The Pant Suit vs. The Pant Load©

Over the next few months, Wrongo will be writing an extended series of columns about the 2016 presidential election, called “The Pant Suit vs. The Pant Load”.©

The starting premise is that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee, and whoever gets the Republican nomination will be the designated Pant Load.

Pant Load #1 is of course, The Donald. Pant Load #2 is Ted “Canada” Cruz.

That leaves Pant Load #3, House Speaker Paul Ryan, who today’s NYT tells us, is running very fast, all the while saying he is not interested. It says a lot about the leadership of the GOP when their leading candidates for the Presidency make Paul Ryan look like a good idea.

Some Republicans who are hoping for a more “moderate” answer to Pant Loads #1 and #2, think that Ryan, possibly with Rubio as his VP candidate, will turn 2016 into a GOP presidential win. However, anyone who thinks that Paul Ryan is a moderate, needs to take the time to read what his plans are for programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and tax reform. He would rip up the social contract and shred the safety net, leaving us in a societal Hobbesian nightmare.

Anyway, the GOP is very nervous, and possibly for good reason. Pollster Stan Greenberg has evidence that groups that were core to the Obama wins are now becoming much more engaged than they were in 2015. A few of Greenberg’s findings:

  • The GOP civil war is producing an eye-opening number of Republicans ready to punish down-ballot candidates for not making the right choice with respect to how to run in relation to the front-runner. Moderate Republicans are already peeling off
  • The focus groups with white unmarried women, millennials and African Americans showed a new consciousness about the stakes in November. In this poll, the percentage of Democrats giving the highest level of engagement has increased 10 points
  • The result is that the country might be heading for an earthquake election in November.

An “earthquake election.” Take all that with a grain of salt, since his firm (which includes James Carvelle) is very partisan. The survey took place March 17-24, 2016. Margin of error is +/-3.27 percentage points at 95% confidence. 65% of respondents were reached by cell phone.

So, the desperation is rising. Nancy Letourneau writes today about Grover Norquist’s plan to turn this around for the GOP:

Into this breach comes Grover Norquist with
what can I say
a “creative” solution. He has identified six new voting blocs that have developed over the last 30 years that won’t want Hillary Clinton in the White House. Between the lines, his contention is that she is just so out of touch with what is happening in the world that she’s missed them.

Here are Norquist’s six voting blocks that will challenge the Rising American Electorate:

  1. Home schoolers
  2. Charter school supporters
  3. Concealed-carry permit holders
  4. Fracking workers
  5. Users of e-cigarettes and vapor products
  6. Uber drivers

Norquist thinks the Republicans can tap these groups in order to stop Clinton in November. Wrongo isn’t sure, but Norquist’s ideas seemed to make more sense when we were at Burning Man on peyote. But now that our clothes are back on, it all seems dubious. This is micro targeting for no apparent gain.

For example, would a vaping Uber driver (with a concealed carry permit) who home-schools his/her children be Grover’s (and the GOP’s) ideal target? The size of that demographic approximates the number of American unicorns.

And who out there thinks that the home schooling bloc are not already voting Republican? Something like 95% of school-age kids are in traditional public schools, despite all the press that charter schools and homeschooling get, so we are not speaking of a huge demographic.

And how many fracking workers can there be? Aren’t most of them in Texas, and Oklahoma, not exactly swing states?

Those who have a concealed carry permit are most likely also already voting for the GOP.

Ya gotta love the smell of conservative desperation in the springtime.

 

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – April 10, 2016

This week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tore her Republican colleagues a new one in the pages of the Boston Globe:

For seven years, through artificial debt ceiling crises, deliberate government shutdowns, and intentional confirmation blockades, Senate Republicans have acted as though the election and reelection of Obama relieved them of any responsibility to do their jobs. Senate Republicans embraced the idea that government shouldn’t work at all unless it works only for themselves and their friends. The campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are the next logical outgrowth of the same attitude — if you can’t get what you want, just ignore the obligations of governing, then divert attention and responsibility by wallowing in a toxic stew of attacks on Muslims, women, Latinos, and each other.

If Senate Republicans don’t like being forced to pick between a bullet and poison, then here’s some advice: Stand up to extremists in the Senate bent on sabotaging our government whenever things don’t go their way.

Warren’s anger is righteous anger, it is well directed and well-spoken. But, politicians who make it in our political system are those who hide most of their anger (righteous or not) under a veneer of unctuous civility. She chooses to give as good as she gets from the frat boys in the GOP. Maybe, after another 4 or 8 years of federal failure, that kind of anger will resonate with the American electorate.

Cartoons this week reflected the general coarsening of our society and politics. The bathroom habits of certain minorities made news in North Carolina. Apparently, they should pee in Virginia:

COW NC Bathrooms

Mississippi made similar news:

COW Miss Church

The NY Dem primary will be fought out on the sidewalks of NY:

 

COW Sidewalks of NY

The NY primaries have both parties looking for some room:

COW NY Primary

The Panama Papers tell us once again that we live in two Americas:

COW Panama Papers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, Tax Day this week is mostly for the little people:

COW Tax Day2

 

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – April 3, 2016

Something you may have missed this week was that an increasing number of hospitals were held hostage by attacks on their IT departments. The attackers were looking for ransom. It started last month with Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center.

Last week there were three more, and this week, a whole hospital chain was attacked by ransomware, this time affecting the servers of 10 related MedStar facilities in Maryland and Washington DC.

Apparently most hospitals have paid the ransom.

Is this extortion or terrorism? Patients probably don’t care which. Let’s hope no patients were harmed by the IT outages. The biggest question these attacks on hospitals raises is: Why aren’t hospitals better prepared against ransomware? Hospitals are considered critical infrastructure, but unless patient data is impacted, there is no requirement to even disclose that a hacking occurred, even if operations are disrupted.

Computer security in the hospital industry is generally regarded as poor, and the federal Department of Health and Human Services regularly publishes a list of health care providers that have been hacked with patient information stolen.

Onward to the rest of our silly season. Donald Trump had a bad week on the abortion issue:

COW Trumps an Asshole

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the other hand, Trump said out loud what the GOP really thinks:

COW What We ThinkTed and Don enter the Rut:

COW SeductionThe GOPs self-fulfilling prophecy:

COW Prophecy

The Democrats have their own dilemma:

COW Dems Dilemma

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GOP Debate Wrap-up – March 5, 2016

(There will be no further blogging until Tuesday 3/8, as Wrongo and Ms. Right make their way back to the World Headquarters of Wrong)

Republicans had a debate on Thursday night at which the size of The Donald’s penis was at least as important subject for discussion as domestic and foreign policy.

Here is the New York Times reporting on it:

COW 5 questions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bruni concluded:

So, yes, the size of Trump’s penis matters or, rather, what matters is that it was an actual subject of discussion; that it reflected and set the tone of the encounter; and that this tone favors Trump, because it’s where he lives, it’s his kingdom, and if rivals join him there, they merely become his subjects.

Another proud electoral moment, America! This election cycle is showing the US for what it actually is: racist, exclusive, elitist, white centric, abusive, militaristic, and hopelessly uneducated/uninformed. If this is the level of discourse, there is no possibility that we can maintain any form of democracy at all.

What are these debates for anymore?

This was a nationally televised GOP debate from Detroit. It didn’t get to the Flint water crisis until just before closing statements, when Rubio made the point that the really terrible thing about Flint’s water disaster is the fact that Democrats politicized it. Cruz said that Detroit was decimated by 60 years of left-wing politics, but when asked what he would do to improve Detroit’s economy, Cruz says repeal Obamacare, pull back the EPA, and pass the Cruz tax plan.

But enough about the issues. Let Wrongo take you back 56 years to the Nixon/ Kennedy debates in 1960. The Moderator asks Kennedy about ‘something Harry Truman said”. Kennedy responds:

I believe that issue is something for Mrs. Truman.

Then the moderator (possibly Howard K. Smith) asks Nixon what he thinks. Nixon launched into a minutes-long soliloquy about The Dignity of the Office and how profanity violates it. See the exchange here:

That’s a riot coming from Nixon, whose tapes had to be bleeped every few seconds! For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.

So, 56 years ago, after a former president said: “Go to Hell”, we had a national scandal. But, today, the Republican front-runner can discuss the size of his penis on national television without being booed offstage in disgrace.

Today it isn’t behind the scenes foul mouth invective as practiced prominently by Nixon, and probably every other president, that is the issue. It is vulgarity on stage in front of the cameras, the stupid schoolyard taunts on Twitter. Rubio, Cruz, Christie and Trump can no longer speak like civilized adults.

Imagine, if one of them is elected. There will be an endless stream of cringe-worthy moments for your viewing pleasure.

Maybe the Dems will remember Kennedy’s 1960 line this fall. Perhaps they could modify it a little, and say:

I believe that issue is something for the current Mrs. Trump

That might sting a bit.

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Thirty Years of Wrong

Everyone probably knows about Jade Helm 15. It is a two-month operation by the Pentagon in which Special Forces from four branches of the military will carry out simulated operations amid territory designated as “hostile” in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado.

US Army Special Operations Command said that simulated exercises like this are routine. They also said that the public wouldn’t experience any disruption in their day-to-day lives, since the entire operation takes place in remote areas.

But, many Texans have expressed both suspicion and opposition to the project. Some claim it’s an attempt to institute martial law. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz told Texans that he is on it: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

My office has reached out to the Pentagon to inquire about this exercise…We are assured it is a military training exercise. I have no reason to doubt those assurances, but I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty, because when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration, the natural consequence is that many citizens don’t trust what it is saying.

And Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) called up the Texas Guard (one of three of Texas’ quasi-military groups), ordering them to “monitor” the Special Forces troops during their eight weeks of training.

Abbott seems to think his weekend warriors will accomplish
what? Then again, if you’re convinced that Jade Helm 15 is a false-flag operation designed to distract you while The Black Guy in the White House and his evil Muslim overlords plot a takeover of Texas, nothing will convince you otherwise.

It can be exceedingly difficult to discern where the parody ends and the serious conspiracy theories begin. Here is a claim from The Common Sense Show:

You see, there are these Wal-Marts in West Texas that supposedly closed for six months for ‘renovation’. That’s what they want you to believe. The truth is these Wal-Marts are going to be military guerrilla-warfare staging areas and FEMA processing camps for political prisoners.

How do you reason with people gripped with an ironclad conviction that all of the above is true, and that those who can’t see it, are dupes under the influence of Obama, Rachel Maddow, and George Soros?

Texas isn’t a barometer of much, except perhaps the price of oil pipe for fracking. Illegal immigration is going down. The number of Mexican-Americans in the voting population is going up. Rick Perry is still learning to count to three, and Ted Cruz, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, certainly knows which way is up. Apparently, he is more a deeply cynical man than a deranged one. Either way, he’s unfit for public office.

This false issue and the Republican response to it, is another example of Neo-Fascism in America. In this case, it is billionaires aligned with corrupt Republican politicians. They have an organization, ALEC, that drafts and shares model state-level legislation among state governments in the US. They have purchased state and federal legislators to do their bidding. Fascism doesn’t say, “We hate you!” It says, “Those guys over there hate you. They’re out to get you. Luckily, we’ve come to help you”.

This is the price we are paying for false equivalence by the media, which was popularized starting in 1982 with CNN’s Crossfire. It’s the same thing you get if you allow children to engage in anything their little heart desires: What do you get when there are no negative consequences for despicable actions, including bigotry, or in-your-face political ham-handedness?

You get a situation that is out of control, as it has been in the past 30 years.

Today’s conservatives/Republicans/libertarians are grown-up delinquents who have figured out that there is no bed time, no chores, no tests to take, and no need to eat their vegetables of responsibility.

The continuing assertion by the GOP that the President is behaving illegally, or that his orders should be ignored, is contributing to public distrust. Since our laws flow from the Constitution, it’s particularly annoying that those that claim to love it the most are directly attacking it with claims like this.

We are surfing down a very slippery slope. Right-wing politicians win elections by demonizing the government. They are now addicted to it. Like other addicts, they have to keep upping the dosage to get the same effect.

Unfortunately, they’re into serious overdose territory now.

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