February 28^th

 

We have some fascinating news this morning about the Republican Party; it seems we now, suddenly, have funding for the Department of Homeland Security for seven whole days! In spite of Republican Speaker Boehner‘s efforts to rally support for the measure, 52 Republicans voted against it. These Tea Party people would not vote for it because it was a clean bill; it had no rider eliminating funding for the President’s efforts to green card over 3 million immigrants with good work records and children who are American citizens. They claim his efforts to green card these folks are unconstitutional. (The tea party folks believe they are also members of the Supreme Court!) The upshot of this is that Democrats rode to the rescue and saved Speaker Boehner from even greater embarrassment. They voted for the extension. Next week we will see more drama. Will a clean bill get a vote? How long will any funding extension be? Who will write the screenplay?

On a less (but not much less) hilarious note: The Republican Party is breaking up; it has been breaking up for some time but this fracture may not heal. The term RHINO has often been applied by conservative Republicans to their more liberal colleagues; it means Republican in name only. It been around for a long time but became common in the 1990s well after President Reagan’s “Eleventh Commandment,” which was, “Thou shall not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” The Tea Party folks just aren’t buying that conciliatory position. Speaker Boehner doesn’t seem to have the clout “to get the nation’s business done.” (Trite phrase that, but it fits here.) One could easily make the case that the breakup has already occurred. If fifty odd Republicans will not accept the leadership of their party then de facto they are a different party!

So where would the leadership of the Tea Party come from? Michelle Bachmann who started the Tea Party Caucus is gone but might come back. Rand Paul has enough charisma if he can keep from cutting his foot with his teeth and there is always (and always) Sarah Palin. If the Republican Party does come apart Democrats should not cheer too loudly; we could be next.

February 27^th

Cal Thomas has a column this morning headed “Who loves America?” No, he is not clear about an answer. To his credit and to my considerable surprise, his view of the jingoistic supporters of the Viet Nam war and their slogan “America, love it or leave it” is not complimentary. When Decatur defeated the Barbary Pirates and said,  “My country right or wrong”  Cal claims the response smacks of idolatry.

But wait, he finally regresses to the Cal we all know and abhor! He writes:

“But in saying so (talking about criticism of country) the admission and motivation must be for the purpose of improving and strengthening the country not belittling it or saying that we as a nation have failed to ‘live up to our values,’ which President Obama has said.”

No, that’s not what he said. Cal has omitted the word “sometimes” which preceded “failed to live up to our values” in the President’s speech. Is it possible that Cal Thomas believes the tortures in Abu Ghrab or the murder of twenty some unarmed civilian old men women and children by four enraged Marines at Haditha was not a “failure to live up to our ideals.” Tell us, Cal, which of our ideals or values are exemplified by these horrors? There are certainly other examples of this failure. There is no need to present incident after nauseating incident. Cal Thomas would not be convinced nor would his readers.

So when Obama says that sometimes we fail to live up to our values, how was Cal Thomas to know whether the President was belittling the country or trying to improve and strengthen it? Maybe Cal has the same wizard’s hat possessed by Giuliani when he claimed that the President did not love his country.

February 26^th

Governor Scott Walker, a Republican and as yet an undeclared, but hopeful, candidate for his party’s nomination, finds himself in a kerfuffle with the higher education people in his state. The Governor, who prides himself on being elected to his office three times in four years, has instituted draconian cuts in the Wisconsin’s higher education budget. He has cut it by 13 percent.  He has also prohibited state schools from raising tuition. The deficit, Walker claims, can be addressed if the faculty just teaches one additional course each semester. It’s possible that members of the Medical School faculty and other professional school faculties will vote on this proposal with their feet!

Walker has proposed a higher education program called Flex Option. This program has been adopted by the University of Wisconsin. The basis of the program, which Walker believes is a new and different approach to higher education, is that through various “assessments” the student can be awarded credit for “life experiences.” Additional credits can be obtained for taking on line classes at the student’s convenience.

There are problems: Walker apparently believes his program is a breakthrough in higher education. It isn’t. Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, has been offering credits based on life experience since the 1970s. How are these life experiences graded?  His program talks about “assessments”; they don’t discus tests but employers want to know a graduate’s GPA. Did he just skim by or did he graduate with honors? How would you graduate with honors in such a program? Employers don’t treat all degree holders alike.

Then there is the transfer problem:  It doesn’t matter how highly rated your school is, if you transfer  to another college the college to which you transfer must have courses equivalent to those you’re transferring  for you to receive credit…and they’ll want to know your grades. Most colleges require at least a “C” in course if you expect them to transfer.

The notion of getting college credit for what you know has already been addressed by the College Level Examination Program, CLEP for short. This program, monitored by the College Board people who also run the Advanced Placement (AP) program, offers a series of examinations in a wide variety of subjects, from College Algebra to Macro Economics.  No college courses are required to take these tests but over two thousand colleges offer credits if you take them and get good scores. (This is perfect for home schooled kids.) Practice tests for CLEP disciplines can be bought on line through Amazon or in most any big box store that carries books. You can simply buy a couple of used college textbooks on the subject that interests you, study them, pass the appropriate CLEP test and you’ve acquired three thousand dollars-worth of college credits in exchange for your time and less than a hundred dollars!

Scott Walker has a long and difficult road ahead if he expects to get his party’s nomination and an even more difficult road if he expects to get elected President. His tendency to charge into areas he knows little about, as he has done with his Flex Option in higher education, may find him to be just another conservative with foot-in-mouth disease, Koch brothers generous contributions notwithstanding.

February 25^th

Today we visit Fox News’ pundit Bill O’Reilly who seems to have exaggerated his risks when he described his role reporting on the Falkland War. Although no American reporters actually got to the Falkland Islands, O’Reilly makes some exaggerated claims about the danger he was in right there in Buenos Aires. He has claimed that just after the war the city was a “war zone.”  He describes a riot that turned deadly with the police firing into the crowd killing many people. His photographer was knocked to the pavement and was bleeding from his ear. This brave and colorful account receives no confirmation from his CBS colleagues who were also there.  A riot did happen but it seems that no one was killed by police.

One description, which O’Reilly himself reads as support for his version, does say that the police fired real bullets. Then the account says that these were fired over the heads of the rioters. O’Reilly leaves out the “fired over the heads of the rioters” part. There can be little doubt that O’Reilly has exaggerated the danger he was in and that this exaggeration is part of a pattern.

Fox News backs O’Reilly completely. Their right-wing viewers love the raw red meat the man presents every night. He gets, on a good night, over 3 million viewers. The amount charged for commercials depends on the number of viewers. Controversy creates viewers which creates income. O’Reilly will not be muzzled; he will be encouraged, once more money trumps truth.

Naturally he is now furious at the reporters who have “outed” him. Most of his invective and his ad hominem attacks are aimed at David Corn of “Mother Jones” who began it all. O’Reilly tells us that Corn is now in the “kill zone.” (When asked if that was a threat he claimed it was just “a slang expression.”) O’Reilly, who has never served in the military, has a peculiar affinity for the word “killed.” We see that in the titles of his books: “Killing Jesus,” “Killing Patton,”  “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy.” Perhaps if he had ever served in a war he would have seen enough killing.

February 24^th

Cal Thomas today takes issue with Chris Cuomo.  Chris Cuomo said, in an exchange with Alabama Judge Roy Moore, that, “Our rights do not come from God your honor, you know that. They come from man.” This Judge believes that his interpretation of the Bible supersedes the rulings of federal courts and, in particular, the court’s ruling on the legality of Gay marriage.

Cal Thomas is predictably incensed by this; he even goes so far as to head his piece with a quote from John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address in which Kennedy said, “The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” That is probably the only statement from Kennedy with which Cal Thomas could agree. Kennedy’s comments here were surely rhetorical. He knew, better than most men, that while the principle may have Biblical roots, their implementation depends on the willingness of men to fight and die.

Thomas claims that rights must come from God or they would be subject to removal by any change in government.

If those rights were granted by government, the day may come when the public opinion and cultural winds could shift and they could be takes away by the same institution that granted them.

If they were endowed then government has no right to create or remove them.

 

That sounds great but what exactly stops governments from doing exactly as they please with rights? Is he suggesting that God will somehow intervene? How was slavery stopped in this country? Many southerners found Biblical justification for slavery. “Gott mit uns” was a claim Germany made in WW 1.

 

Cal is personally opposed to Gay marriage so, as in most similar controversies, he justifies his position by believing that God is on his side. Exactly how is this different from the claims of ISIS?

February 23^rd

 

Today we have a column by Patric J. Buchanan. Pat has regurgitated the ideas he presented to us a few weeks ago, on February 2^nd. His column’s title then was “There’s a Syriza in our future.” Syriza is the far left Greek political party that has managed to put a coalition together and it is now in the driver’s seat of the Greek economic wreck. I see no need to repeat my remarks about this column which appeared the same day. Pat has managed some new twists but he does repeat his horror of Congreee fast tracking the new trade bill. Fast tracking means that congress agrees to vote the bill up or down but not to ammend it. Without this agreement the bill would be held up for endless debate which is Pat’s hope. As our foremost isolationist he is sternly against foreign trade which he sees as taking American jobs…and so it does.

 

Pat quotes Teddy Roosevelt and and Wm. McKinley (1892)who were both adamantly opposed to free trade. I guess Pat thinks their remarks then, 115 years ago, are right on target today. We have lost jobs but these were mostly jobs that simply required sweat not skill and the result has been an increase in our standard of living. Much of what you buy is made abroad and if it were made here you might find you couldn’t afford it.The cost of living index has risen by 59 percent over the last twenty years, that is one hundred dollars of goods and services in 1994 would cost one hundred-fifty- nine dollars today. Now go back another twenty years before all this free trade. One-hundred dollars in 1974 would require  just over three hundred dollars in 1994. Inflation has been cut in half over the las twenty years. Pat doesn’t mention that; I doubt that Pat knows about it.

 

Our economy is based on the free enterprise system,  so we are told. This means that companies must cut their costs as well as increase their sales. Having plants in other countries can backfire as Caterpillar Tractor (CAT) has recently discovered. CAT had a locomotive plant in London Ontario, Canada. They decided that Canadian workers were making more money than they would have to pay in Indiana so they closed the Ontario plan putting  some 450 workers out of a job. They moved that facility to Indiana where they could pay about half the Canadian labor rate. The plant in Canada had achieved record profits with the workers pay as it was, no matter; moving the assembly would be even more profitable in Indiana. This was not well received in Ontario where a move gained traction to boycott all CAT products. The point here is that as foreign workers get higher wages more jobs move and some of them move back here. CAT will probably discover that there are other diesel electric locomotive manufacturers in the world and that these will be more attractive to Canadians.

 

Not all economic pronouncements from the turn of the twentieth century make much sense today..

( It is odd to see an isolationist like Buchanan quoting the expansionist Theodore Rooosevelt.)

 

 

 

 

 

February 22^nd

 

Here we have Charles Krauthammer, a conservative columnist, holding forth in the Washington Post. I quote him, in part, on his advice to Republicans:

 

As for procedure, then-majority leader Reid (D-Nev.) went nuclear in November 2013 when he abolished the filibuster for presidential appointees and judicial nominees (below the Supreme Court). He did it to pack the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals with liberals. The nation’s liberal chorus cheered. ‘Elections are supposed to have consequences,’ ‘It was time to push the button.’ Boom.

My beef with Reid was not what he did but how he did it. The filibuster has grown in use and power over the decades to the point of dysfunction. Everything needed 60 votes. This is relatively new and nowhere to be found in the Constitution.

 

So he abolished the filibuster for which Krauthammer is very unhappy. Krauthammer claims he did it to pack the lower court with liberals. Actually he did it so that the backlog of filibuster- delayed court appointments could move forward. It should come as no surprise to Krauthammer that most of these appointments were liberal. No issue of “poorly qualified” was ever raised about Obama’s three recommended appointments to the DC court. They were blocked entirely for political purposes.  The filibuster was eliminated so that the Republican caused logjam affecting these federal appointees could be broken and the country’s business carried forward. Krauthamer fails to mention the “blue slip rule,” under which any judicial appointment can still be blocked by a home state senator, is still in effect.

 

Krauthammer complains that Reid abolished the filibuster on the basis of a simple majority vote. He further points out that nowhere in the constitution is there any mention of the supermajority requirement. He is upset that Reid abolished the filibuster with a simple majority vote but goes on to insist that more than that requirement is not in the constitution, and besides the filibuster has been egregiously abused. It does seem to me that Dr. Krauthammer cannot make up his mind here.

 

Krauthammer has more advice: He wants the Congress to pass Homeland Security funding and send the bill to the President daring him to veto it. Of course most people know that the Republicans have decided to eliminate from the bill any funding for one of President Obama’s immigration policies; specifically allowing law abiding immigrants who have children born in this country to be issued green cards. Apparently the Republicans would like these people deported, all 3.7 million of them. Who pays for that? And what do they want to do with the children who, according to the constitution, are US citizens? Surprise, surprise; Krauthammer doesn’t address this issue at all. Once again it’s all about gaining political advantage and little about solving the country’s problems.

 

February 21^st

In the paper today we have a longish Factcheck.org article debunking comments by Alabama Congressman Gary Palmer who predictably claims that climate data has been manipulated to show global warming.  Factcheck explains why data must be changed because of changing conditions in the way it is collected. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is likely to change the Congressman’s mind. I would guess that Mr. Palmer will now come to believe that Factcheck is a clandestine organ of an international left wing conspiracy out to ruin American coal companies.

How does it happen that providing information on one side of an issue changes few, if any, minds if they have already come to the opposite conclusion? The answer may be found in Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory. This theory suggests that we guard against dissonance which is the simultaneous holding of contradictory beliefs. (That’s hardly a surprise!) For example: if we really like our Chevy but brother-in-law Jasper insists that Chevys are junk we have dissonance. We can reduce this by believing that Jasper doesn’t know what he’s talking about but we like and admire Jasper so that won’t work. We like Jasper but we also like our Chevy so we conclude that, on the whole, Jasper may be right but that this Chevy is not typical. This decision allows us to keep both beliefs intact. On a much simpler level we can predict that very few liberals will tune into Fox News, at least not for the news.

Here are two other studies of a less obvious nature: Festinger gave a group of student volunteers a series of utterly boring tasks. Then he split them into two groups; one group was paid twenty dollars (this was back when that was real money) to tell a new group of students that the tasks were interesting and fun to do, the other group was paid just one dollar to tell the same lie. So which group actually came to believe the lie? Not the group paid twenty dollars but the group paid just one dollar. Being paid just one dollar is not enough money to justify a lie so that group came to believe the tasks were, indeed, interesting. That’s kind of counter intuitive.

In the next study Festinger infiltrated a doomsday group. They had sold everything they had and prepared themselves to be lifted off the earth which would then be consumed. Of course no such thing happened. How would these people handle such enormous dissonance? To an outsider they would appear to have been bone stupid; no such thing. They decided that their beliefs, and their sacrifices on behalf of those beliefs, had actually saved the world so their sacrifices were justified after all.

We can be sure that those holding the most extreme views, regardless of party, will not be happy with a moderate candidate. But the great majority of voters are not on the fringes of either party so any extreme candidate isn’t likely to be nominated. If extreme members are unhappy with a moderate candidate and sit on their hands then the party with the largest number of extremists loses. What party could that be?

 

February 20^th

Today, once again, there are no wing-nuts to rebut. I will instead offer a potpourri about a variety of issues:

I begin with my nomination for churl of the week: He is Rudolf Giuliani the self-styled “America’s Mayor.” He who so completely self-destructed in his last effort to run for President has done it again. He began by claiming that “Obama does not love America.” Then he backtracks a bit by claiming that he’s not a psychiatrist so he doesn’t really know. The he ends by saying that because Obama’s mother was white so he is not a racist. Comments like these do get your name before the public. I guess that’s important to Giuliani.  No comment from me can add a thing.

 

Congress is considering an increase in the gas tax to pay for the needed road and bridge maintenance. This is a thoroughly bad idea because such taxes are hugely regressive. The person who doesn’t earn enough to live near the job and must drive to work and back every day will have a substantial increase in the percentage of income devoted to transportation costs compared with the wealthy driver of a luxury sedan. Keep in mind that many decently paid middle class teachers cannot afford to live in the communities where they teach. Even so we must raise money to repair the infrastructure.

Congress could close the enormous loop hole in the gas guzzler tax. To “encourage” auto manufacturers to build fuel efficient cars Congress placed an  excise tax on cars getting low miles per gallon; the lower the fuel economy the higher the tax. That’s a great idea; if you can afford an enormous gas guzzler you can afford to pay more for the car.

There is a loophole: light trucks of all kinds and SUVs are exempt. The three-quarter ton, four wheel drive monster is exempt from this tax. That’s because when the tax was instituted many pick-up trucks were used by farmers and construction workers so the vehicles were exempt. (There weren’t as many lobbyists then but the farm and construction folks were very persuasive.) Things have changed: now there has been an enormous increase in SUVs and large fuel inefficient trucks that never see a farm or a construction site. They are used only for personal transportation. They have become a status symbol. A well-equipped Chevy Suburban has a retail price of about 65 thousand dollars. Such vehicles are heavily advertised by the manufacturers because the profit on each one ranges from fifteen thousand to nineteen thousand dollars. Then there are the enormous class A motorhomes costing 100 thousand dollars and up They aren’t very fuel efficient and there is no, repeat no, gas guzzler tax on them.

Then there are the heavy trucks: these vehicles cause enormous damage to road surfaces. You see signs everywhere in the spring, “Load limits strictly enforced.” The trucking industry in this country has far more clout than the typical citizen so increasing the amount truckers pay to compensate for the damage they do isn’t likely. Congress will just transfer the cost to the average driver. What else is new?

February 19^th

 

There are no new right wing columnists published in the paper today. The result of this “free day” is that I can carp about whatever conservative nonsense pleases me. Today I’ll look at the Texas board of education whose history scholars (?) are at war with the College Board’s revised United States History AP test. The crux of their displeasure is that the new AP course diminishes the enthusiasm with which high school student may view their country and particularly that republican icon Ronald Reagan. You remember Reagan, the President who just couldn’t remember whether he had traded arms to the Iranians for money to support right-wing Nicaraguan killers. The test, they claim, focuses overmuch on such minor issues as suppression of minorities and other matters that can just ruin a jingoist’s day. Moreover the test is another intrusion into the states control of education. I’ve discussed the miserable record some states have had on this issue from Governor Wallace on so I won’t go there again.

The remedy suggested by this board of education is that they will put together their own history test. Eventually we’ll have American History from the Texas perspective; from the Georgia perspective; from the “you name the state” perspective! There seems to be no understanding at all about AP courses and tests and why students take them.

There are over thirty AP courses in everything from Chinese to Statistics. Students can take these courses and the exams that follow and if their scores are high enough, usually 4 or 5, (5 is the highest score) they can get credit for that knowledge at many colleges. Some highly selective colleges  are not so accommodating; after all credits awarded for high AP scores mean fewer credits and hence less money for the accepting college. These selective colleges have all the applicants they want so credits for AP courses are unnecessary; the do still use good AP scores in their selection procedures.

What will happen to students who are trying to save tuition money by working hard and taking AP courses? If you can get three college credits for a good AP score you’ll save about three thousand dollars or more in college tuition. (College tuition of thirty thousand dollars a year usually covers a full course load of thirty credits.) Now a student from Texas decides to go to Baylor, a private college in Texas, will Texas require them to give college credit to students who do well on Texas’ version of American history; what about Georgia’s version? The can of worms opened by this nonsense is mind-boggling. I see no reason why any student would sign up for any state’s version of American history unless taking that version is required to graduate from high school—but they already have that by controlling the history textbooks!

February 18^th

Today Cal Thomas headlines his column by calling President Obama “America’s Nero.” This characterization shows an enormous ignorance of history. Of course Thomas wants to parallel Obama’s policy toward ISIS with the popular, and incorrect, notion that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Current scholarship finds evidence that Nero himself had the fires set to deflect the public’s rage against his rule and allow him to channel that rage toward the Christians. This is supposed to be similar to Obama’s position toward ISIS? Please! (Cal may also believe that Washington, as a child, admitted to chopping down a cherry tree.)

His primary criticism of Obama seems to be that he has no “battle plan.” He didn’t outline one in his message to Congress. It is so important to have a battle plan and to broadcast it so that your enemy knows exactly what it is. All of our great war time leaders have presented their battle plans to the public and to the enemy. It is hard to imagine a more hopelessly stupid criticism of Obama’s request to Congress. But wait, there’s more!

Thomas quotes President Roosevelt’s message to Congress following the attack on Pearl Harbor. He compares Obama’s less memorable request to Congress with Roosevelt’s message after Pearl Harbor. Perhaps Cal is unaware that Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor caused 3500 military casualties of which there 2400 were killed, and there were 100 civilian casualties with about 70 dead. Now let’s see, how does this compare with the attacks by ISIS/ISIL on our soil. Except for the Boston bombing, a horrendous event that killed three and injured 264, and some foiled attempts, there haven’t been many. There have been lots of terrorist attacks but not many tied to ISIS/ISIL. (There was 9/11 but that was a one-time event well before ISIS/ISIL existed and our leadership responded by invading a country which wasn’t involved.)

In Cal’s extended quote of Roosevelt’s iconic message to Congress of which he clearly approves, there is no hint of a “battle plan.” Roosevelt does say that we will win the war but that’s hardly a battle plan. It seems unlikely that with Thomas’ severely limited military experience that he himself could tell the difference between strategic and tactical planning.

Again, Thomas says that Obama “Should act; he should lead.” But tell us exactly what he should do? When asked questions like this Obama’s critics are usually very quiet. Specifics are really difficult aren’t they Cal? Amorphous and vague suggestions get you in so much less trouble. We are so fortunate, as a country, Cal, that you have no involvement whatever with our military.

February 17^th

 

There are no right wing columnists presenting their ideas in today’s paper so I will present some ideas of my own.

Today we make a suggestion about war: we should pay as much as we can for it as we fight it. Since 2001 we have been in two long and costly wars and the top tax brackets have not increased a bit. Of course the fabulists at The Heritage Foundation are telling us that the rich pay more in taxes than ever before. Of course they do and that’s because we have lots more rich people so in aggregate they pay more in taxes. Isn’t that analysis clever?

Grover Norquist, an anti-tax fanatic, tries to get all incoming legislators to sign a pledge not to raise taxes. Regardless of domestic needs or existential threats Norquist’s followers will not raise taxes. This, he believes, will throttle government programs. It does no such thing because instead of raising taxes to pay for expensive things like wars the government just borrows more money to pay for them. This possibility has perhaps eluded Norquist. We will leave the wisdom of his movement to history students desperate for a thesis topic.

Most of our previous wars were on a pay as you go basis. Of course they were much too expensive to pay for all at once so we had a kind of installment plan. We paid as much as we reasonably could at the time and continued to pay after the war was over. For example the marginal tax rate during WW 1, WW 2, The Korean War and the Vietnam War averaged 79 percent; in addition there were excise taxes on many luxury or near luxury goods. The Bush wars of the last ten years saw a very different model. The top marginal tax rate under these fiscal conservatives averaged 35 percent and while excise taxes continued they were on far fewer goods. These fiscal conservatives have turned to borrow and spend; exactly what they berate sections of the public for doing.

Everyone complains about the debt we are handing off to our grandchildren but no one wants to increase the tax rates so that this burden is eased. In spite of all the armed conflict this country has engaged in Congress hasn’t actually declared war since WW 2. I propose that any armed conflict involving US armed forces result in an immediate increase in the top marginal tax rate to 85 percent and corresponding increase in lower brackets; and that these increases continue until any debt acquired to pay for the conflict is paid in full. If this becomes law we will have far fewer armed conflicts and a much lower national debt.

 

 

February 16^th

Today we have a column by the isolationist Patrick J. Buchanan. He quite predictably believes that the local countries in the areas threatened by ISIS should be fighting them He certainly has a point.

He bemoans the fact that the Iraqi Army, which we had equipped and trained, had thrown down their weapons and run away from approaching ISIS troops. He points out that when Saddam Hussein was at war with Iran, a country three times as large as Iraq, his army did not run away. Then he naively asks, “What did Saddam Hussein have to motivate men that we do not have?” The answer to that, Pat, is that if Saddam’s men had tried to run away they would have been shot, and quite possibly their families would have been shot as well. Killing soldiers who refuse to fight is a time honored tradition in the military; the Romans decimated cowardly legions. In WW 1, France provided firing squads for soldiers refusing to charge into German machine guns. The soldiers’ choice then was death as a hero or death as a coward. To make this work, however, one needs a functioning state. WW 1 Russian military deserters survived because the state was in the process of collapse, much like Iraq is now.

ISIS has very recently executed Egyptian Coptic Christians who were in Libya to find work. Although Egypt is a largely Moslem state, killing its citizens of whatever religious persuasion was not well received by the Egyptian government. They retaliated with bombing raids on ISIS training camps in Libya and these raids may well continue. Now we have another government with major military assets joining Jordan. The execution of the Jordanian pilot has cost ISIS dearly.

Buchanan believes that Turkey, clearly the strongest military power in the region could crush ISIS in a month. He might be right. He claims Turkey has a half million man army and three thousand tanks. Other sources put the numbers somewhat less but the point that Turkey has the military strength to crush ISIS is hardly debatable.

Turkey is no longer as secular as it once was. Under Erdogan the government is increasingly relaxing its anti-religious (read Moslem) message. Women may now wear headscarves; not long ago that was forbidden as was any symbol of religious affiliation. There are now Islamic schools sponsored by the government. Liquor advertisements can no longer be shown on television. Kemal Ataturk would be outraged but he is long gone and the armed forces which had previously enforced the secularization of government is now unmoved.

ISIS has been very careful not to irritate the Turkish government. No Turkish citizens have been captured; no suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Turkish coffee shops. ISIS has been careful to maintain the pathway through Turkey for its new western recruits. Turkey seems in no mood to impede ISIS in any way. Pity.

February 15^th

 

Today George Will’s column tells us that it’s “Time to curb your pessimism.” Maybe he should tell the folks at Fox News. (Then perhaps he should reread Candide.) He even claims that he agrees with the President on this issue, but have a care because he claims that Obama’s “pronouncements are grating even when they are sensible.” No bona fide right winger could possibly agree with both what the President says and the way he says it so Will keeps his chops.

Later he claims that in 2016 attention will be paid to Hillary Clinton’s role in the “humanitarian intervention” (his quotes) in Libya that reduced that country to a failed state. This intervention was by the UN and included nineteen nations actively participating in military action against Libya. Also, at that time Gadhafi had admitted to Libya’s role in the Pan Am bombing that killed 270 people. (More recently we have decided to blame our new villain, Iran, for this crime.) Gadhafi was producing 1.5 million barrels of oil a day then, so he had enormous amounts of cash with which to buy arms, secure his friends and stay in power. His ouster was no more the work of Secretary of State Clinton than it was of Secretary of Defense Gates, a Republican who was not mentioned by Will.

 Will had a great deal of company when he condemned Gadhafi’s military ouster: Castro in Cuba, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and many others of similar ilk. George Will has here put himself in very unusual company. One is inclined to believe that Will thinks Hillary Clinton on her broomstick has flown over Libya singlehandedly destroying the country when in fact it was an effort of nineteen nations. Will surely hopes you don’t know that.

Then we have the following convoluted sentence: “In the annals of American blunders the Bay of Pigs may have been even more feckless and the invasion of Iraq more costly, but we cannot yet calculate the cost of teaching Iran and others by our role in the casual overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi, the peril of not having nuclear weapons.” Does he mean that only the overthrow of Gadhafi would cause Iran to want nuclear weapons? Overthrow of the other regimes are irrelevant? Hillary Clinton had a role only in the overthrow of Gadhafi so that is the action Will choses to claim encourages Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Nonsense! The answer is to do what? Perhaps Will can get together with his fellow conservative Pat Buchanan and push for an isolationist agenda. (See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.) In that fine conservative tradition George Will has continued to point out problems and failed to suggest any solutions.

February 14^th

 

Today is Valentine’s Day and today we have two conservatives telling us that the current measles epidemic is due in large part to those pesky undocumented aliens. Mo Brooks (R. AL) tells us that every problem from enteroviruses to measles “might” be caused by illegal aliens. Representative Brooks has used ranting against illegal aliens as his own personal hobby horse. He claims that the white race is under attack from all sides.

What about this enterovirus accusation? The center for disease control claims that there is little risk of children from Latin America spreading enteroviruses. They know this because they can track the various types of enteroviruses. (The rhinoviruses of which there are a great many and which cause the common cold are a variety of enterovirus.) As to measles vaccination Leelanau County Michigan where I live has a lower rate of measles vaccination than Honduras, the home country of many undocumented children.

Congressman Brooks’ fulminations against the Democrats’  “war on white people” which he pushed in an interview on Laura Ingraham’s radio program had even this flamingly dedicated conservative taking issue with him. “Don’t you think that characterization is a bit out there…?” said host Laura. No, indeed he didn’t. I assume that Brooks wants to change the constitution and revoke the citizenship of children of undocumented immigrants born in this country. He really wants to expel about six million people. (That’s a statement not a question.) The Democratic Party should contribute to his campaign. Dick Armey said, “We’ve chased the Hispanic voter out of his natural home.” I don’t think he’ll be coming back and that is certainly good news for Democrats. It should be hard to lose national elections as long as conservatives keep people like Brooks in office.

Brooks is joined in his view of illegal aliens as germ sources by Dr. Ben Carson. Carson is a retired pediatric neurosurgeon. He claims that we are admitting “undocumented people who perhaps have diseases that we had under control.” Notice the weasel words used by both men: “perhaps have diseases” by Carson and “might” be caused by illegal aliens by Brooks. Neither man is willing to suggest that there are conservative states like Mississippi where 99% of the children are vaccinated and that this “might” be the answer to the measles problem.

 

February 13^th

 

I didn’t comment on any right wing columnists yesterday because the only one published locally, Thomas Sowell, wrote something that no sensible person could disagree with. To my amazement and to his credit he wrote that all children should be vaccinated. By saying this he risked the wrath of his party’s far right; but he did it anyway. Good for him!

Today is different: today we have the party’s intellectual, George Will, suggesting that Mike Pence, (What, you’ve never heard of Mike?) should run for President. Pence is the Governor of the State of Indiana. Will’s thesis is that Governors are prepared to govern unlike non-governor newbies who have not had that kind of experience; you know, like Obama. That’s silly!

Will further observes that Pence has been a supporter of state control of education. So Pence is on the right side of “No Child Left Behind” and of “Common Core” both programs that involve federal intervention, according to Will. Others might say that they involve federal assistance. I have already commented on letting states do as they please with education: Governor Geo. Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door and the Texas board of Education rewriting history for the benefit of jingoistic fundamentalist right wingers are examples of letting states have a free hand with K-12 education; we needn’t go there again.

Then he touts Grace-Marie Turner the founder and president of Galen Institute. These folks are funded largely by the medical and pharmaceutical industries. We can be sure that Grace-Marie has the welfare and the pocketbook of the typical American uppermost in her healthcare deliberations. Sheesh!

Will takes a swipe at Obama for, “advertising his disdain for the legislative branch by pushing past the proper limits of executive action.”  Will, like all good members of the commentariate, gives no specifics. Nor does he mention that the republicans declared before Obama took office that they would help pass nothing that would bring any credit to him and perhaps lead to a second term. That didn’t help them much, did it?

What has Governor Pence accomplished in Indiana? He has abolished the inheritance tax. This will help the middle class no-end. The unemployment rate is about 5.7% nearly the same as the national average. Other than opposing Obama, thus endearing himself to the likes of Will, I see little to recommend this man to the electorate. Maybe the electorate remembers Governor Sarah Palin and the splendid record of Governor Agnew.  I wonder if Will really believes they would have made great Presidents.

February 11^th

Mona Charen holds forth today about “borrowed valor.” Her intent is to castigate Brian Williams for “misremembering” events in the Iraq war some eleven years ago. Williams, as everyone on the face of the planet must know by now, described an Iraq journey in a helicopter as incurring much more enemy fire than it actually did. Charen and other members of our war party have joined in bringing this braggart to heal.

Charen goes on to complain of liberals not appreciating the sacrifices of troops during the Viet-Nam war. That’s quite true; they often didn’t. Then she quotes Reagan as saying, “Ours was in truth a noble cause.” That was seen as evidence of Reagan’s approaching senility, and it might have been. That war was the end product of a nation caught in an anti-communist hysteria; our leaders were pandering to a paranoia they encouraged. We had a draft so unpopular that many of those eligible simply left the country rather than submit to it. That didn’t happen in WW 2 nor did it in the Korean War. It was hard to convince anyone that Vet Nam posed an existential threat to this country—except perhaps for Ms. Charen.

One of the most notorious events of that war, not mentioned by Ms. Charen, was the killing of about four hundred unarmed men women and children, many machine gunned as they lay in a ditch. The fall guy for this was Lieutenant Calley. He claimed he was just obeying orders. (You would think that machine gunning people lying in a ditch would resonate with Ms. Charen but perhaps she isn’t familiar with the execution methods of the third Reich.) Others higher up in the chain of command were exonerated. The Army at that time was desperate for officers and had lowered their standards for OCS. The result was Calley and his ilk. Calley had nothing to worry about because Nixon gave him a “get out of jail free card.”  Ah, to have friends in high places! Make no mistake here; many men served honorably in that war and they were often lumped in with the Calleys when they left the service.

Then there is Iraq: Bush’s war of choice. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi citizen yet the visiting Saudi royalty were allowed to fly home when all other non-military flights were grounded. (Again, to have friends in high places.) Then the Bush-Cheney regime invades Iraq because Iraqis are working on “weapons of mass destruction.” Well, after 9/11 we had to invade somebody didn’t we, Ms. Charen? That war, which had its Abu Grave showing us torturing a captive with his genitals wired up to a battery made us no friends in the middle-east and lost support at home, right wing warriors naturally excepted. Other events helped as well, Haditha, for example. In Haditha we had four Marines executing over twenty old men, women and children they found in a house after their unit took casualties from a nearby IED. That doesn’t win over hearts and minds, does it Ms. Charen?

Then Ms. Charen apparently believes that Secretary Kerry is still vulnerable to a continuation of swift-boating. The original swift-boaters have added the term to our vocabulary to mean the false accusation of a veteran for political gain. I guess Ms. Charen is ready for round two. One characteristic of these extremists like extremists everywhere is that they never give up.

February 10^th

 

Today we have a column by Cal Thomas. It will, no doubt, surprise you to know that I agree with his message. Cal objects to the current tendency for people to describe themselves, or to be described, as hyphenated Americans. A major case in point is African-Americans. No less a celebrity than Whoopi Goldberg resents being called an African-American. Cal quotes her as saying that, “I have visited Africa…and I’m an American.” He reminds us that when his Welch ancestors arrived here they didn’t refer to themselves as Welch-Americans. All of this is admirable and I heartily agree with it. (This is the first time, so far as I remember, that I have ever agreed with any of Cal’s opinions.)

Many immigrant groups have stayed to themselves, some because of prejudice against them, I think of the Irish immigrants here, and some because of a desire, quite specifically, to separate themselves from the traditionally American culture, perhaps the Amish are a good example of people who isolate themselves because they do not share some of our traditional values. Education stops for the Amish at the eighth grade, science is usually not taught. Most American parents want their children, at the very least, to finish high school.

There are many pockets where immigrants are protected from assimilation. My ancestors were Pennsylvania Dutch who arrived in Ben Franklin’s time. They stayed largely to themselves and Ben, very unhappy about that, referred to them as, “Palatine boors who wish to inflict their culture upon us.” That was wildly overdrawn; they just wanted to be left alone, but you can’t assimilate that way.

Cal does not mention the Cuban-Americans perhaps for good reason; these are a nearly solid anti-Castro, solidly Republican block who probably should not be trifled with by a conservative columnist who wants to continue his career on Fox News. Maybe these folks prefer to be described as just plain Americans but I haven’t seen Senator Rubio, a second generation son of Cuban immigrants, objecting to being called a Cuban-American.

Unfortunately our free enterprise system sometimes plays into the hands of immigrants who find assimilation difficult. I know an elderly woman, an immigrant from Japan, a widow of a retired Green Beret Major, who lives in California. She watches TV programs broadcast in Japanese. Her meals-on-wheels consist of Japanese food. She has lived in this country for over fifty years and she has not really assimilated because she has never had to. You only have to look at New York City to find whole sections catering to ethnic preferences. The melting pot in this country seems to be a tad too cool.

February 8^th

George Will has declared that the states and not the federal government should be in control of funding education. Yes George, that control has surely produced a circus and who doesn’t love the circus?  I don’t really think it’s the sort of result you had in mind though.

Then there is Governor Wallace’s “standing in the schoolhouse door.” States’ rights you know; “segregation today, tomorrow and always.” Eventually we had Brown vs The Board of Education. That SCOTUS decision you may remember stopped the silly notion proposed by some states of the old confederacy that they had a so called “separate but equal” educational system. Score one for the federal oversight of education. George skips over that part after all it was so long ago. Just ask Gwen Ifill, NPR anchor; she was there!

Recently we have a much more entertaining circus: we have the Texas School Board determining what shall be in Texas school books. The school board has ten Republicans and five Democrats and they control the content of the 85 million (that’s right 85 million) Texas school books. With this market publishers are very willing to accommodate whatever request the Texas School Board makes.  The history section gives scant coverage to the Mexican-American War and in no way can the United States be thought the aggressor. Then there is a global warming disagreement in which both sides must be given equal time; this even though the number of scientists and the overwhelming evidence is all on one side of this issue. Richard Mueller, a global warming skeptic whose investigations were funded by the Koch Bros. has admitted that he’s now convinced of the reality of global warming, but not in Texas school books.

Thomas Jefferson also gets short shrift from these Texas “historians.” Jefferson you may remember was notorious for proclaiming a wall existed between church and state, not a good fit for our revisionist history right wingers in Texas. For them this is a Christian Nation founded on Christian principles, never mind that many of the founding fathers were Deists. Do you think that any of these Texas school book pontificators know what a Deist believes?

They insist that in addition to the Japanese internment horror the history books include the fact that German and Italian POWs were interned here as well. The difference in these two situations seems not to have penetrated their awareness. No matter their equivalence will be perpetuated in Texas schoolbooks.

Then we come to that awful “Core Curriculum.” The Core Curriculum is a major complaint for Mr. Will. I’ve looked at this curriculum, particularly at the requirements in mathematics.  Horrors, this curriculum requires that students study algebra and even statistics in high school. How awful, what a burden; not to worry. Texas has banned the Core Curriculum so it is now illegal, by law, to teach this evil content. The Right ‘s objection to this curriculum is not clear; no matter the right’s objection to many things is not at all clear; objecting is what they do best.

February 6^th

 

Our topic today is Obama’s remarks at the annual prayer breakfast. Commenting on the recent ISIL atrocities he mentioned that all religions, including Christianity, had extremists. He pointed out that Christians had committed atrocities during the crusades and that the inquisition had burned people at the stake; that Christianity was used to justify slavery and the subjection of non-white races. In short he suggested a very Christian notion that “He who is without sin should cast the first stone.”

Immediately came the reaction. As night follows day there followed outrage. One of the early stone throwers was the head of “The Southern Baptist Convention.” If you don’t remember, this outfit in the late 1990s finally apologized for their racism during and following the Civil War. Maybe they now want to take that apology back.

Joe Scarborough, on this morning’s program, was unable to halt his torrent of acrimony against Obama’s remarks.  After an unceasing anti-Obama rant his hired hands tried to suggest to him that that this horse was dead and that he should move on. Fat chance for this Catholic school educated pontificator. No one else can speak if Joe can think of something to say—and he usually does. Joe claimed that Obama had to go back 700 years to find his examples while ISIL had much more recent atrocities. Of course he was wrong; slavery in this country and the Jim Crow that followed was not 700 years ago; it was seventy years ago! Joe’s acolytes rarely if ever suggest that he’s wrong, thus do they remain employed.

Then there is Charles Krauthammer and Laura Ingraham both “outraged” at Obama’s remarks. Both of these people eat, live and breathe right wing extremism. Whatever Obama does or says is anti-Christian and anti-American. Krauthammer claims that Christians haven’t burned anyone alive for years and that this Muslim sect has done so just recently. He’s absolutely right about the burning alive; he’s absolutely wrong about these people being a Muslim sect. He should know that burning bodies, whether alive or dead, as in cremation, is haram (forbidden) in the Muslim religion. My guess is that this man knows little or nothing about Muslims.  ISIL says that they are Muslims so of course that’s good enough for Krauthammer. His comments appeal to Fox News followers who pay him and that’s all that really matters.

Ingraham maintains that Obama’s comments are anti-Christian. She doesn’t contrast what he said with any scriptural evidence for his ant-Christian position, but then she doesn’t need to. Her listeners will be happy to lap up whatever negative remarks she makes about the President. It is quite clear that Christians should never stop to consider that they might be sinners. Where do these people get these ideas? What Bible do they read?

February 5^th

 

Today we have a column by George Will, the Oxford educated right-wing intellectual. True to form he begins by instructing us in the meaning of “iatrogenic” derived from the Greek which means, generally, problems caused by attempts to remedy another problem. Mr. Will applies this concept to the current government’s efforts to grow the economy.

He also claims that we have reduced our expectations about the economic growth we find satisfactory, a dummying down of expectations encouraged by the press and those in power. He cites many carefully selected statistics which compare the current anemic economic recovery with past economic recoveries, particularly those of the 1980s, 35 years ago. He recognizes that times change. He compares the number of never married 25-to-34 year olds in 1960, 12 percent, to the number of never married in that age group today, 49 percent. The awareness that this time in history is not the same as the 1980s does not seem to have carried over to the economic sphere.

Mr. Will is making what social scientists call longitudinal comparisons. This is like an investor complaining that his return on his McDonalds’ stock is much less over the last ten years than it was from 1965 to i975. He should be comparing McDonalds’ stock over the last ten years with the return over the same period on other hamburger chains. That would be a cross sectional comparison. Mr. Will has an agenda here and cross sectional comparisons of American economic growth with other equivalent countries just doesn’t suit him.

Germany might be a good comparison if Will cared to use it. He doesn’t seem to be interested, much safer to compare our economic recovery with our fabulous economy of the 1980s. Germany has a marginal tax rate of over 45 percent. They also have a mandatory leave system for pregnant women and home leave for new parents of both sexes after the child’s birth. This is clearly socialism at its worst. So how’s the economy? Well, unemployment is just over 5 percent, a little less than ours, and their stock market is booming, up about 7.5 percent in the last three months compared with our S&P which is up a paltry 1.5 percent.  I guess Mr. Will’s penchant for comparing this recovery with previous recoveries is wise.

Toward the end of his column he writes, “The progressive project of maximizing the number of people dependent on government…” He is here reduced to offering yet another right-wing conspiracy theory. He suggests that the progressives don’t want a strong economic recovery because their constituencies would no longer be dependent on the government giveaway social programs. That’s right; Will is clearly implying that the current administration is conspiring to keep the recovery slow to insure the success of their political agenda. Where is psychiatric help when you need it?

February 4^th

Today we’ll look at the vaccination issue and particularly at Senator Rand Paul’s terrible case of foot in mouth disease. It is generally agreed among epidemiologists that vaccinations for communicable diseases are most effective when everyone is vaccinated; that the measles, whooping cough, rubella, vaccine now used is safe. Of course there may be rare side effects but there can be rare side effects from going to a restaurant.  

Then we have Senator Paul, a physician and a Libertarian, who claims that he knows of healthy children who, following vaccination, have developed serious mental disorders. Subsequently he claimed that he never said vaccines caused the disorders, which is true, but he certainly left his listeners with that impression. He should have known that as a physician his views would carry heavy weight and he should have thought first about what he was going to say. Naturally he blamed the “liberal media” for distorting his views; the media in this case was CNBC whose anchor, Kelly Evans, was interviewing him. He was distressed by her questions and at one point told her to “calm down.” (CNBC is now liberal, really?)

Senator Paul belongs to The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). This group of extreme libertarians encourages their members to avoid such government help programs as Medicare and Medicaid. They must know that participation in these programs does not restrict a physician’s charges; it just limits how much the program will pay for them. No matter, it’s a government program and therefore to be avoided. I guess old and poor people can go elsewhere. AAPS encourages physicians to offer their services on a cash only basis. Cash only would also make it much easier for physicians to defraud government tax collectors. Of course AAPS doesn’t say that. They probably don’t have to.

He has now (a day after his anti vaccine rant) insisted that everyone should have their children vaccinated and we have a new photo showing the Senator himself getting an updating measles shot. So what are we to think about this? We have the recent “walk backs” from Governor Christie in England just before hopping on a Sheldon Adelson provided private plane; we have Senator Paul “reconsidering” his remarks implying a link between vaccinations and neurological damage. I think what we have here is a couple of politicians checking the wind and finding that they have tacked a bit too late. What else is new?

As an aside here: while there is no doubt about Senator Rand’s intelligence (or about his condescending attitude toward ordinary mortals) one should not confuse intelligence and judgment. Unfortunately that’s easy to do.

 

 

 

February 3^rd

Mona Charen this morning tells us that Obama could have gotten a better deal with Cuba. Of course he could. In any negotiation both sides assume that they could have gotten a better deal. That’s why such things are called “negotiations.” At least Mona has not retreated into the usual Cuban-American position that just when we had Castro on the ropes (after fifty years of trying) we give him what he wants. Of course Raul, with whom we now deal, still has things he wants, so the negotiations will continue.

No one excuses Castro; he seized power and was a brutal dictator. But then he had replaced another brutal dictator. Mona tells us what a paradise Cuba must have been before Castro came to power. She says that, “Cuba’s per capita income was higher than in much of Europe." Of course “per capita income” hides the poverty of those at the bottom of the income distribution. Cuba’s wealth then depended heavily on the export of sugar. When the sugar cane was ready to cut the cane cutters had work—for three or four months. And then they had no work at all and they starved.

The dictator de jour during the prosperity Mona describes was one Fulgensio Baptista y Zaldivar. He was the architect of the economy Mona admires and whom Castro replaced. Mona neglects to mention that under Baptista Cuba’s economy depended heavily on catering to rich Americans from Miami who flew in to gamble and visit the various dens of iniquity available in Havana. Baptista was helped mightily in setting up his gambling and prostitution empire by Meyer Lansky. Lansky was a big man in organized crime in the US, but then came Castro and all of this went away. Baptista and many of his cohorts went to Spain. He managed to get out with $300 million; enough to keep in very comfortable circumstance until he died in 1973 just ahead of an assassination squad sent after him by Castro.

The financial circumstance of many Cubans changed dramatically with the arrival of Castro. The more Castro courted communism and Russia the more willing the US government was to welcome Cuban refugees and relax our immigration laws in their favor. Naturally this initially resulted in a flood of well-heeled refugees. Now there are over 1.75 million “Cuban-Americans” in this country, more than a million of them in Florida. They have political influence far beyond their numbers and nearly all of them are virulently anti-Castro. Most of these are law abiding citizens but not all: the Watergate break-in thieves were mostly Cuban-Americans, the terrorist who planted a bomb that killed Chile’s ambassador to the US was a Cuban-American; worst, the two terrorists who planted a bomb on a Cuban airliner that killed many innocent people were Cuban-Americans. Eventually, perhaps it will take a century, these Cuban-Americans will identify themselves as plain Americans. We can hope so.

February 2^nd

Today is Groundhog Day and it also provides light on Patrick J. Buchanan’s latest political thoughts (sic).

Pat’s current effort is to claim “There’s a Syriza in our future.” For those unsophisticated in the arcane nature of Greek politics, Syriza is a political party of the far left which recently won the Greek election by joining with a party of the far right which also objected to the conditions other European nations imposed on Greece’s bailout.

Pat is very unhappy with the new Republican majority in Congress because they have passed a “fast track” trade treaty provision. This provision, Pat claims, deprives Congress of “all rights to amend trade treaties, and to commit itself to a simple up or down vote.” That’s true but it ignores the obvious fact that Congress can still say to the President, “As the treaty stands we’ll probably have to vote against it but if you just change these few items we’ll be happy to pass it.” It may be that such negotiation isn’t likely but its possibility is not eliminated by the fast track provision.

Pat has a subtext here that is obvious: if you don’t have the fast track provision then Congress can indulge itself in the endless debates, modifying amendments and inter-party squabbles for which it is famous. The result will be that it passes nothing and that is exactly the result that Pat hopes for. He will not get those delays with fast track, so of course Pat objects to fast track.

Pat spends the rest of the ink available to him telling us how the American worker suffers from all of the previous trade agreements. His newfound sympathy for the typical American worker does not extend to suggesting equal pay for equal work or minimum wage legislation or maternal leave or any other Syriza like suggestions. Pat is ever true to his isolationist principles. He ignores the fact that many workers make a comfortable living selling or servicing a host of foreign products, from Hyundai automobiles to Samsung TV sets, nor does he seem to understand what would happen to the market for our American made products in the inevitable trade war which his suggestions promote.

Incidentally, the word “Syriza” appears nowhere in Buchanan’s column except for the title and the very last sentence; talk about burying the lead!

February 1^st

In honor of Super Bowl Day I offer this non-political contribution. I’ve posted something like it before but it does fit beautifully right here:

Watching football is much more meaningful if you have a lexicon to interpret the announcer’s comments; without such help the viewer will be irretrievably lost so here follows some commonly used terms and their meaning:

Negative yardage: When yards are lost the runner is said to have gained negative yardage. This means that the running back really did run back. Running backs are supposed to run forward. No one knows why they are called running backs instead of running forwards.

Offensive player: Almost all football players are offensive, particularly after losing a game…or even after they win one if you catch them in the locker room before they shower.

Skill player: This term is very irritating to the three-hundred-and-thirty pound linemen who are not considered skill players. Sometimes they then become offensive players.

Pass interference: Your team is not supposed to let a player on the other team catch a pass. The defender is supposed to interfere with the opposing player’s early progress down the field or try to knock the ball away at just the last minute; however, if he knocks his opponent to the ground or trips him, that is against the rules and is not allowed. Certain kinds of pass interference are just fine, other kinds are not; It all depends on which team gives the biggest tips to the referees.

Roughing the quarterback: Defenders are supposed to be rough on their opponent’s quarterback. The whole idea is to scare him so badly that that he never wants to throw the ball, or if he does throw it he will throw it to somebody on your team. However, a three hundred-and-thirty-pound lineman is not allowed to grab the quarterback’s face mask, nor is he allowed to knock the quarterback down after he has thrown the ball. If this happens a major penalty is incurred. The lineman must be sure the referee is not looking when he commits these offenses. If he can do this and avoid getting caught his value to the team and his salary go up substantially.

Roughing the kicker: If your team member runs into an opponent’s kicker after he punts the ball that is roughing the kicker and it is a major no-no. Sometimes a player just comes close to the kicker who then falls to the ground grabbing his knee and writhing in pain. This convinces the referee, who has been ogling the cheerleaders, that a roughing penalty should be called. The better punters, in addition to being former soccer players, were also undergraduate drama majors.

Two point conversion: This is not a religious experience although it’s close. Once a touchdown has been scored the scoring team can elect to take the ball on the other team’s two yard line; if they can get it over the goal in one play they get two points.

Tight end: This is a guy who can either block or run down the field to catch a pass. If he should catch the pass he usually gets hit by several opponents who hope that will make him drop the ball. Tight ends aren’t usually tight although a belt or two before the game greatly helps their outlook.

Eligible receiver: The eligibility of an eligible receiver has nothing whatever to do with his marital status; it has to do with being eligible, according to the rules, to catch the football.

Nose guard:  This is not a player whose job it is to guard noses. A nose guard is a defensive player who lines up opposite the offensive center. He is usually concerned only with guarding his own nose.

Pooch kick: Relax SPCA members; no one is kicking a dog. A pooch kick is a low flat trajectory kick that bounces along the ground and is difficult to field,

Run out the clock: This doesn’t mean that someone runs onto the field with a clock; it means that a team which is ahead makes only very safe and time consuming plays thus leaving little time left for their opponents to get the ball back and score.

Bootleg: A bootleg occurs when the quarterback pretends to hand the ball off to a running back but instead keeps it himself to deceive the defense. It has nothing to do with the repeal of prohibition.

Touchdown: If the ball crosses the plane of the goal line that is called a touchdown and counts for six points. Whether the ball carrier is touched or not, or touches someone else, is irrelevant. There was a time very long ago when the ball actually had to be touched to the ground between the goalposts.

And finally-- understand that backs are not scalable; a full back cannot be exchanged for four quarter backs…although many coaches hope that will change!

 

 

 

 

January 31^st

 

The big political news of the last few days is Mitt Romney’s withdrawal from the 2016 Presidential race. Romney was a one term governor of Massachusetts and declined to run again. His poll numbers for re-election were not encouraging but he gave other reasons. He claims that this withdrawal was done to allow fresh faces to emerge. Well, maybe: it is certainly a slap at Jeb Bush who is not a fresh face. Jeb did not support Mitt in Florida when he campaigned there in 2012 so Romney is happy to poke back at Jeb ever so gently.

Romney would have brought a ton of baggage to his new campaign from his last one and maybe he thought that load would be too heavy to carry. Mitt’s new and gentler look included concern for the middle class and the poor, a far cry from his 47 percent speech. That speech surreptitiously recorded was, among other gaucheries, very likely to have cost him the last election. Romney claimed that 47 percent of Americans paid no federal income taxes and that these people would not vote for him because he had nothing to offer them, that they were supported by federal government hand-outs and so would prefer the status quo. He had some other insulting things to say about them as well. All of which played very well to the $50,000 a plate donor dinner to which he was speaking but not at all to the typical American voter.

Romney is right. It is true the about 47 percent of American tax units pay no taxes and it is probably true that most of these Americans would not vote for him. However, according to the tax policy center many of these non-tax payers simply did not earn enough to pay federal income taxes. They include the elderly, those with many exemptions as well as the working poor. It is also true that 78,000 filers with incomes between $200,000 and $500,000 paid no federal income taxes either. I’ll bet Mitt got most of them.