April 30^th

There are two interesting developments today, each worthy of some comment. The protesters are quite put out that the Baltimore mayor has called them “thugs.” She pulled back from that term because she claimed she had said it in the heat of the moment and due to frustration yada, yada, yada. In fact, in my view at least, she apologized because she risked alienating her black support. President Obama used the same term in describing the rioters and got the same response; the rioters didn’t like being called thugs. The President, unlike the mayor, didn’t back off. (Of course he isn’t facing reelection some would say, although I doubt that had anything to do with his stand.)

So why the fierce objection to “thug?” Those who objected claimed it was just a substitute for the heinous N word. The term wasn’t universally criticized because some rioters had indeed been thuggish in their behavior. A better and more accurate choice of label might have been vandals. Vandals simply destroy for the pleasure of destroying and that’s exactly what these rioters did. They looted and destroyed stores, even those owned by blacks; they set fire to a neighborhood pharmacy and in doing so, eliminated the source of medicine for many black people. They destroyed and set fire to cars, privately owned cars and police cars. None of this vandalism had any remote connection to the death of Freddie Gray. Their rage had built to the point where it expended itself on any convenient target, appropriate or not.

The second interesting development is the very recent testimony of a man who was also in the van with Freddie Gray. This man, whose name is withheld for good reason, claims he heard Gray slamming himself around in his section of the police van apparently trying to hurt himself. There is also testimony that the van stopped three times, once to check on Gray, once put leg irons on Gray and once to pick up this recent testifier. The new arrival in the van was there for a ride of just six blocks. Gray went from slamming himself around in the van to lying unconscious on the van floor in just those six blocks. He had not been attached to a seat belt in spite of regulations requiring it. There was, however, no problem with stopping the van to put him in leg irons.

That last prisoner has been a godsend for the Baltimore police department. Just imagine the relief to have testimony that Gray was trying to hurt himself. I see a problem though: within a six block ride Gray has gone from slamming himself around in the van to lying unconscious and near death on the van floor. Well, maybe! In any event I’ll bet the prisoner who provided that testimony will get very special care from the Baltimore police department. They have no more valuable prisoner than this gentleman.

April 29^th

There was no detritus yesterday because there were no right wing columnists making fools of themselves in the morning paper. The same thing is true today so to keep my skewering skills in shape I have gone afield to a Fox News columnist who never disappoints. (What, never…well, hardly ever!) We have Dr. Charles Krauthammer who today has discussed, admittedly very briefly, the failure of leadership in Baltimore.

Last night the city was relatively quiet compared with the night before and that’s the night Krauthammer was talking about. There certainly was a lot of destruction and, of course all that’s the mayor’s fault, according to Krauthammer. Then if you read the comments from Fox readers about Krauthammer’s remarks you get a nauseating picture of how these Fox people think. Think is the wrong word; maybe parrot is the right word. The root cause according to Fox supporters is that blacks are unfit to govern themselves and the riots are really the result of the Obama Presidency. Obama is black, you see, and the rioters are black too, ipso facto it’s Obama’s fault…or the fault of the liberals who elected Obama, same difference.

Krauthammer had nothing to say about the mostly black citizens, adults and kids, who appeared with brooms and started cleaning up after the riots. Then there is the primal cause of these riots. Krauthammer never comes close to that one; it might mean criticizing the police.  Officers drove the prison van in such a way that a black man passenger, with his hands shackled behind his back and without a seat belt, was killed by being thrown violently from side to side as the van deliberately was made to swerve. Krauthammer never mentions that.

Hey, start mentioning things like that and before you know it you’ll be on CNN instead of shilling for Fox News and there goes much of your income. Of course he might gain some self-respect. No I take that back, because I think Krauthammer really believes the bigoted nonsense he produces. No one who doesn’t really believe that stuff could possibly make it up.

April 27^th

Good old Pat Buchanan is holding forth in today’s paper. Pat is slamming the Saudi’s airstrikes against the Houthis’ takeover in Yemen. He asks, “What did the Houthis ever do to us?” The answer is nothing but Pat further claims that Iran isn’t arming the Houthis. If they aren’t then why are they sending ships convoyed by their naval vessels toward Yemen? We’ve dispatched the carrier Roosevelt and numerous escort vessels to challenge them. Pat wonders why we should care. A brief look at a map of the area quickly shows why we and the Saudi’s should care. Yemen controls the entrance to the Red Sea through which must come most all Saudi oil.

Unfortunately for the Saudi’s, a considerable number of defections from their incipient Yemen invasion force has been reported. It is also reported that, as of today, the Saudi’s have called off their air strikes. Maybe the report is accurate; maybe not.

What we do know is that although the Houthis are not terribly hostile toward us, ISIL is very hostile indeed, and ISIL is now penetrating into Yemen and killing Houthis. This, perhaps, is why Iran is stepping up and sending arms to the Houthis. They do not like ISIL at all. I’m sure that ISIL would love to close that strait leading into the Red Sea. They despise the Saudis almost as much as they despise Christians.

In spite of the drop in oil prices, oil is still what keeps the Saudi’s in cash. The Saudis can pump oil for as little as three dollars a barrel so they can make a huge profit with 40 or 50 dollar a barrel oil. The more they pump the more money they make and the quicker they can drive other producers, their competitors, out of business.

Keep in mind too that the Saudi government was implicated in the support of the 9/11 hijackers. A report by the Congressional committee charged to look into the matter has remained classified. Senator Bob Graham, then chairman of the Senate Select committee on Intelligence, has called for the report to be released and claims it will show Saudi involvement.

We have some interesting friends.

April 25^th

There are no right wing columnists writing in today’s paper. There is a back page column about the Baltimore police department. This is the outfit that recently took a black man into custody for a minor offence; the family lawyer claimed it was for “running while black.” No one disputes that characterization. While in police custody the man died of a severed spinal cord. 

The history of the Baltimore police department’s abuse has cost the city literally millions of dollars and will cost them millions more. In an interesting twist the city often settles law-suites by paying money but not admitting guilt. The police union claims it is cheaper to just pay the money even though nothing illegal occurred. But an additional clause forced upon the plaintiff is that they cannot discuss the settlement or describe the treatment that led to the lawsuit. In this way the public is kept in the dark about the extent of police abuse. If the plaintiff does reveal what happened then the settlement can be substantially reduced. What a neat way to muzzle the complainer and keep the public in the dark!

Freddie Gray, the man transported to jail in a police van, was given in police parlance, a “rough ride.” This interesting method of police brutality is hard to prove but the results can be spectacular. The victim is placed in a van with hands handcuffed behind his or her back. They are not seat belted in place and the ride begins. Suddenly the driver swerves sharply to the side and then immediately back again. He had to swerve to avoid a car trying to cut him off. Naturally there are no cameras to verify this. The prisoner though is catapulted from one side of the van to the other without being able to use his hands to cushion his body from slamming into the sides of the vehicle. Now the brakes are hit hard, to avoid a dog you see, or perhaps a child darted into the street. This flings the unanchored prisoner against the front screen of the van, again without the use of his hands to cushion the collision. You get the picture.

The results are sometimes terrible injuries, broken necks, broken backs and substantial lawsuits. For one Doug Johnson who became a paraplegic, an award of 7.4 million dollars; for Jeffrey Alston whose neck was broken, an award of 39 million dollars. The “punishment” for the offending cops in the case of Freddie Gray has been suspension with pay; that’s a punishment? The union maintains that they haven’t been convicted yet but why do they merit a vacation with pay?

This situation is easily remedied: put a camera inside the van and put one on the van’s dashboard. Put an officer in the van with the prisoners and make it a prosecutable offense to transport any prisoner not attached to a seatbelt. It would be easy for the Baltimore police to clean up their act but first they must want to clean up their act and so far they obviously aren’t interested.

April 24^th

A recent drone strike has killed two western prisoners of Al Qaida. The same strike also killed four Al Qaida members but the unfortunate collateral damage is getting all of the attention. Any friendly fire damage is regrettable but all wars produce them. It appears that these killings of innocents are much more regrettable because they were produced by drones. In at least one daytime talk show the liberal half of “Morning Joe,” Mika Brzezinski, is scandalized by the use of drones for any reason. She is sure they will be used to infringe upon our liberties.  When they are used to successfully attack our enemies and collateral damage results, that scenario, for her, is beyond the pale.

Mika, and some others of her persuasion, are too young to remember the events of WW 2. Then American and British submarines targeted Japanese troop ships, many of which were known to be carrying allied prisoners. These ships were targeted and sunk all the same. The risk to prisoners was outweighed by the need to eliminate Japanese shipping capability. The result was that an estimated 20 thousand allied casualties occurred as a result of these sinkings. The lists of ships sunk and the toll of prisoners drowned is available on the internet. The toll of American submarines sunk by the Japanese is also available. There were also enormous civilian casualties from Allied bombing of Berlin and Tokyo and there were enormous losses of AAF crews manning those bombers. Unfortunately the civilian losses in that war were often deliberately inflicted in the mistaken belief that it would lead the enemy to a quicker surrender; that didn’t happen.

More recently in Iraq and Afghanistan where we suffered about 6.5 thousand dead, the Iraqis alone have had well over 150 thousand civilian casualties and another 20 thousand Afghani civilian casualties can be added to that. But what about civilian casualties from drone strikes? That’s not easy to determine. If you go online you can find estimates of total casualties by country, then of those the number of civilian casualties, and of those the number of children casualties. This site, which presumes to be responsible, provides a minimum and a maximum in each category. Unfortunately these can vary by 250 percent. It is difficult to put much reliance on data producing such disparity. It’s obvious that there are civilian casualties and that some of them are children. That happens in a war; it certainly happened in Berlin and in Tokyo, and in a war it may be unavoidable. The one area where there are no casualties is the drone operators. None of them have been killed, quite unlike the casualties from B-17 raids over Germany when ten percent losses per daily raid were recorded. It has been suggested that drone attacks are unfair because there is no risk to the attacker; to talk about fairness when discussing warfare is at the very least, curious.

The upshot here is that the civilian casualties from drone strikes are far lower that the civilian casualties would be from an invasion using conventional warfare. The only way to reduce civilian casualties to zero is to stop fighting. Can one side do that without committing suicide?

April 23^rd

Today I shall draw a contrast between two organizations. In this morning’s paper there was a column by Phil Power, the burden of which was to question whether or not any of the current Presidential hopefuls had faced the kind of adversity faced by Franklin Roosevelt who overcame the devastating effects of polio to become President. According to Power, Roosevelt emerged from his trial a “warm compassionate figure known to millions.” Power questions whether any of the current crop of candidates have faced and overcome equivalent adversity? The answer is almost certainly no.

Power heads a “think and do tank” called “The Center for Michigan.” I looked at the website. There are the names of many of the primary players and their email addresses, including Power’s. Much of what you would like to know about this organization, a 501 C 3, is there, as is columns on a variety of issues of concern to Michigan.

Now we will compare this outfit with “American Commitment” run by another Phil, Phil Kerpen. I wrote about this group just yesterday. If you go on their website you’ll find just one name, Phil Kerpen, no one else. There are surely other people doing a variety of chores there just as there are at “The Center for Michigan,” but you won’t find any names and you certainly won’t find any email addresses. You will find names but these will be the names of liberal politicians with whom Kerpen and his ilk have a beef. Anyone opposing the pipeline, anyone suggesting reducing emissions from coal and the villain-in-chief Harry Reid will all have their names mentioned. There will be suggestions that you call or email your Senator or Representative and remind him or her to vote as Kerpen suggests; all for the good of the country, of course. Finally, there is a section inviting you to contribute to Kerpen’s cause.

My blog entry today is not necessarily committed to promoting Mr. Power’s “The Center for Michigan.” I don’t know what their positions are on a variety of issues. The do invite guest columnists but the views of these folks may not reflect the views of the organization. For example, a recent column was favorably disposed toward a law increasing the gas tax. Of course the roads and bridges need to be fixed but I don’t believe another regressive tax is the best answer. Still, Phil Power’s response to political problems is very different from Phil Kerpen’s and much to be admired. 

April 22^nd

Have you ever heard of American Commitment? Not exactly a household name is it? How about the U.S. Postal Service (USPS)? That’s better, that’s an organization everybody has heard of. Today we have a rant against the USPS by one Phil Kerpen who bills himself as the chief honcho of a 501 c 4 organization called American Commitment. This outfit is heavily funded by the Koch boys, the generally right wing multi-billionaires who, thanks to a SCTUS ruling on political contributions, can now buy just about anything they want including the United States of America.

Kerpen has gone off on a tirade about the USPS and their spendthrift ways. He accuses them of a “secretive” deal with Amazon for Sunday package delivery. How’s that again? I guess it isn’t really a secret then because you did find out about it so what’s your point? A “whistleblower claims the deal has caused a pervasive distortion of Postal Services core responsibility of delivering priority mail.” But priority mail isn’t delivered on Sunday. This is beginning to sound like the “pants on fire” comments your outfit has made about political candidates. We’ll get back to that.

Then Kerpen has the hutzpah to say, “Congress and the Postal Regulatory Commission, the agency’s regulator, need to, at a minimum make sure the law is being followed… before all of this blows up on taxpayers.” That could be difficult because the USPS Regulatory Commission doesn’t have a quorum and so it can’t meet. It doesn’t have a quorum because the Republican controlled Senate refuses to confirm the President’s new appointees to the commission. This commission, by law, must be not contain more than a six to five majority for one party. The President’s nominees included a Republican; that didn’t matter to the Republicans in the Senate. These were Obama’s nominees after all, so let them sit.

As a 501 c 4 organization American Commitment cannot campaign for, or against, any nominee for public office. What they can do and what they have done in the past is produce slick and very misleading public announcements.  They cannot say, “Don’t vote for Tammy Baldwin;” they can say, “Tell Tammy Baldwin to stop putting special interests ahead of Wisconsin.” As you can see this prohibition against actual campaigning is not much of a bother if you are willing to lie about programs, or people, you dislike. Factcheck.org details many of American Commitment’s lies, so many that I wouldn’t know where to start if I wanted to list them.

It is interesting that you can’t deduct contributions to American Commitment… unless you can claim them as a business expenses. I wonder how the Koch brothers handle that.

 

 

April 21^st

On a more somber note, today we consider the death penalty; most countries have abolished it; in Europe only Belarus retains it. It is so abhorred in most of Europe that countries there will not sell us the chemicals used in our death chamber’s lethal cocktails. Not a problem, Utah has decided to just shoot the culprit and the Federal government uses hanging; no chemicals are necessary.

In this country each state can decide whether or not to have the death penalty. When a crime is a federal offense then the federal government can seek the death penalty. This has happened recently in Massachusetts where the man who helped plant the bombs that killed four people and injured hundreds in the Boston Marathon faces the death penalty from a federal court in spite of the fact that Massachusetts has no death penalty. Now comes a conundrum: The culprit in this case is a Muslim and wants to be put to death because he will become a martyr and as a martyr his religious beliefs promise him great rewards in his afterlife. What are a few moments of pain to trade for an eternity of bliss? So does the government give him the martyrdom he craves or “mercifully” give him only life without parole?

China and most Muslim countries have no problem with the death penalty, nor are they particularly concerned with how it is administered. China simply shoots the culprit in the back of the head so that he falls forward into a grave, unless they want to harvest some of his organs in which case a knowledgeable surgeon is standing by. The Saudis normally behead the culprit with a sword, although sometimes they use a firing squad and rarely stone the victim to death. They have public executions and see the beheadings as a form of entertainment. Many different offenses merit a sentence of death. Most Muslim countries have the death penalty and many apply it generously. The Saudis are pushing upwards of a hundred executions so far this year.

Carrying out the death penalty in this country is about as expensive as a life sentence because of the lengthy appeal process and the increased expense of housing death row prisoners. Neither does the death penalty seem to be very effective in deterring crime; the murder rate in states with the death penalty has actually been higher than for non-death penalty states. There is also an enormous disparity among the states in the legal assistance to indigent people accused of capital crimes. This disparity is partially responsible for the fact that Texas has a very high rate of executions. The Texas legal system is widely different from that in other states particularly in the quality of legal counsel supplied to indigent people accused of capital crimes.

Then we have the problem of the FBIs unreliable analysis of hair samples: of 21 thousand comparisons made before year 2000 all were found to be unreliable. Then the government prosecutors got to decide whether or not to share that news with the defendant’s counsel; talk about stacking the deck! There are many other examples of laboratory failures which helped the prosecution and you can find them on the web. When people speak of “American Exceptionalism” I doubt that implementing the death penalty is what they have in mind.

 

April 20^th

Today Pat Buchanan’s column is titled, “Stumbling into war With Russia;” this bit of comforting analysis is from “The National Interest” a journal founded by Irving Kristol (Bill’s dad) and devoted to opinions reflecting the national interest. Well, that’s what they say on their web site.

The flashpoint, according to these savants, is the Ukraine. We are sending troops to train the Ukraine Army; Pat’s people claim the training is to fight the Russians. Putin claims the pro-Russians rebels will not be crushed even if Russian troops must be fully engaged. What nonsense: the Russian advances into Ukraine should be stopped where it is now. The Russian move into Ukraine has focused on the eastern portions of the country; the Crimea for example is over 75 percent ethnic Russian, the eastern Ukraine provinces are somewhat less but still heavily ethnic Russian. If they were given the opportunity of a plebiscite they would probably elect to join Russia. Fighting a war to keep them in the Ukraine would be absurd; fighting to stop Russia from advancing any further isn’t!

President Obama is said to “enjoy attempting to humiliate Putin and includes Russia in his list of current scourges….” Putin regularly sends long range bombers to test the NATO air defenses causing them to scramble fighters to meet the threat. Does replying to these provocations humiliate Putin? Putin is humiliating himself: His message, through his ambassador, to tiny Denmark (pop less than 6 million) is that if “they join a NATO missile defense force they could be targeted with nukes.” Oh my; what difference would that make in an all-out nuclear exchange between Russia and NATO?

At this point with the drop in oil prices and the application of economic sanctions the Russian economy is hardly a comfort to Putin’s kleptocratic allies. While he rules unimpeded, a consequence of his complete control of the press, this situation might not last indefinitely. He might have to do more than ride a horse bare chested and otherwise play the macho boy.

It is also possible that “The National Interest” will have, as part of their next message of gloom, a few suggestions about how to remedy the situations they complain about. I know that asking any such organization to turn from opening Pandora’s Box to dealing with the results…but we can hope.

April 18^th

Factcheck has some interesting comments about Rand Paul this morning; he now thinks better of some nasty remarks he made about Dick Cheney. Paul pointed out that Dick was monumentally opposed to invading Iraq when he was Bush 41’s advisor, then after a hiatus from government to head Schlumberger, he reversed course and advised Bush ’43 that invading Iraq and getting its oil fields was a really great idea. Paul tries to claim that the switcheroo on his anti-Cheney comments were made before he was a candidate…not that the remarks weren’t true you understand, just that they were made before he was a candidate for the Senate and therefore clearly not politic. And so it goes.

Here we switch to Governor Christie who has plans for Social Security (SS); he begins by raising the age for full benefits to 69 instead of 67, the age for full benefits now. He has also suggested a means test: full benefits will be reduced if income from non SS sources reaches 80 thousand dollars a year and the benefits are stopped if the non SS income is over 200 thousand dollars a year. The means test is a good idea.

This will surely help to extend SS solvency but why not increase the base level on which the tax is levied? For incomes up to 118.5 thousand dollars a year the SS tax is 6.2 percent of wages and this must be matched by the employer. If your income is 237 thousand dollars a year your SS tax rate then drops to 3.1 percent and continues to decrease the more your income increases. How delightful for highly paid folks! If we kept the same SS tax rate and increased the base to say 474 thousand dollars and included some of the other changes Christie suggests we might have SS solvency well into the future.

 However, raising the age at which SS can be obtained is not a particularly good idea. Granted, it will save on the amount disbursed but it will have another less welcome effect. The jobs that would be vacated by the retirees if they left at 67 will not then be available for another two years until these workers retire at 69. That doesn’t seem very smart when we need more employment. If anything we should be trying to reduce the age at which people can retire in order to create more jobs. Increasing the base on which the tax is based could do that.

An additional point: some many years ago my sons were talking about SS and complaining that there would be no benefit for them when they reached retirement age. I pointed out that they, in their late teens and very early twenties, were already benefiting from SS. They didn’t understand how that could be. Then I told them that because their grandparents had SS payments I had a reduced obligation to provide for them and that allowed me to pay for their college tuition and support their college education. The benefits of SS payments accrue not just to the retirees who receive them but to others as well. People should be more aware of that.

 

 

 

 

 

April 17^th

Somebody’s lying; it looks like it’s somebody, maybe several somebodies, in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, police department. Tulsa is where Mr. Bates, a 73 year old deputy, mistook his .357 magnum for a Taser and shot a struggling felon in the back. When interviewed later, flanked by his attorney and some grim-faced female relatives he commented that such mistakes were not all that unusual. He’s sorry; but hey, stuff happens.

It seems that Mr. Bates training records are “missing” from the department files. Oh pshaw! Bates claims he had all of the training he was supposed to get, and that he has a signed paper to prove it. That’s not very convincing given that three officers claimed that he did not pass the appropriate firearm tests. Instead of de-certifying Bates the three officers were transferred to other duties. (That’ll teach them!)

Mr. Bates has a particularly cozy relationship with the police chief who is also well up in years. Bates is a very wealthy insurance man who has donated much money to the police department; he also chaired, and generously contributed to, the police chief Stanley Glanz’s re-election campaign. When asked about this interesting potential conflict of interest Glanz is quoted as saying, “What, I’m not supposed to have friends?” Chief Glanz, and the deputies who were busy swearing at this quickly dying felon on the ground, are all a bit tone deaf to appropriate police procedures. Their comments are on the record.

The Chief is not apologizing for his coziness with Bates; he’s said he would do nothing different if he had to do it again. Bates is quite apologetic about the killing…although he claims mistaking his .357 magnum for his Taser, “Could happen to anybody.” Possibly; but this is probably more likely to happen to 73 year old guys who may not have had the expected training. Most police departments require officers to retire well before 73; they can serve longer but must pass a rigorous physical test first.

The Tulsa Police Department is investigating itself in this matter. While Bates has been charged with manslaughter it is unlikely that he will actually do any time. He does have friends in high places and that is a better weapon than a good attorney. On the other hand, Bates is heard on tape confessing to a mistake when he shot Eric Harris; now the question is how much Eric Harris’ heirs will collect from the Tulsa Police Department for wrongful death; probably a lot more than Bates has contributed to that police department.

Lest we think this is just a peculiarity of southern police departments, consider the case of Oakley, Michigan; this hamlet of slightly less than 300 people had a reserve force of over 100 deputies. That was until just last year when the state of Michigan began looking into the sale of these credentials by the police chief.  If you are looking for a chance to become a licensed deputy and carry a gun wherever you wish there are surely other tiny municipalities eager to make a buck. Hey, money talks just listen around!

April 16^th

No right wing columnists for me to dispute today, but O’Reilly of Fox News has decided that liberals are at war with the police so that’s worthy of comment. We now have more and more evidence that some police departments and some individual officers are loose cannons; they are simply out of control. The recent spate of police actions documented by cameras, some from bystanders, some from patrol car cameras, give us views of police misbehavior we’ve never had before and the public is outraged by it!

The worst example is the shooting of a fleeing black man in North Charleston, South Carolina who was shot multiple times in the back by a patrol officer who was in no danger whatever and standing about thirty feet from his fleeing victim. Following the killing the policeman handcuffs the man he shot. If he’s not alive why handcuff him; if he is alive why not call for an ambulance? This was all recorded by a bystander who went to the police to tell them he had photographed the whole thing. He was told to wait while the officer reported this news to his superiors. He left while he still had the tape and it eventually made its way to the New York Times. The bystander movie of the killing bore little relationship to the police report of the incident. The cop who shot that man has now been discharged and is being held on a murder charge.

The odds are that in spite of the evidence against him, he will not be convicted. Grand juries are reluctant to indict police officers. Consider the case of five police officers in New York City who tackled a black man for selling individual cigarettes, a misdemeanor. He was brought to the ground in a choke hold and died on the spot. He told the arresting officers, “I can’t breathe.” But they didn’t believe him so he died. No indictment against the officers was forthcoming. Curiously some maintained that if he could speak, “I can’t breathe” well then he obviously could breathe. But when you speak you do so by expelling air, not inhaling it. He was expelling air he already had inhaled.

The standard police excuse for killing someone is that they thought their lives were in danger, they thought that the screwdriver was a pistol and so on. If that doesn’t work some carry a drop gun. This is an unregistered handgun they take from the police property room and put in a holster strapped to their ankle. If they’re worried about the legitimacy of killing someone they just drop that hand gun at the scene, making sure of course that the victim’s fingerprints are on it; good insurance for a bad shoot. The cop who shot the fleeing man in North Charleston is photographed dropping something next to the victim’s body. Maybe it was the Taser the cop claimed the victim took from him; who knows.

If this is a “war on cops” the police, by their tendency to lie about what they’ve done and assume that they have the right to shoot anyone who “disrespects” them, will have brought it on themselves. Now that almost everyone has a camera this is a war they will lose.

April 15^th

Cal Thomas has decided to join the right wing attacks on Hillary Clinton. His title concerns Hillary reinventing herself. That’s a bit over-the-top, perhaps changing her emphasis night be more accurate. Actually, so have most of the right wing candidates and potential candidates. They’re now voicing some mild outrage about income inequality; isn’t that amazing? This is from right wingers no less. But on specific issues like raising the minimum wage, there is not one of them who thinks that would be a good idea.

Cal has some trouble coming up with much evidence about Hillary’s “reinvention” so he spends considerable column inches writing about Nixon whom he claims tried to reinvent himself. Cal’s column actually occupies about 24 column inches of newsprint in the morning paper and about half of that is spent discussing “The New Nixon.” Yes, I measured it!

Cal finally gets around to trashing Hillary but it is a second hand job. He cites one Jerry Zeifman who has a book about Hillary and her awfulness. Zeifman was an attorney employed to investigate the Watergate events along with a host of other lawyers, one of whom was Hillary Rodham. This was 36 years ago and before she was married to Bill Clinton. Zeifman really despises Hillary; he despises her so much that he has written a whole book, well a small whole book, describing his distaste for her. This book is quoted extensively by Cal and of course Zeifman is a welcome guest on Fox News where his opinions are accepted without question. The book is self-published by Zeifman and has, at this writing, a grand total of nine reviews.

Zeifman in the past has claimed he fired Hillary; he did no such thing and recently he changed his tune a bit when Snopes caught him in this lie. He now says he would have fired her if he could. It happens that there were two sets of attorneys investigating Watergate. One set, headed by Zeifman, was employed by the judicial committee, the other bunch of attorneys was headed by John Doar and they were employed to investigate impeachment proceedings. It was Doar’s group of attorneys which employed Hillary. Zeifman was not Hillary’s superior and could not have fired her no matter how much he despised her. All of this information is provided by Snopes who did a thorough investigation of these matters; too bad Cal, better luck next time.

April 14^th

 

Mona Charen has brought forth, yet again, an argument about the cause of the late and unlamented housing disaster. She titles her effort, “Still worth arguing about.” I doubt that, but Mona has latched on to a new book written by a demi-god from the American Enterprise Institute named Peter J. Wallison whose politics about this issue are agreeable to her. Naturally enough she must revisit all the old arguments.

According to Wallison the fault was entirely the government's, what else? The government demanded that more and more loans be created encouraging people who couldn’t afford expensive housing to borrow money and get into the market. He is entirely right about that but the crises had more contributors; the big banks which repackaged these risky mortgages and flogged them to the market was also at fault; particularly when the whole business began to go sour.

Mona claims that Wallison’s book, “Hidden in Plain Sight” makes a convincing case for why the received wisdom is wrong; the credit- default swaps, predatory lending and other nastys were not at fault here, government policy created the financial crisis at every step. Her recitation of Wallison’s points could have come directly from the description of the book’s contents listed on Amazon. She mentions nothing that you couldn’t read in the book’s description. So, did Mona read the book, or just its description on Amazon? Who knows?

Mr. Wallison message has had some detractors: They point to the incontrovertible fact that other real estate than housing also suffered a disastrous decline, that other countries than ours, without our benign loan  arrangements, also suffered declines and that the proportion of government arranged loans had been declining since 2000. Wollaston addresses none of these issues; Charen doesn’t care.

The Amazon’s listing for this book has a large number of five star and an almost equal number of one star reviews. That is very unusual. The publisher, a devotee of right wing causes, has, in a fit of pique, ceased sending books for review to the Times book review. Apparently this is not a publisher committed to presenting even-handed viewpoints.

Charen concludes by telling us that, “Voters need to know that the greatest risk to their financial security is benign sounding government assistance.” Perhaps she should try to convince recipients of food stamps, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare of that.

April 13^th

Pat Buchanan is back again; still with his litany of unhappiness about how badly Christians are being abused. He claims that, “…Then followed the demand that no child be exposed to prayers or religious books nor have any day of the week set aside as a holiday if connected to Christianity. Out went Christmas and Easter in came winter break and spring break.”

Which public schools are open for classes on Sunday Pat? Which prayers and religious books should children be exposed to in our public schools? Don’t members of all faiths pay school taxes? Suppose we have a few weeks a year for Muslim prayers, perhaps time for Hindu and Sikh rituals? If we did that Pat would have apoplexy. He says, “Out went Christmas and Easter and in came winter and spring break.” That’s not even true in Washington D.C. Pat. Their school calendar does speak of winter break and spring break rather than Christmas and Easter…but they specifically mention Easter Monday as a holiday.

Of course there are other cities and other school systems that list their holidays differently; you probably didn’t bother to look at them. NYC public schools list Rosh Hashanah, Sept. 25^th as a holiday, as well as Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Passover. I have no idea whether or not your comments referred just to the D.C. school system but that system is substantially smaller than New York City’s and there are many other school calendars across the country You need to get out more Pat, get out of the beltway and broaden your horizons.

Pat has a continuing problem with gay rights; he says, “first they demand that a bar…catering to homosexuals be left alone by the cops.” Then homosexuality becomes decriminalized and finally same sex marriage will be a right hidden in the constitution. No Pat that right, like the right to marry someone of a different “race,” was there all along.   

Pat seems to believe that the constitution can be set aside by majority vote; it can’t. Pat doesn’t understand SCOTUS very well. He says, “How is it that the greatest generation let itself…be dictated to by nine old men with lifetime tenure?”  It’s hard to know what Pat’s talking about here (There haven’t been nine old men on the court for nearly thirty-five years.) but it’s probably civil rights, legislation that Pat’s had stuck in his craw now for fifty years.  The greatest generation was composed of some black folks and white folks and maybe they all thought that black folks deserved better than to risk dying just to come back to second class citizenship. I guess Pat didn’t, and doesn’t, agree. 

Then on civil rights Pat claims, “That the segregationists held a pair of deuces. But a Christian majority that had the faith that created Western Civilization behind it rolled over and played dead. Christians watched, paralyzed, as their country was taken away from them.” Pat has always had trouble with civil rights and now he turns it back into a religious issue. Pat, even the Southern Baptists have apologized for their stand during and after the civil war. Civil rights legislation was decided 50 years ago Pat, get used to it.

April 12^th

Rand Paul has now been a Presidential candidate for about a week and he has already managed to irritate a surprising number of people. He has declared that members of both parties want to increase defense spending as he does but that he alone doesn’t want to borrow the money to do that; he prefers to cut funding for other programs.

Tell us Senator, exactly what programs will you cut? The Senator hasn’t made that explicit but it probably won’t be any portion of the new farm bill, the one that for the first time provides price support for rice farmers and peanut farmers.

Finding more money for national defense will surely not require any tax increases. The money will have to come from cuts in existing programs and we all know what sorts of programs Paul has in mind. They’ll be social programs. His new-found populist image probably doesn’t extend to holding the line on money for food stamps or Medicare. Still, we‘ll have to wait and see; just don’t hold your breath!

He was also asked about his nastiness, particularly when facing those really mean female interviewers. He insisted that he had the greatest respect for women interviewers, that he treated them exactly like men. That’s unlikely; when Kelly Evans of CNBC interviewed him recently his frustrated comment to her was, “Calm down now Kelly….” Isn’t that exactly what he might say to a fractious ten-year old? Paul made a considerable point that during these encounters he doesn’t raise his voice and he doesn’t lose his temper. That’s true he always speaks very calmly, indeed almost without emotion.

In his medical school rotation he should have had a stint in psychiatry where, assuming he was paying attention, he would have learned about passive-aggressive personalities. Aggression doesn’t always involve screaming, throwing crockery and threatening mayhem. The classic passive aggressive ploy is to belittle the target, exactly the, “Calm down now Kelly…” he pulled on Kelly Evans. He would like people to believe that he was being the sole of reasonableness during the exchange; that’s exactly what the passive-aggressive personality aims for, to create the impression that they aren’t hostile at all.

That might work for a while but his comments about the far right of his own party as well as the progressives, don’t really leave many politicians who might be willing to support him.

April 10^th

Cal Thomas today is caught between a rock and a hard place, or between Scylla and Charybdis if you want a more literary metaphor. Cal is in a terrible position because he must choose to believe either the Obama administration or the Iranians. What’s a conservative to do?

Of course he begins by telling us a half-truth, he writes, “The United States is asked to foolishly believe promises by a regime that is religiously motivated to eliminate Israel and ultimately the United States, is the premier sponsor of terrorism in the world….” and Cal continues to demonize the Iranians at some considerable length; perhaps his contract pays him by the word. The half-truth here is that we are certainly not asked to believe anything the Iranians agree to without verification. Inspection is at the heart of any agreement with the Iranians; the “trust but verify” old chestnut should be familiar to Cal Thomas.

Unfortunately, while Cal doesn’t trust the Iranians, he doesn’t trust this administration either. He repeats what he apparently believes is a silly line by Nancy Pelosi that we must wait until Obamacare passes to find out what’s in it. He seems to be so hopelessly ignorant of the way legislation moves through the Congress that he doesn’t know bills can be amended, and even the amendments amended until the bill is passed. Of course no one will know what’s in the bill until it’s passed. Do try to read up on this Cal.

The Iranian negotiator, Javad Zarif, has accused Secretary Kerry of “misleading the American people” about what is in this agreement with Iran. Even though Cal Thomas accuses Iranian negotiators of bad faith, of lying, and that we might expect most Americans to side with the President on this issue; not so, Cal says. He obviously prefers the Iranian viewpoint but he doesn’t say why; he just finds the Iranians truthful in this instance and the Americans unbelievable. Could he have a political bias that leads him to prefer these godless Iranians to representatives of his own country? It seems he does!

He finishes with some childish comments about the Iranian negotiator’s Muslim religion. Here is a quote, “Did Secretary Kerry ask Zaraf if he had heard from Allah lately and whether Allah had changed his mind about the destruction of Israel, the eradication of the Jewish people and the elimination of the United States?” There is more of the same but why quote it? Why should anyone take a columnist seriously who writes such drivel? So Cal believes we should first insult the Iranian’s religious beliefs and then try to negotiate a treaty with them against nuclear armament?

If this treaty doesn’t come off Cal Thomas will be right there saying, “I told you so.” He’ll also be one of the commentators helping to kill it.

April 9^th

I watched Rand Paul announce his Presidential bid a day or so ago. He certainly had something for everyone. I heard him say that, “If there were any laws that disproportionately incarcerate people of color they will be repealed.” That might get him some votes from “people of color” but the better course might be to remedy the situations that lead people of color disproportionately to break the laws. But hey, if you’re going to pander you might as well go whole hog!

He railed at considerable length about the enormous debt the country has, which happens when you have unfunded wars, but then he came to his tax plan, or rather his no tax plan. He is pushing an income tax plan which he calls the EZ Tax. This is a flat tax of 17 percent on all wages. There would be exemptions and deductions so far unspecified; but then you’ll pay 17 percent on the balance. That’ll be 17 percent whether your salary is 50 thousand dollars or 50 million dollars. The Senator clearly believes that everyone should be treated the same.

On second thought, not entirely the same because there will be no federal income tax whatever on dividends, capital gains or estates. This means that if you have a five million dollar nest egg and you invest that at just five percent the 250 thousand dollar yearly income will be entirely free of federal tax and when you’re dead your kids can continue the tax free income. This will encourage more stock market “investment” because the profits from it will be untaxed, indeed profits probably will not even need to be reported. I’ll bet many rich folks will know a good thing when they see it and start shoving money into Rand’s campaign.

Most tax gurus claim that Paul’s EZ Tax plan will cost the treasury about 700 billion dollars a year compared with the current tax system. Not to worry though because Paul plans to cut spending. What spending does he plan to cut? He hasn’t said but his mantra is small government. When he starts cutting defense spending and crosses those Senators and Representatives with big defense plants in their districts he’ll hit a buzz saw! Still, it’s nice to contemplate such low taxes even if it’s just another politician offering pie in the sky.

Pushing his agenda on the tube has caused Paul some trouble. On CNBC, the business channel, he told Kelly Evans who was interviewing him to “calm down.” Later on he managed to contest the stage with Savannah Guthrie of NBC, telling her, “No, no, no…” eight times so as to get his very subtle points across; points he was sure she failed to understand. I wonder if he would try that arrogance on Joe Scarborough if he is interviewed on “Morning Joe?” The Senator does have an understandable problem with arrogance: He is the son of a Congressman; he got early admission to an elite medical school; he was elected to the Senate as his first elective office; he is a candidate for President and he is also a bit short. All of these can be avenues to arrogance. Maybe his arrogance will disappear if he faces a strong male interviewer. When that happens it should be fun to watch!

April 8^th

Mona Charen believes that we just have too many victims.  “Victim status is the only prism through which progressives see American life.” This sentence is from a recent column. It’s exaggerated of course. I’m a progressive and I certainly don’t consider Mona Charen to be a victim, well, perhaps a victim of her own near-sighted conservative views.

According to Mona the only real victims worthy of the name in this country are blacks. The descendants of former slaves are truly victims, no one else need apply! Mona says, “There is no analogizing the black experience to other groups.” Nonsense! Mona has apparently never heard about our treatment of Native Americans. Since there are so few of them left there’s no reason to worry about what we did to them, right Mona?

Mona parodies the Biblical “In the beginning’ verses: “In the beginning there was discrimination against blacks and we saw that it was bad. And then there was discrimination against women and we said, “Just as it is wrong to discriminate against blacks, it is wrong to discriminate against women.” And then Mona claims that by analogy this mantra was applied to just all sorts of groups…but she says that doesn’t hold. Because the treatment of blacks has been so bad that nothing could be analogous to it. No one denies that the treatment of blacks has been bad, indeed terrible, but the way to stop that from happening to another group is to take action when discrimination starts. I guess Charen would prefer to wait and hope that the rash of current attacks against Mosques and Synagogues would just stop.

She claims that liberals have argued that “women were just like American blacks persecuted for centuries by sexism and needing affirmative action…”( I think Mona Charen wants to assume the robes of Phyllis Schlafly who wants women to stay in the kitchen and under their husband’s thumbs.) Charen must believe it’s just fine for government programs to give more support per capita to men’s athletic programs than to women’s. Tell us Mona, should women have the vote? Should they be paid the same wage for the same work? Perhaps they should all wear Burkas in the work place lest men become uncontrollably aroused.

To suggest that there are no victims worthy of the name because none of them have endured what black Americans have endured is to suggest that we ignore finding a cure for the common cold because it isn’t as bad as pneumonia…more nonsense from the right!

 

 

 

April 7^th

Pat Buchanan, in a recent column, has cited a 1972 article in “The Atlantic” by Richard Herrnstein which Pat claims “demonstrates that heredity rather than environment determines intelligence.” First, the article is now 44 years old and badly out of date; second it didn’t demonstrate any such thing even when it was written. Until everyone is raised in the same way with exactly the same environment we cannot possibly know what contribution genes make to intelligence and we are a long way from anything like that. Then we have a little problem called epigenetics. This means that the expression of certain genes is altered by the chemical environment in which they find themselves. For example, we humans have the necessary genes to develop tails, that’s right—tails. Neither we nor the other great apes have tails but the genes are there for us to produce them.

But Pat is not really concerned with genetics; his major message is to advise us about a very selective high school, the Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County. This place is elite indeed. It teaches all kinds of upper level college material, even differential equations. It admits just three percent of its applicants. That’s much more selective than any of the Ivy League colleges.

Now Pat makes his primary point: the largest ethnic group admitted there are Asians the smallest group are Blacks; the Caucasians fall in between. Pat claims that Asians are taking over and he asks why: is it their work ethic; is it that their parents monitor their homework? He seems to have no answer. But then he did start this piece by citing Herrnstein on genetics and intelligence.

This premier high school is attempting to diversify its admissions program. Pat says that, “This is bureaucratic gobbledygook for saying they are going to start looking closer at the race and ethnicity of student applicants to bring in some and reject others. Race discrimination against Asians is coming to Fairfax County.” Not necessarily!

First we need to know the criteria for admission to this school. If they accept only three percent of applicants then they are probably turning away some academically well qualified students for trivial, non-academic reasons: does the kid who spends summers in France get the nod over an equally well qualified kid who has never been out of Virginia?  What evidence is there that this student will be the higher achiever? There may be dozens of equivalent hurdles that have no validity whatever against an academic criteria.

Very selective colleges have the same problem: they could admit another, and perhaps still another, equally well qualified first year class, so in an effort to winnow the applicant pile they start using admission criteria of questionable, or no, validity. Will this effort lead to more Caucasian and Black students? Possibly not, but the problem could be solved by helping these students meet legitimate criteria for admission to an academically demanding school. Buchanan would prefer to rant about the possibility that discrimination could be used to equalize the ethnic groups rather than work to help improve the groups that are under-represented.

 

 

 

April 6^th

 

Today we’ll look at our local Congressional Representative Dr. Dan Benishek. “Dr. Dan” as he refers to himself in his publicity efforts, is a third term Congressman from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Before taking up politics he was a surgeon employed in various places and for a considerable time as a physician working for the Veteran’s Administration.

When Dr. Dan was initially campaigning for his Congressional seat he claimed that he would not serve more than three terms in Congress. Now, however, he has changed his mind and plans to seek a fourth term. He claims that there is much legislative work he still wants to do. He isn’t specific about exactly what that is although he has ranted continuously against “Obama Care;” if he plans to stay in Congress until that’s repealed he may be there for a while.

One of his favorite complaints is the many failures of the Veteran’s Administration. Certainly the administration of that agency is a disgrace and Dr. Dan, as a physician, claims he has the expertise to do something about it. Perhaps so; but Dr. Dan also claims to have been employed as a VA physician for many years; what effort did he make to change things while he was there?  Physicians usually have considerable clout, particularly surgeons. Did Dr. Dan really have to wait until he was in Congress to realize the VA’s shortcomings and try to change them?

Then there is the Farm Bill which he voted for; this piece of pork provided, for the first time, subsidies for peanut growers and rice farmers. It also cut the funds available for food stamps, cut them by a lot. I’m not familiar with any peanut growers or rice farmers in Dr. Dan’s district; but there are a lot of people in his district who rely on food stamps. I wonder if Dr. Dan knows any of these folks.

Dr. Dan (who is usually pictured in a white lab coat) is a social conservative as well as a fiscal conservative. He is convinced that life begins at conception and is opposed to abortion. In fact he supported a bill to outlaw any information about abortion in sex education classes. This means that fifteen-year-old kids will get their knowledge about abortion from what reliable source?  There isn’t much doubt that a fertilized ovum is alive; all cells in the body are alive except those being sloughed off. The critical issue is whether this fertilized cell is a human being. If it is then I guess all acorns are oak trees!

Maybe it’s time Dr. Dan retired.  Florida is said to be just delightful this time of year.

 

April 5^th

 

Senator John Thune is the topic, albeit indirectly, of today’s blog. Thune has decided to oppose the “death tax” as he calls it. There is a six-column spread in this morning’s paper labeled Thune’s “tax distortions.” Thune claims that, “about a third of the farms are liable to pay the estate tax.” Thune is basing his claim on the estate tax of 2000, fifteen years ago a when the exemption was just 675 thousand dollars; that exemption is now over five million dollars, or close to 11 million if you are married. The result is that with a bit of estate planning virtually no one, even those with 20 million in transferrable assets pays any inheritance tax.

There is no doubt whatever that Thune is distorting the facts about this tax. Is he a liar? That’s harsh but if Thune new that what he was saying was false to fact, then he was lying. So far there has been no correction from Thune’s office, no attempts to dodge the obvious conclusion that Thune’s assertions were grossly misleading. Well, so what else is new; some Senators and many lesser politicians lie all the time.

That’s true, but you might expect Thune to be a special case; he graduated from Biola University in California. This is a seriously conservative and fundamentalist Christian college; all graduating students must take seven prescribed courses in Bible and three additional elective courses in Bible to graduate.  When they are hired, and again before they get tenure, each faculty member must sign a document asserting that they agree with the strict inerrancy of the Bible. And now if Senator Thune, this prominent graduate, is deliberating misleading people with his message, what good did all that Bible study do?

The background of some politicians is irrelevant, if it’s in that politician’s interest to shade the truth, to mislead, or to lie, all the religious or ethical training they might previously have had matters not at all. That’s too bad, of course, but it is instructive: For all too many politicians those issues favorable to their interests will be exaggerated while those unfavorable to them will be minimized.

We shouldn’t blame Thune; he might have been more straightforward when he took office but a few years observing how the system works effectively slants the view of many men of initial good character. They see how it’s done so some of them go and do likewise.

So is this a cynical viewpoint? Of course it is, but it is obvious that some politicians try to persuade, while others try to mislead. Don’t depend on their backgrounds to tell them apart.

 

 

April 4^th

Carly Fiorina, at the most recent meeting of CPAC, pummeled Hilary Clinton to a fare-thee-well. The reception she received for this effort has helped encourage her to claim that “There is a 90 percent chance I’ll be a candidate for the Presidency.” Let us all hope so! The more wing-nuts who run for the Presidency, the more right wing money gets spent on losing causes. It does seem that if a dog barks at Hillary Clinton some right winger will want it to run for the Presidency!

Mrs. Fiorina is well known in Republican circles; she is also very well known to people at Hewlett-Packard (HP) and to folks who tried to get Senator John McCain elected President in 2008.

 We’ll look at her HP career first: Mrs. Fiorina was the CEO of HP when HP acquired Compaq Computer. This merger was completed against the advice of Walter Hewlett, the son of one of HPs founders. But Carly Fiorina and her minions overrode these objections and bought another low margin computer business; that, and other mistakes, caused a substantial drop in HP’s stock…about 50 percent. That was a no-no.

Then came cost cutting, anything to recoup profits; that didn’t work either in spite of terminating 18 thousand employees. The result of all this was that after more than five-and-a-half years as HP’s CEO Carly was canned.  You have a problem when you act against the express advice of the son of one of the company’s founders…and you are dead wrong about what you did. But let us not mourn for poor Carly because she is by no means poor Carly; her severance package after screwing up this company and sacking 18 thousand employees was to receive a separation payment valued at 40 million dollars. Who says failure doesn’t pay off.

In 2008 Carly Fiorina becomes the feminine face among John McCain’s advisors in his quest for the Presidency. In an interview she claimed that while Sara Palin was being unfairly harassed by the media she still didn’t have the skills to run a company like HP, indeed neither did John McCain. (She neglected to mention that she didn’t either!) The result of this absence of judgment was that she was moved away from direct public contact by the McCain campaign.

Her next effort was to contest the senate seat of Barbara Boxer in California.  This did not work any better because she tried to demonize Ms. Boxer who turned Carly’s efforts right back at her. And now Carly Fiorina is considering a run for the presidency. We can only hope that she decides to go ahead with that choice.

April 3^rd

Yesterday I responded to many of the misrepresentations in today’s column from Cal Thomas. (I guess I should have waited twenty-four hours to write yesterday’s blog.) Let’s look at some of Cal’s fumbles in his current column: He begins his defense of Governor Pence and his infamous law by claiming that allowing public businesses to refuse service to certain people on the basis of the business owners religious beliefs is similar to refusing service to people without a necktie showing up to dine in an upscale restaurant. I’m sure Cal would never commit such a gaucherie but if he had he would quickly discover that most such upscale eateries maintain a closet of jackets and ties for patrons who arrive lacking them. If a gay couple shows up, their failure to conform would be difficult to determine and, if found out, impossible to remedy with a necktie.

Cal Thomas tells us that Swiss Guards insisting that you can’t wear shorts when visiting the Vatican, or restaurant signs saying “No shoes no shirt, no service,” are the same as Indiana’s law restricting access to public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation. Really?  Here is a quote, “Should the government force any of these entities to violate their standards? That is the issue in Indiana, the latest front in the culture wars.” Cal Thomas believes businesses requiring dress codes to obtain restaurant service are equivalent to businesses requiring you to be heterosexual? Can anyone read this without gagging?

Then he gives us the usual, “Barak Obama voted for a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1998. Other states have similar measures…” Horse hockey! Notice the weasel words, “A version of” and “similar to.” Cal says nothing at all about the differences involved in these “versions” and “similarities.” His aim as usual is to befuddle, not enlighten.

According to Cal Thomas the problem can be laid at the feet of the left wing liberal establishment co-opted by the LGBT community for its own purposes…oh yes and aided and abetted by the left-leaning liberal press. This is the reflexively uttered excuse for any screw-ups the right wing has had to answer for.

As I wrote yesterday, the businesses objecting to this law are surely a mixed bag politically and they object because they worry about their bottom line. Walmart in Arkansas, Angie’s List in Indiana are hardly left wing and neither of them is likely to be swayed by issues not directly influencing their revenues. Neither is the Republican Mayor of Indianapolis who urged Pence to change the law before Indianapolis’ convention business dried up.

Cal Thomas is a columnist whose views are in the mainstream of the far right wing of his party, and, as usual, on the wrong side of history. If they prevail, and it looks like they will, Hillary Clinton, or indeed any other Democrat, has nothing to worry about in 2016.

 

April 2^nd

The Governor of Indiana, Mike Spence, has been much in the news lately and it’s all the fault of the media’s distortions of his signature new push to protect religious freedom. Unfortunately Sam’s religious freedom, which is protected by this law, frees him to discriminate against Joe whose lifestyle Sam finds objectionable on religious grounds. Pence claims his law doesn’t do any such thing; he himself really hates discrimination, hates it all to pieces. He is almost teary eyed when he recites his participation in the 45^th anniversary of the Selma March. Of course there are many different kinds of people against whom one can discriminate, not all of them are black!

May be we should look at Pence’s voting record, and some of his comments, back when he was in Congress. In 2000 he said that Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexuals as a minority entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities. Then he wanted no federal dollars spent by organizations celebrating and encouraging behaviors that led to the spread of HIV. The money should instead be directed toward Conversion Therapy. He opposed “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” He opposed the Mathew Shepard Hate crimes Act because pastors would be punished for expressing a Biblical world view on the issue of homosexual behavior. (Matthew Shepard was a 21 year old University of Wyoming student murdered because he was gay; the murderers are each serving life sentences.) This was Congressman Spence’s view on issues involving the LGBT community. This is an interesting history for someone who despises discrimination.

Pence’s legislation met with outrage from many good conservative sources. He claimed that it was just “misunderstood” and misrepresented by the media. That line of chat didn’t work at all. Many major corporations said that Indiana would not see any more of their business until everyone, including the LGBT community, was accommodated. Even Angie’s List, headquartered in Indiana and a major donor to Spence’s campaigns, criticized the law; even so, he said he wouldn’t modify it…then. Now he has changed his mind; the law has been modified so that business owners doing business with the public will not be protected from a lawsuit if they refuse service on a claim that their religious beliefs forbid providing that service to certain people. This means that if you hold a religious belief that would be violated by doing business with some members of the public don’t get into a business requiring you to serve the public.

There is a lot of bigotry Indiana law still permits, as Angie’s List and other big corporate names have pointed out, and they want that changed.  You can still be fired or denied housing because of your sexual preference. Spence hasn’t fixed that and he probably won’t unless his feet continue to be held close to the economic fire.

For the time being Spence’s problem may be reduced just slightly, but now he has to deal with all the bigots who were patting him on the back for his firm and heroic stand in favor of religious freedom. They’re mad about any change in the law. The supporters of the original unmodified law include every major declared and undeclared Republican Presidential candidate! Gee, what’s a guy to do?

April 1^st

This is April fool’s day; a day to play silly tricks on your friends and to be careful opening unexpected packages, there might be kids hiding in the bushes ready to laugh at your gullibility. Cal Thomas has a column in today’s paper. (It’s not an April fool’s joke, at least not according to Cal. You might see it differently.) He has very little new to say, nothing really, but he has an obligation to put something on paper, so he does what he is generously paid to do; he attacks Hillary  Clinton’s email policy….again!

Cal uses about six column inches constructing a parody of Clinton’s presumed email difficulties using lines from “The Sound of Music” This silliness does fill some necessary space but his theme is just a regurgitation of the usual criticisms:  Hillary claims she has wiped her server clean but he says we can’t believe her. He reminds us that Lois Lerner claimed her emails were lost but then it turns out they weren’t. Apparently if Lois Lerner’s emails could be found, why then, so could Hillary’s. (If Uncle Willy choked on a peanut don’t let peanuts into your house!) Legal training might have helped him avoid this logical lapse though, frankly, I doubt if anything could have helped him.

He goes on to tell us that, “If Hillary Clinton has nothing to hide she will turn over her server.” I’m surprised that Cal hasn’t called for a forensic examiner to give Hillary a lie detector test. He probably hasn’t thought of that possibility. Isn’t the old, “If you have nothing to hide you won’t mind….” just what the famed alcoholic Republican Senator Joe McCarthy from Wisconsin said when trying to get suspects to testify before his committee? I guess Republican methodologies never die no matter how abusive they are.

He cites Dick Morris a former Clinton helper and now a Clinton hater on the Clinton’s typing skills which Morris claims were minimal. He suggests that Clinton aides probably wrote most of the emails and therefore Cal now believes their emails should “also be subpoenaed for examination.” If this keeps up we’ll have Congress spending most of its time going over Clinton’s emails, then Clinton aide’s emails, then friends of Clinton aide’s emails, ad nauseum. (Dick Morris a very prominent Clinton hater. His forecast for the last election had the privilege of being judged worse than that of any other pundit. It was so bad that apparently Fox News dropped him for a time, such was his loss of credibility.)

It is obvious to Cal Thomas that concealing emails disqualifies one from the Presidency. The Benghazi affair killed all of four Americans and that is truly lamentable;  but the  unnecessary Iraq war, trumped up by Bush-Cheney, killed well over four thousand Americans. So who are the Republicans going after?