This is one reason why you really want a Democrat in the White House. To help remove the slumber from your eyes, listen to Peter Garrett with “It Still Matters”. You remember Garrett as the lead singer of the Australian band Midnight Oil. He was also a Labor Party member of the House of Representatives for New South Wales from October 2004 to August 2013. Now he has a solo album backed by his daughters. Here is “It Still Matters”:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Sample Lyrics:
Watching the parade on the news last night
I was one that walked that road before
When everything feels like its crumbling
Like the writing’s on the wall

But dreams are broken, mended and they scatter
Like seeds they fall and then the fruit is gathered
It always was and always will, be a struggle to fulfill
Stay strong and heed the call

It still matters to me
I hope it matters to you

Millennials: take a stand against simple solutions. An iPhone app can bring you pizza or sushi, but it will never deliver change. Vote in large numbers! Leave Johnson in the head shop.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – October 2, 2016

The nation’s cartoonists had many easy targets this week, what with the presidential debate aftermath, but most offerings were repetitive: Trump’s hair on fire, Hillary wrestling Trump, blah, blah.

Millennials are thinking about voting for Gary Johnson. Maybe they should examine the consequences of that decision:

cow-millenials-vote

There is no IPhone app for instant positive change. The challenge is to vote for representatives and referendums that forward the ideals we cherish (and do nothing that will retard change) – no matter how long it takes.

It is puzzling why so many young voters think Hillary is dishonest. The Clintons have released their tax returns for decades. They have released the tax returns of their foundation. Congress has spent years and millions investigating her and has not found anything illegal. Of course, the media has been furiously digging into both candidates, but most of what they have produced is about Trump’s malfeasance: They have found dozens of documented reports of dishonesty, pay for play, ugly comments about women and minorities. His two divorce degrees require confidentiality by the ex-wives to keep the support money coming.

He could be arrested for what he did in Cuba, if the statute of limitations had not run out, but a large segment of our younger voters dislikes Hillary enough to vote for Gary Johnson.

The debate lasted 90 minutes. Trump’s debate worked for about 30 minutes:

cow-alcohol

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As expected, he brought up “Stop and Frisk”:

cow-stop-and-frisk

Maybe this is a good time to remind The Pant Load about the Fourth Amendment, which says that this action is most likely illegal:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The VP debate on Tuesday probably won’t be must-see TV:

cow-vp-debate

 

Apparently, the Saudis couldn’t spend enough in DC to avoid the override of Obama’s veto:

cow-saudi-suits

 

 

 

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Friday Links – September 30, 2016

It’s been a busy week at the Mansion of Wrong, with out-of-town family staying with us. There were parties, dinners, trips to NYC, and limited blogging. Wrongo and Ms. Right accompanied our guests to the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Since our first visit, the Museum decided to exhibit a composite of five floors worth of material from one of the Twin Towers that was heat-fused and compacted during their collapse. It is a truly horrible object, a charred and pitted lump of fused concrete, melted steel, carbonized furniture and less recognizable elements, a meteorite-like mass that no human force could have forged, and it is unforgettable. It is among Wrongo’s favorite pieces in the collection:

wtc-composite

This weighs between 12 and 15 tons. It is four feet high. If you ever thought that humans remaining in the WTC when it collapsed might have survived, consider this pancake comprising five floors of the North Tower. Please visit the Memorial and Museum if you haven’t been there yet.

Here are a few links for Friday wherein Congress acted with unusual bipartisan, but self-serving alacrity:

Congress overrode Mr. Obama’s veto of the bill permitting 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia: Despite the efforts of the White House to kill “The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act “(JASTA), it will become law after yesterday’s veto override. The vote was 97-1 in the Senate, and 348-77 in the House. Very few in Congress wanted to be seen as against the 9/11 families in the weeks leading up to the election. The bill allows 9/11 victims and their families to sue Saudi Arabia for damages. JASTA is fairly narrowly tailored to Saudi Arabia, but it is unlikely to result in any accountability on the part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In another show bipartisanship, Congress averted a government shutdown Wednesday as the Senate and the House approved a short-term spending bill, allowing lawmakers to avoid a crisis and return home to campaign. The Senate approved the bill by 72 to 26. The House then approved it by 342 to 85. This kicks the can down the road for 10 weeks, when the partisans will come out all over again with knives sharpened.

The House passed a bill Thursday that would give tax breaks to Olympic athletes who win medals. The measure does not apply to athletes with incomes over $1 million. The Senate approved it earlier this year. The House approved it 415 to 1. What Congress person wants to be viewed as anti-Olympian in an election year?

The lone dissenting vote came from Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), who said:

We’ve got a Zika crisis, an opium epidemic and gun violence in the news every day…I think those are the issues that Congress should be spending time on.

He is not Wrongo’s Congress Critter, but he has Wrongo’s vote. Why should Olympians get tax breaks when other extraordinary Americans don’t? Nobel Peace Prize winners and Special Operations soldiers still have to pay their taxes. You pay your taxes, (well, maybe not you, Donald Trump). Another piece of bad policy by Congress.

That’s three cases of false bipartisanship in one week by the cynical people we keep electing.

This article suggests questions that should be asked of Trump about his taxes. Trump claims he can’t release his returns because he’s under audit. That could be a legitimate concern. It would hardly be fair if hundreds of tax professionals who oppose Trump politically helped the IRS by publishing their own analyses of the returns.

But, Trump pissed off Wrongo when he said how smart he was not to pay any taxes. On the one hand, none of us wants to pay more than we have to, but then along comes a billionaire who pays no taxes, and brags about it.

This is the guy who complains about the size of national debt, and says NATO members aren’t paying their “fair share”, when he isn’t paying his “fair share”.

Finally, a statue of Eagle Glenn Frey has been installed in the “Standing on the Corner” Park in Winslow, Arizona. Frey died in January. You remember the lyric:

Well, I’m standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see/It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin’ down to take a look at me.

Frey’s statue joins that of song co-writer Jackson Browne that has been in the park since the late 1990s.

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Debate Night – Monday Wake Up Edition

The Presidential debate is tonight. Trump was reported to have invited former Bill Clinton paramour Gennifer Flowers to the debate, but now we hear from Mike Pence that it’s not so. This looks like is a case of “mind games forever”.

Millions of words have been written in advance of the debates, so no need to add to the hot steaming pile of punditry here, except to say that Hillary cannot win any news cycle. Even the one in which the NYT endorsed Hillary. Here is Tristero at Hullabaloo: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

The NYT endorsed Clinton, but actually they’re heavily promoting Trump for president. How heavily? Literally by a 2:1 margin. Put another way, the Times [in their editorial] believes that what Trump says and does is twice as important as what his closest rival says and does…If you go…to the NY Times Web site and do a word search, you will come up with:

Trump: 16 mentions
Clinton: 8 mentions

2 Pictures of Trump
1 picture of Clinton

If you can’t win in THE PAPER THAT IS NOMINATING YOU, it’s hard to win overall.

Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson won’t be at the debate. Sadly, he seems to be the choice of quite a few Millennials over both Clinton and Trump. Kevin Drum noticed that polling shows there are a fairly significant number of Sanders voters saying they prefer Gary Johnson over Clinton.

It is easy to understand if you fail to look closely at Johnson’s policies: He favors legalization of marijuana. He’s good on civil liberties and wants to cut back on overseas military interventions. He’s moderate on immigration. He’s pro-choice and supports gay rights.

But he’s nothing more than a warmed-over Republican. Here is a Johnson quote from earlier this week:

fireshot-screen-capture-130-gary-johnson-page-001

Yes, he really did say that since the sun will burn up the planet someday, why should we care about climate change? BTW, it’s not likely to occur within the next 5 billion years, so this is an example of Libertarian long-range planning.

So, let’s just focus on making lots of money now. #Feel The Johnson

You still think there is lots to like about Gary Johnson? Perhaps you should review Drum’s listing of some of Johnson’s policy positions:

  • He supports TPP
  • He supports fracking
  • He opposes any federal policies to reduce student debt
  • He supports Citizens United
  • He wants to privatize Social Security
  • He opposes any kind of national health care and wants to repeal Obamacare
  • He opposes practically all forms of gun control
  • He wants to cut the corporate tax rate to zero
  • He wants to eliminate the income tax, the payroll tax, and the estate tax. He would replace it with a 28 percent flat tax

His position on choice is that it’s up to the states. So a woman’s “personal freedom” would be subject to whatever yahoos in the state capitol decide it is.

So it’s time for Millennials to both wake up and study up on the Libertarians. In honor of Gary Johnson, here is Little Feat with “Don’t Bogart that Joint”:

Little Feat made the song famous, but the song was written by the Fraternity of Man, an American blues rock group. The song was featured in the movie Easy Rider in 1969.

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