June 30^th

This comment will be briefer than usual. The main event today was the entrance of Governor (Sit down and shut up!) Christie into the ring of Republican candidates for the Presidency. One more, Governor Kasich of Ohio, has declared that he will declare on July 21^st. We now have a considerable number of hopeful candidates.

When numbers of any species are gathered together (This is beginning to sound like a Bible Story; it isn’t), there is usually a special name applied to the group:  we have a murmuration of starlings; a parliament of owls; a pod of whales; a richness of martins and a band of gorillas. For this group may I suggest a snarl of Republicans? Donald Trump has made it plausible and Governor Christie has made it unavoidable!

June 29^th

Pat Buchanan’s column today focuses on the Confederate battle flag and indeed all things symbolizing the Confederacy. Buchanan has never come to terms with the civil rights movement. He famously said that he, “…longed for the days when they had their places and we had ours.” He was speaking, of course, about Washington D.C. watering holes where he might now have to see other than white people.

Now he tries to equate the forgiveness by the relatives of those murdered in Charleston with the riots in other localities where police have murdered black men. The police killed people they had sworn to protect; the Charleston murderer killed people he claimed were taking over the country. Buchanan can’t see the difference between the two; his political and social blinders work just fine to disguise it.

Buchanan seems unhappy that many people see the Confederate flag as a symbol of hate and want it removed. The flag was prominently displayed by the murderer of the Charleston church goers as part of his racist “manifesto.” This Confederate battle flag, now widely used as a symbol of resistance to integration, was not much seen until the Dixiecrats pulled it out of moth balls and paraded it around at the Democratic convention in 1948. They were making a statement against Harry Truman’s desegregating of the armed forces. From then on it became a symbol of resistance to integration, peaking with the SCOTUS decision in Brown vs Board of Education.

Buchanan has now applied his favorite word to this flag battle, “cultural Marxism.” This is aptly defined as a “snarl word” for use when a much more vicious term than political correctness is required. Buchanan gets credit for its development. (It really has nothing to do with Karl Marx as any political scholar can tell you.)

Buchanan cites various southern politicians calling for removal of monuments to heroes of the Confederacy. Everyone from Senator Mitch McConnell –take down the Statue of Jefferson Davis from the Kentucky Capital—to Governor Terry McAuliffe, who, because he wants the battle flag removed from license plates is accused by Buchanan of soon wanting statues of Robert E. Lee removed from Richmond! Say what? From wanting Confederate battle flags removed from car license plates to removing Statues of Robert E. Lee? Buchanan just cannot understand that the Confederate battle flag was, and is, a symbol of resistance to equal rights for blacks and it was used as a symbol by a murderous lunatic to kill nine black worshipers in a church. I don’t recall anyone yelling, “In the name of Robert E. Lee I don’t want my kids going to school with black children!”

Buchanan claims that the “flag is not so much a symbol of hatred as an object of hatred;” it is both of course. Sally Jenkins in her Washington Post Column called the Confederacy treasonous, and it was. Buchanan says that this visceral hatred is manifest in “…equating Washington, Jefferson, John Calhoun, Andrew Jackson and Lee with Hitler’s Third Reich.” But none of these people were revolting against their country in defense of slavery except for Lee and Lee did violate the oath he took when he entered West Point. The people supporting 1960s segregation were not the founding fathers; they were Orval Faubus, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. This was the group that used the Confederate flag to fight against civil rights. Buchanan doesn’t mention any of  them.

June 28^th

Mona Charen is writing a little revisionist history in her column today; she claims that the Democrats opposed civil rights legislation which the Republicans enthusiastically supported. She points to the “Southern Manifesto” which allowed members of Congress to express their opposition to Brown vs Board of Education, a SCOTUS decision desegregating public schools. Almost all of the southern members of the House and the Senate voted for this manifesto and against desegregation. The signatories of this document were indeed Democrats but Mona doesn’t tell us that they would soon become Republicans. Desegregation had been championed by Democrats so the segregationists deserted the Democratic Party and went over to the Republican Party. Not all southerners voted for bigotry; Lyndon Johnson, Estes Kefauver and Albert Gore Sr. didn’t vote for this manifesto. Two years after this attempt to roll back the SCOTUS decision, Lyndon Baines Johnson was President of the United States and not long after that his address to the Congress contained this:

"No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long. We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law."

President Johnson also recognized that his action had lost the south for the Democratic Party, and he said so. Of course he was right; the “Solid South” is now solidly Republican and it’s because Democrats supported civil rights. Mona skips this part.

Mona Charen takes Bill Clinton to task for his eulogy of J. William Fulbright. Fulbright was a long serving Senator from Arkansas, Clinton’s home state. She claims that Fulbright was a racist; he was certainly a segregationist and possibly a racist as well. Of course so were most of the founding fathers. Jefferson and Washington both owned large numbers of slaves. It is interesting that Charen seeks out Fulbright since he revealed some serious currency manipulation between American contributors to Israel and that country’s sending the funds back here to buy favorable propaganda toward Israel. Here is some of Fulbright’s thinking forty-one years after his resignation from the Senate:

“Throughout our nation’s history two strands have coexisted uneasily; a dominant strand of democratic humanism and a lesser but durable strand of intolerant Puritanism. There has been a tendency through the years for reason and moderation to prevail as long as things are going tolerably well or as long as our problems seem clear and finite and manageable. But…when some event or leader of opinion has aroused the people to a state of high emotion, our Puritan spirit has tended to break through, leading us to look at the world through the distorting prism of a harsh and angry moralism.”

“Harsh and angry moralism;” --which party’s candidates fit  that characterization?

June 27^th

In downtown Traverse City today there was a Gay Pride parade. There were hundreds of marchers. Not all of them were gay, there were many sympathizers too, and many not in the parade, standing along the way, applauded those who marched. Michigan has a law against gay marriage but Governor Snyder has agreed that SCOTUS’ decision is now the law of the land and ordered the authorities to “fully comply” with the ruling…and then there is Texas!

Texas Governor Abbott ordered officials there to “prioritize religious objections” in complying with the law. This means that if you work for the state office that issues marriage licenses and you object to gay couples getting married you can claim your religious beliefs compel you not to comply with that request. Keep in mind that the “religious” clerk who makes this claim may not have been in a church since he was six years old, Governor Abbott allows him to hide his bigotry behind a phony religious mask. I wonder if Viet-Nam war draftees were encouraged by the then Texas Governor to exercise the same privilege. Want to bet?

Texas has no shortage of public officials outraged over the SCOTUS decision on gay marriage. No less than a sitting US Senator, Ted Cruz, has remarked about the effect of “five unelected Judges on the Supreme Court nullifying the wishes of 300 million Americans.” Most any high school kid could tell the Senator that the federal constitution which he claims to revere, and which he has sworn to uphold, specifically requires that the Justices of the Supreme Court be appointed by the President of the United States. You would suppose that a graduate of Harvard Law School would know at least as much about the Constitution of the United States as a high school kid. Can you skip the course in Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School? Probably not but maybe Cruz snoozed through the lectures on the selection of Supreme Court justices.

Then there are Cruz’s comments about this decision being in opposition to the “wishes of 300 million Americans.” That’s demonstrably horse hockey; most polls show that slightly better than 60 percent of the population support gay marriage and an equal number say that states have no right to prohibit it. One Republican panelist, S.E. Cupp, was in full support of the SCOTUS decision; she claims that the Republican Party will be a “relic” if they don’t update their rhetoric. I’m afraid it’s too late for that Ms. Cupp.

June 26^th

You really have to feel sorry for poor Justice Scalia; he has had a monumentally disappointing couple of days. First, just yesterday, his colleagues approved, again, the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and today the court has nullified prohibitions against same sex marriage. Yesterday’s decision was a resounding six to three, todays was a narrower five to four, but poor Scalia was on the losing end both times. Two days in a row his response to this disappointment has been to produce a hissy fit. Notice please that Justice Thomas and Justice Alito have also been on the wrong side of history with their decisions on these issues but they haven’t seen fit to respond like an eight year old child denied a favorite candy.

Then we have the absolute outrage from some of the Republican Presidential candidates; Governor Huckabee, “expressed calls of judicial tyranny.” Santorum pointed out that the five judges were unelected. Governor Jindal claimed that marriage issues were ordained by God. Donald Trump disgraced himself; he twittered, “Once again Bush appointed Justice John Roberts has let us down.” Trump apparently doesn’t follow this stuff very closely because Justice Roberts was today, unlike yesterday, on the side preferred by Donald Trump; in fact he wrote a dissenting opinion. Governor Rick Perry wants to begin action to amend the Constitution so that same sex marriage is prohibited. Not all Republican candidates made themselves look absurd: Jeb Bush said the he disagreed with the ruling but that it was important to respect religious freedom. Senator Graham said about the same thing. This is code for respecting the law but not requiring anyone to help in any gay marriage or any celebration thereof, assuming of course that such help would violate the helper’s religious freedom. Governor Kasich claims this is now settled law and we should move on. Oh well one out of fourteen isn’t bad; it’s unfortunate that Kasich is so far behind in the polls.

An increasing theme concerning this decision is that the court has intervened in an issue best left to the states. Regardless of any vote taken within a state, however, that state cannot pass any law that conflicts with the constitution. The constitution, and its interpreters on the Supreme Court, trump any statute passed by any state. No state can, by vote, re-institute slavery, nor can a state by vote have a hereditary monarch. The Supreme Court has simply decided that prohibiting same sex marriage violates the equal protection clause of the constitution. The only possible way around this ruling is to change the constitution. I would be very happy to bet against that happening at whatever odds anyone would care to give.

 

 

 

June 25^th

The day we’ve all been waiting for has arrived. The Supreme Court, by a six to three majority, has affirmed The Affordable Care Act’s constitutional right to continue to exist. The issue concerned the elimination of some subsidies which if allowed, would have eliminated medical care for over six million Americans. Can you imagine the Republicans going into this 2016 election if this decision had come out the other way? What do you say to those six million Americans who now have no health care because you have fought against this law until the Supreme Court has finally agreed with you and millions now have no health insurance? Conservatives should be thankful that the Supreme Court ruled as they did.

But they are not thankful; they are certain that this battle is not over, and it probably isn’t. If the Republicans can keep control of the Congress and get a conservative President in 2016, then they could simply repeal ACA. They might not want to do that because many of ACA’s features are very popular; particularly being able to keep your children on your policy until they are 26, and being able to keep your insurance in spite of catastrophic health changes. Whatever Republicans might decide to replace ACA with, it had better have those issues covered. On the other hand the Republicans have had some time to produce an alternative health care plan and nothing they want to talk about has yet to materialize.

All of the Republican candidates who have commented on this issue have consistently lambasted the Court’s decision, some going so far as to forget that the Chief Justice, who sided with the six person majority, is by no stretch a liberal. He was appointed by President Bush and he is a very conservative justice. No matter, if you come down on the side of liberals in an issue like this then you must have been brainwashed. I think that Chief Justice Roberts might well have seen what a disastrous trap a different decision would have been for his party’s chances in 2016. But that would imply that SCOTUS could be swayed by political influences and we know from the Presidential election in 2004 when SCOTUS intervened in the Bush vs. Gore election that no such thing could happen!

 

June 24^th

The list of official Republican candidates for the Presidency has now reached a baker’s dozen. The newest volunteer is Piyush (Bobby) Jindal, currently Governor of Louisiana. Governor Jindal’s parents were born in India and came here, quite legitimately, on student visas. No matter, I’m sure Donald Trump will ask for a birth certificate and a copy of Jindal’s grades at Brown University and at Oxford University which he attended on a Rhodes scholarship.

Mr. Jindal had reached early political fame by being elected to the US House of Representatives when he was just thirty-three years old. Subsequently he was elected governor of Louisiana in a landslide. His popularity has since slipped substantially. In May his approval rating in his home state was just 32.8% and that’s lower than the President’s approval rating in this very red state.

This drop may have begun with his obvious unease when delivering the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union message in 2009. John Stewart spent some time making fun of Jindal’s response on his comedy show. When you inadvertently provide material for late night comics in your major speeches you have a problem. Unfortunately Jindal pointed out the abysmal failure of the federal government to come to the aid of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. He might not have remembered that the federal government at the time was presided over by a Republican President, who incidentally satisfied himself by simply flying over that devastation, perhaps expecting the sight of Air Force one to cheer up the folks on the ground.

Jindal converted to Catholicism some time ago; he now describes himself as an “Evangelical Catholic.” While this term has a very specific meaning within the Catholic Church many see Jindal’s use of the term as an obvious attempt to appeal to just everybody. He has also run into other embarrassment recently; on a trip to England he declared that there were sections of some English cities so under Sharia law that police hesitated to visit them and that women not clad in Burkas were assaulted on the streets. This was disputed vigorously by his English hosts who insisted that he identify these regions and that they would go there with him to prove him wrong. Naturally he weaseled out of that commitment.

Jindal hardly registers on the various national polls and as a result he probably won’t get on the debate stage. This, and the fact that he has no national name recognition, puts him at a great disadvantage in the money raising game. At this point Jeb Bush is first and Donald Trump is just behind him in the national polls. Most politicos believe this curious situation is entirely due to name recognition but who knows; maybe the ticket will be Donald Trump and Ann Coulter after all.

 

 

June 23^rd

Mona Charen should have a discussion with Pat Buchanan about money. As you know there is a move afoot to put a woman’s picture on some denomination of our paper money. There are two really important issues here: the first is which of our forefathers photos should be removed and the second is which deserving woman will be the first to appear on United States paper money. Keep in mind that a woman, several women in fact, have already appeared on United States coinage. Sacajawea and Susan B. Anthony have each appeared on the dollar coin. That doesn’t really count because dollar coins were never very popular.

Mona and Pat are not in agreement about which piece of paper currency should lose its personal picture. Pat has insisted that it not be Andrew Jackson who graces the twenty-dollar bill and Mona disagrees, she has no trouble dumping President Jackson. Mona makes a very good case for getting rid of Jackson. She points out that he was behind the forced removal of peaceful and law-abiding Indians from their homes and the forced march of them west to new homes. Many died in the process. They were supposed to be compensated for the loss of their possessions but of course they weren’t. The Supreme Court had ruled against the move but Jackson simply ignored the Supreme Court. Apparently he really, really, hated Indians.

Mona makes a very good case for keeping Alexander Hamilton on the ten-dollar bill. Hamilton was Washington’s deputy commander during the revolution and he was also responsible for re-jiggering the early government’s financing so that the government could remain solvent. He might well have achieved the Presidency, if he had wanted it, but he was killed in a duel with Arron Burr in 1804. I would guess that a dump Jackson move would have more support than a dump Hamilton move.

Next comes a decision on the lucky lady: With the current concern about racism in South Carolina someone like Rosa Parks might be an acceptable candidate. I’d like to nominate Eleanor Roosevelt but that would never fly in this political atmosphere. I’ll bet we wind up with Dolly Madison; hardly anyone’s political nose would be out of joint if she were selected.

Amazing the trivia one can get involved with.

June 22^nd

I guess South Carolina is going to take down the flag. Interesting that I don’t have to identify the flag, everyone knows the flag I’m talking about. The flag was little in evidence before 1948. That was when Harry Truman ran for re-election after desegregating the armed forces. This was a very unpopular move among our southern friends. They probably saw that desegregating the armed services was just the first step toward Brown vs Board of Education that would come just six years later. Separate but equal was rapidly dying and so was Jim Crow.

Southern politicians resisted; they formed the “Dixiecrat” party and the Confederate battle flag became their symbol. They waved this flag as they marched around the floor of the Democratic Convention in 1948 but Truman was nominated anyway. But they also had their own convention standing for state’s rights against the federal government’s intrusions, particularly on the issue of segregation. They even had their own nominee for President, Strom Thurmond, an ardent South Carolina segregationist. (It turns out that Strom Thurmond wasn’t all that rigorous about the separation of the races. He fathered a child by the sixteen year old black family maid.) As Joe E. Brown said as the final line in “Some Like it Hot,” “Nobody’s perfect.”

The battle flag continued as the symbol of southern resistance to integration and was also the symbol adopted by a variety of white supremacists from the Klan to the Christian Identity groups. A much more genteel group of flag folks is the “United Daughters of the Confederacy.” As you might imagine membership is open only to those who are descendants of men who fought for the Confederacy. One of their purposes is to keep alive the “lost cause” image of the ante-bellum south. This image includes slavery and is more informed by “Gone with the Wind” than by any realistic view of what really happened on those plantations.

Now, some 150 years after the war is over, South Carolina’s Governor Haley finally calls for the removal of this symbol of oppression. That is a good thing of course but we are removing a symbol, we aren’t removing what that symbol represents. Destroying the x-ray does not destroy the cancer.

 

 

 

June 21^st

We might first consider the self-described Christian Mike Huckabee’s response to the murders in Charleston. I asked a friend what she thought Huckabee would say about the carnage. She said she hoped he would have admired the relatives’ attitude of forgiveness toward the murderer. Then I said, come on now, what do you really think Huckabee said about it, and she replied that he probably said it wouldn’t have happened if the congregants had guns. Her second guess was right on; that’s exactly what he said. Huckabee is so predictable.

 

We have a new book, a rant by Ann Coulter; it’s called “Adios America.” When I saw this title I was sure Ann had decided to emigrate, then I discovered that she meant her country was leaving her, not that she was leaving her country; what a disappointment. Ms. Coulter has become very rich by providing far right wingers with generous amounts of red meat. She has written ten (yes ten!) New York Times best sellers. These have titles like, “Mugged: Racial demagoguery from the seventies to Obama” and “How to talk to a liberal… if you have to.” The rest of her efforts have similar titles and they sell very well indeed. She has a loyal fan base, loyal enough to have sent her books to the top of the best seller lists and made her millions of dollars. Her speaking fees alone were over 500 thousand dollars for just one year.

There have been problems: to feed the right what they crave she has repeatedly crossed the boundary of acceptable taste. I didn’t say good taste, just acceptable taste. She has made a more than comfortable living writing stuff about as insulting to liberals, and other people she doesn’t like, as print medium and the FCC will tolerate.

Her last book is directed at immigrants: Coulter laments the fact that the country is becoming less white, by which she means less Anglo. She fulminates against “swarthy looking males” coming into the country. She claims that major employers of these aliens, who pay them just eight dollars an hour, should pay back the government which, because of these low wages, must then step in and support the immigrants. Naturally she has no problem with these same wages being paid to non-immigrant Americans who must, as a result, be provided with food stamps.

She was asked on Bill Maher’s program who she thought would take the Republican nomination. Her answer was Donald Trump, and she was serious. If you recall, Trump also made halting immigration one of his highest priorities.  I can see it now. Ann Coulter will be Donald Trump’s choice as his Vice Presidential candidate. Isn’t she the clever one? Poor Donald.

 

 

June 20^th

Rick Santorum has decided that the murder of nine people in a Charleston church is an attack on religion. That’s absurd, as is much of Santorum’s political agenda. We know that the killings in Charleston were racially motivated and not religiously motivated because the killer’s “manifesto” has surfaced and it is all about racial hatred. This won’t lead Santorum to change his mind about the motivation for the attack.

Santorum revels in finding sources of religious persecution. He finds these easily because he is a rigorously observant Catholic. Occasionally he has a problem as when he recently took issue with the Pope’s claims that something had to be done about climate change. Santorum responded that the Pope should leave such issues to the scientists not knowing that the Pope had a master’s degree in Chemistry. That doesn’t make the Pope a climatologist but it does make him better informed about science than someone with an MBA and a law degree. Santorum is on record as claiming that man-made global warming is not possible. Now we’ll see just how good a Catholic he really is.

Santorum was very unhappy that Jack Kennedy said he would not be legislating the Pope’s agenda if he was elected. Santorum claimed that no one should leave their religious principles behind when they take office. Fine, but that has nothing to do with what Kennedy said and now it seems clear that if Santorum becomes President he will follow the Pope’s orders…if he agrees with them.

Santorum is opposed to abortion and he is also opposed to contraception, even for married people. Surprisingly, he is also opposed to gay marriages which, if made legal everywhere would, at least for some marriages, eliminate any need for either abortion or contraception. Santorum was very unhappy with the SCOTUS decision in Griswold vs Connecticut which declared Connecticut’s law against contraceptives, even for married people, was a violation of the constitution.

Santorum claims that the separation of church and state is a communist idea. Say what? Perhaps there were communists influencing Thomas Jefferson when he wrote to the Danbury Baptist association in 1802 telling them he saw a wall separating church and state. Perhaps constitutional law was not Santorum’s strong point in law school. If he is in a position to control events, Jefferson’s ideas will be a thing of the past quite literally. As an indication of his views on the issue, he would like Creationism taught in the public schools. No, that’s not its pale sister Intelligent Design, that’s full blown biblical Creationism.

 

June 19^th

Pat Buchanan is whining about the unfair news coverage of police aggression against blacks. He claims that race relations are more poisonous now than at the Selma bridge on bloody Sunday in 1965. Well that’s a stretch. Cops then treated protesting black people like outlaws, releasing police dogs, beating them with night sticks and hosing them with powerful water cannons. We no longer have this mass bullying; now it’s a bit more piecemeal.

Buchanan claims that the “Times” rehashes old (by which he means a year ago) stories of police excesses. Of course they do and they do it to remind their readers that these are not isolated incidents. Buchanan prefers they not do that; perhaps he prefers the public not be allowed to see any pattern.

Then he describes the cop at the pool party who with a well applied wrist lock forces a teen-aged black girl to the ground until her face is in the dirt. The “Times” had many pictures of this as did most news services. This made great theatre; beefy cop vs. fifteen year old girl in a bathing suit, you can guess the outcome. But then just to make it clear to one and all who was in charge, the cop pulls out his gun and waves it around at other kids who were trying to duck and dodge away from him, He was the senior officer present but the other two cops seeing this as a bit excessive try to restrain him. They do, fortunately, before he kills anyone. This particular cop was a ten year veteran and subsequently resigned; it’s a shame he didn’t resign a day earlier.

Now Buchanan asks if this story would have had any traction if the girl had been white. The story would not exist if the girl had been white because in that case the cop would never have done what he did. Cops do not behave that way with white girls, or if they do they know that they will be looking for a different job the next day.  It’s Interesting that the photographic evidence shows these cops completely bypassing a white male teenager in trunks and a t-shirt to focus their attention on the black kids. Later, in an interview, this white kid said that he couldn’t understand why some of his black friends were hassled while he was ignored.

Then Buchanan can’t understand the outrage at the police killing black people because most killings of black men are by other black men. Of course most child abuse in this country is perpetrated by relatives of the child. Does this mean that we should have no concern about Catholic priests abusing children?

June 18^th

I will forego the enormous temptation to make puns on Donald Trump’s name. On second thought, I won’t either.

Yes, he has trumped himself. You may remember his entrance to the Trump Tower when he made the announcement of his candidacy. He took pains to comment on the great crowds saying, “That is some group of people…thousands” unfortunately for Trump the cameras panned his audience and there were certainly not thousands. Maybe there were hundreds. But what politician does not exaggerate?

Now we discover that not even all of those “hundreds” were there for love of “The Donald.” An outfit that supplies extras for movie crowd scenes called Extra Mile Casting supplied some of the enthusiasts. The casting call went out offering fifty dollars for about three hours of wearing a Trump t-shirt and doing a little “Yeah Trump” yelling. A couple of extras were recognized but they insisted later that they weren’t paid to perform.

Now Trump is denying he paid anyone, the performers are denying they were paid and the booking agency has no comment. Can anyone imagine that if Trump was willing to pay fifty dollars to each actor, that he might then have been willing to pay even more for them to keep their mouths shut about the gig? There might have also been a nice bonus for the casting company if they denied that they were involved at all; ah, the power of having a few millions in cash to throw around.

Now comes Forbes to call Trump out for inflating his net worth. Donald has put it at about eight billion and that is about twice as much as Forbes has estimated it to be. What’s a guy to do when one of his prime references questions his “truthiness?” I guess you just soldier on; after all this is politics and Trump realizes that like any business endeavor truth is not relevant to the bottom line.

What we have here is a slippery slope and Trump has slid right off the edge of it. Other politicians have bussed people in to their rallies. These folks are supporters of the causes but they might not have the necessary transportation to attend the rally. The wealthy backers provide that for them, usually free of charge. All they have to do is show up and get on the bus. Lunch might also be provided, as well as the trip home; all of it free. In Trumps case he bought fake supporters; that’s an altogether different ball game.

 

June 17^th

Some days you get a gift from the gods; “The Donald” Trump has declared his candidacy for President. It isn’t really official yet because he doesn’t have to sign disclosure of assets papers for several more months…if ever unless the Congress can agree to fill out the committee overseeing such stuff. Hey, that’s OK; Donald’s initial performance was delightful and there is sure to be more to come.

He began by hammering away at Jeb. (Bush that is, although his last name seems to have gotten lost somewhere.) Then he also criticized Marco Rubio. Trump has insulted all immigrants from Mexico. According to him they are thieves, murderers, drug dealers and rapists. He was given a chance to back-pedal when a reporter asked him if all Mexican immigrants were in those categories. Not all he said, but most of them were. Jeb made his candidacy announcement in fluent Spanish. So has Jeb won more credit for his party from Latino voters with his display of fluency than Trump has lost by his insults?  Who knows; one thing is certain: Trump won’t get the Hispanic vote. I don’t think he cares.

He has also happily warred against several highly regarded Republican pundits. Charles Krauthammer and George Will have commented less then favorably on Trump’s candidacy and Trump has responded in his usual manner with some name calling—nothing very original of course.

His candidacy is a farce. Some have claimed that he appeals to “a certain segment of voters.” Of course he does, so does Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson but they are in the race hoping to win it; they aren’t in it just for the publicity. Well, on second thought…who really knows why anyone would get into a two-year race for a fou- year term of office? It must be love of country.

Trump has long accused President Obama of not being a legitimate President because he claims Obama was born In Kenya. He has offered five million dollars to Obama if he will reveal his college and university grades and produce a copy of his passport.  Some time ago on Jay Leno’s program Leno asked the President why Trump seemed to have such animosity toward him. The President with a slight smile and perfect timing said, “It all goes back to when we were growing up together in Kenya…” The laughter was explosive. Poor Donald was out of his league then and he still is. Even so I surely hope he sticks around; now if Fox just invites him to the debates…

June 16^th

Today I’ll look at our volunteer defense forces. Consider that if you are eighteen or nineteen years old, a recent high school graduate and live in a southern state you face an unemployment rate of thirty percent. If you are employed it will likely be in an unskilled job at an hourly rate barely above the minimum wage…and even that job might be less than forty hours a week with no benefits. Your savior is a services recruiter.

Here is what you get: to begin with you get out of the house and out from under nagging parents who are replaced by nagging drill sergeants. But now you have a job and there is no chance of being “let go.” You are getting your room, board and about 2 thousand dollars a month in wages. Moreover you are guaranteed a pay increase if you do as you’re told and stay out of trouble. Medical and dental care is free. Eventually you’ll be sent to a school, which one will depend on your test scores, and the skills you learn there might be useful when you’re enlistment period is up. Of course there will probably be a very nice bonus to persuade you to re-enlist and if you have met a delightful someone one on of your month long, yearly, vacations with pay there are increased benefits for married service people.

After three years you might decide that the educational opportunities for ex-service people are just too good to neglect. They are quite generous. Here’s what you get: You enlisted after 9/11 so you’ll get a month of school for each month of your service. That’s 36 months of school. Because the school year is just nine months long, that comes to four years of college. Your tuition will be paid directly to the college in an amount depending on what your state charges as tuition for its in-state students. You’ll also get a monthly check for living expenses and money for your books and supplies.

If you decide you’d rather not take advantage of this educational opportunity because your service training has produced a good paying job, the government will let you pass this educational benefit on to a family member. Of course you don’t have to use the benefit to attend a four year college you might prefer to take flying lessons. Other options are also possible.

As long as we have a large pool of unemployed high school graduates we have no need of a draft to produce an adequate regular army, navy, or air force. To be blunt about it we now have an army largely, but not entirely,  of mercenaries paid for largely by money borrowed from China. I worry about a military class forming, or perhaps it has already formed, in this country.

Seventy years ago today, as a very recent high school graduate, I left home for active duty in the Army Air Corps; that was a very different kind of army and no one joined it to get the available benefits. Times have changed.

June 15^th

Today I have some utterances by Mona Charen to discuss; yesterday I didn’t have anything from the right so there was no detritus. Now That Hillary Clinton has “declared” there will be many opportunities for right wing rhetorical excess. The right wing just can’t resist so I will have new ammunition!

Today Mona’s column is titled “Clinton deploys ‘they hate you’ strategy.” If you read Mona’s column, Clinton is never quoted as saying “they hate you;” this is supposed to be “…a strategy that has worked well for Democrats for decades.” Now why do you suppose that strategy has worked so well? Could an example have been Romney’s comments to his ultra-rich donors about the 47 percent who don’t pay income taxes and therefore are surely moochers who will never take responsibility for themselves? When you say that it can really irk the people you’re talking about…and others!

Charen claims Clinton’s June 12^th speech was “dishonest and divisive.” Well Mona that’s nicely alliterative but if you want a better example of dishonest and divisive see Romney’s remarks to his multi-millionaire donors cited above. She says Clinton’s claim that voter ID laws are designed to suppress voting by African-Americans is false because “minority voting is up even in states with voter ID laws.” If this kind of thinking is what Barnard College teaches, then Mona should ask for a tuition refund. The fact that more minorities are voting might mean that there are more than enough minorities to overcome the conservative bias against allowing them to vote. Pennsylvania Republican house leader, Mike Turzal, said that the state’s voter ID law would “allow Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania;” he proudly called this as an accomplishment. Then Romney lost Pennsylvania anyway. If you really wanted to persuade the voters that Republicans “are haters” all you need to do is let them read a half dozen or so of Mona Charen’s columns.

Then Mona concludes with a quote from Clinton about Barbara Jordan, “She famously reminded us that when the constitution was written it left most of us here out. But generations of Americans fought, marched, organized and prayed to expand this circle of freedom and opportunity. We should be clearing the way for more people to vote, not putting up every roadblock anyone can imagine.” Mona then wants us to note Clinton’s word “us.” She claims, “Multimillionaire international celebrity Hillary Clinton claims membership in an oppressed class due to her sex.” But Mona, the “founding fathers” did deny women the right to vote.

In 1918 there were three women on the Forbes list of the richest people in America. They each had fortunes exceeding 50 million dollars and not a single one of them could vote. Mona apparently doesn’t understand that this has nothing to do with wealth (but how like a conservative to assume it does); it has to do with the right to vote.

June 13^th

There is no right wing columnist to joust with today so I’ll make some general comments about the Republican field. It has been said by some pundits that the Republican field of candidates is deep because there are a dozen or so who seem to have some chance of being nominated and then there are several more who provide comic relief.

The field is not deep at all; the field is broad and very shallow. Consider the recent Preakness horse race: one horse was the odds on (literally) favorite. A two dollar bet on American Pharoah to win would have won you all of thirty cents if you were right. Is there any odds on favorite in the Republican field?  Is there anyone running who is an odds on favorite to take the Presidency? If you do enough polling you might find one but if you do the poll the next day that advantage will probably disappear.

Leading this weak pack is Jeb Bush who is burdened by his family loyalty into weaseling about the appropriateness of our invasion of Iraq. Now, with his front runner status in jeopardy he is reshuffling his deck of advisors. He also has the problem of being more accepting of allowing the millions of employed tax–paying, law abiding, families to remain here with green cards than the run of his hard right competitors.

Just next to him is Governor Scot Walker, he has managed with the help of the Koch Bros. money to win recall elections and is right up there in the polls. Unfortunately Walker is a waffler. He has changed his mind on Immigration and changed his mind on abortion…and occasionally changed it more than once. (This information is from Charles Krauthammer—not one to lightly criticize Republicans.) Walker has another problem if he hopes to win the Presidency: he just isn’t the kind of guy you’d want to have a coffee/beer with or invite to your house for a dinner party. I don’t think anyone is comparing likeableness among candidates but I can’t imagine stern-faced Walker winning that contest.

Far down in the pack are Dr. Ben Carson, Senator Lindsey Graham, Carly Fiorina and my favorite Donald Trump. Dr. Carson is a noted surgeon but his ideas about the age of the earth suggest that he has been bamboozled by a fundamentalist cult. If he should be asked about the extinction of the megafauna at the beginning of the Holocene he is quite likely to disgrace himself with anyone other than Bishop Ussher’s followers. Senator Graham is fiftyish, single and rather hawkish. These are not likely to endear him to a wide circle of voters. Carly Fiorina is very rich and stridently attacks Hillary Clinton at every opportunity. She badly loused up her last job at Hewlett-Packard and now she wants to be President of the United States, some nerve! And then there is Donald Trump; it does seem that there is always Donald Trump. Republicans are not great at providing comic relief but “The Donald” is that rare exception for which we should all be thankful.

June 12^th

Pat Buchanan is most unhappy that America has fallen far from the international prominence it achieved under the Reagan and Nixon administrations. He claims that “With the exception of the Soviet Union, no nation not defeated in war has suffered so rapid decline in power as the United States.” Horse hockey! Consider our most likely opponents: Russia has had three crashes of its military planes just this week and has grounded all of its strategic bombers. While Russia can harass NATO they have cut back on military spending and they simply haven’t the money to maintain their air force. Chechnya is still in revolt and Putin will never subdue its Muslim population by force and he knows no other method. Buchanan says we are just behind Russia in our relative “decline.” A story is told about a footrace between a Russian and an American; the American won and the Russian was far behind. Russian newspapers reported the Russian came in second and the American was next to last; so much for “relative performance.”

Buchanan says, “China has emerged as the great power in Asia, entered claims to all seas around her and is building a navy and air force to bring an end to US dominance of the western Pacific dating to 1945.” Let’s look at China’s navy: How is she doing for nuclear submarines? China has four and with luck perhaps soon a fifth one. We have just forty, about ten times as many. Then there are aircraft carriers: China has one; we have eleven with two more under construction. The notion that China can project her power much beyond her own borders is, frankly, silly and it will be silly for many years to come.

Buchanan constantly yammers about our commitments overseas and complains about the rise of various Muslim insurgencies in the Middle East. But his answer at the end of his column is “retrenchment.” He claims that we face a serious threat from a resurgent Russia, that China’s expansionist navy is a menace, that various Islamist forces threatens us and the answer to all of these difficulties is to hide behind the sofa because we are over-extended! This is a remarkable prescription for our safety.

Mr. Buchanan presents us with a curious set of facts: many powerful forces menace us and the answer to this challenge is to withdraw. That will encourage these powerful forces to retreat also? Oh come now Mr. Buchanan, if we had not maintained bombers with atomic weapons on British airfields at the end of WW 2 Russia would have most likely overrun all of Europe. We are certainly overextended but retreat in the face of threat is not the credible. It wasn’t Chamberlin who had the answer to Hitler; it was Churchill. And this must gall Mr. Buchanan all to pieces.

June 11^th

Thomas Sowell’s column today is focused on political correctness; as you might guess he’s very upset about it. His high school, the highly regarded, Walter Johnson High School in Maryland, is ranked seventh in the state in achievement. But Sowell’s advice to parents is to withdraw you children from that school as quickly as you can, “before you, and the nation, have lost them to an alien intellectual philosophy and a hostile moral power.” Why would Thomas Sowell so excoriate his old high school, particularly since it is highly ranked in the achievement of its students?

The answer begins with the change in the color of the students’ graduating robes: This change is evidence of a pernicious threat to all that is good and holy about secondary education at this high school. Previously boys had worn green robes and girls had worn white ones. Students claimed that this distinction did not accommodate all the nuances of gender identity so now all students will wear the same colored robes when they graduate. Now keep in mind that the administration has not insisted on anything like unisex showering after gym classes. Everyone wearing the same colored robes is still evidence of a political correctness (PC) all which deeply offends Sowell. (I’m curious about why the sexes at that high school had different colored graduation robes to begin with.)

I have trouble understanding why Sowell has trouble with PC. There is no law requiring people to observe this convention but many people do so as not to insult others of different or unusual, ethnic/racial/sexual identification. The “humor” from stereotyping the presumed stupidity of black people no longer supports “Amos and Andy” or the stumbling bumbling Stepin Fetchit. These insults to the black community are gone; so are terms like, kike, wop, coon, burr head, queer, rag head and many others; does Sowell find their absence offensive?

Sowell has trouble with people declaring their gender identity, particularly if that identity is not obvious by simply looking at the person. He suggests getting children out of public schools as quickly as possible before they become contaminated by these evil influences. It is interesting that this is exactly the position taken by southern bigots in response to “Brown vs Board of Education.” After that ruling there was considerable emphasis on private schools so that white children and adolescents would not face contamination by studying and sitting close to their black counterparts. Much of Sowell’s rant against public schools now would have exactly fit the mood of the southern bigots seventy-five years ago. The only difference is in their targets. I wonder if Sowell has thought of that.

A final curious factoid: I checked the internet for information about Walter J. Johnson High School; as I mentioned it’s a very good school. The source also listed their “famous alumni.” Among them was Cal Thomas another well-known right wing pundit. Thomas Sowell’s name was not to be found; could that have had anything to do with Sowell’s rage at his old high school? Surely not.

June 10^th

George Will’s column today is a lengthy exposition concerning money in politics; stated briefly, he’s all for it. He is urging us toward a plutocracy, indeed he needn’t bother because we are already there. We’ve been there since the Republic was founded. Washington was the richest man in the colonies. He owned thousands of acres of land, seven thousand acres in his Mount Vernon estate alone, and thousands more wilderness acres. At his death he owned well over a hundred slaves. Unlike modern politicians, however, there is no evidence that he enriched himself as a result of his high office.

A few modern politicians have also refused to enrich themselves: Witness Harry Truman who as a past President refused lucrative service on boards of director because he said that they don’t want me; they want the past President of the United States and that office is not for sale. Truman left office without a pension except for a meager one from his WW 1 service. Not all past presidents felt that way; contrast that with Ronald Reagan who following his Presidency collected two million dollars for some speeches to the Japanese. No doubt the Japanese wanted to listen to him because he had been a fine actor.

We now have people serving in Congress specifically to enhance their value as lobbyists. That’s where the real money is. We have the example of Dennis Hastert who has gone from a high school wrestling coach to Speaker of the House, to a very wealthy lobbyist. Dennis is now being investigated for withdrawing millions of dollars from his accounts and lying to federal authorities as to the reason. How does a former high school wrestling coach find himself able to pull 3.5 million dollars from his assets for whatever purpose? Ask your government!

The answer is that money talks…well, not really, it yells. Here’s the scenario: Some legislation is needed, which if passed will favor the oil industries’ profits. The multimillionaire officers of several oil companies have a strong interest in seeing this legislation done so they notify their several dozen lobbyists who start calling on their old buds in Congress, even writing model legislation for them so they don’t have to bother doing it themselves. Promises of support are exchanged, reelection money is assured and the oil magnate’s incomes will increase as well. What’s not to like? The rich are thus able to control the legislative branch and by doing so get even richer. It is a vicious (or virtuous) circle depending on whether or not you are in George Will’s and Ronald Reagan’s camp or you think Truman had the right idea.  The enormous wealth gap is getting even bigger; it’s a positive feedback loop, more wealth leads to more influence which leads to more wealth. Class warfare; certainly, and the winning class is obvious.

What’s the answer? Let’s look at the history of countries with grossly unequal distributions of wealth and power: there was France in 1789, Russia in 1918 and China in 1949. These revolutions were in no case entirely due to unequal wealth but in every case they were propelled partly by this inequality. Could it happen here? We’ll see.

 

June 9^th

As readers of this blog know I don’t often agree with Pat Buchanan, but his column today is an exception. Buchanan is an isolationist and I slant in that direction as well as far as our military is concerned. (Buchanan’s bigotry is another story.) Today he once again points out why we should not be sending American troops to tamp down regional conflicts in Iraq, Syria and adjacent areas. In this he agrees with the great majority of Americans who believe, quite firmly, that the recent wars there were a mistake. Even the hawkish Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary Of Defense, has very belatedly, announced that he believed all along that bringing democracy to Iraq would not work. Now he tells us! Naturally he remains critical of the President’s policies, particularly ousting Muammar Khadafy. This is curious because Khadafy, well-funded by oil money, was more responsible for terrorist attacks than Saddam Hussein; witness Pan Am flight 103.

President Obama has been pilloried by right wingers for withdrawing American troops from Iraq in 2011 as agreed to by his predecessor, President Bush. Now suppose he hadn’t done that. In that case we would have incurred many hundreds more dead Americans and thousands more wounded. (Currently about eight times as many soldiers are wounded as killed.)

Thanks to Grover Norquist who enlists Congress people to vote against tax increases (always a popular position), we would have had to borrow the money to continue the war from our old friend China, the principle buyer of our government’s bonds. (Who knows, maybe Norquist’s efforts are supported by the Chinese.) Conservatives are big on using our armed forces for various police actions. The administration controls the intelligence Congress gets so it is pathetically easy for any administration interested in getting Congressional approval for military action to get it. This is just what happened when we invaded Iraq with Congressional approval massaged by faulty intelligence.  Approval for a war is not equivalent to approving the financing for the war.

Perhaps we need a constitutional amendment that any use of our armed forces overseas must be accompanied by a 20 percent surtax on incomes up to 500 thousand dollars a year and 50 percent surtax on incomes over that. Pay as you go should appeal to conservatives, at least to those who haven’t bought into Grover Norquist’s message.

We financed World War 2 with borrowed money and higher taxes but the borrowed money was borrowed from us. People bought War Bonds; these came in various denominations, a 25 dollar bond cost $18.75 and ten years later you could get 25 dollars for it, a 50 dollar bond cost $37.50 and could be cashed ten years later for 50 dollars. Income taxes topped out at 94 percent. Of course the images of the Pearl Harbor disaster was a significant motivation for citizens to come together and sacrifice. Contrast that with a government that had to send Ambassador Wilson to Africa to find evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing “weapons of mass destruction” before we could take action. Oh well, times change.

June 8^th

Mona Charen is now an expert on financing higher education. Her expertise is certified by her invitation to attend a panel organized by “The Ethics and Public Policy Center” and “The Bradley Foundation.” As both of these are right wing organizations perhaps Mona’s right wing columns made up for her lack of background in higher education policy. She does not say she participated in the proceedings, only that she attended them; whatever the case she now pontificates about higher education.

The issue is funding; the federal student loan program has created massive debt. True enough but the result of this program, and other programs, is an enormous surge in college degrees. In 1995 24.7 percent of Americans had a bachelor’s degree; in 2013 this had jumped to 32.5 percent. Mona’s right wing folks must not have mentioned that result, possibly because it doesn’t fit their agenda.

There has also been an enormous increase in master’s degrees; from 2000 to 2012 there has been a 62 percent jump in the awarding of these degrees. In 2012 Georgetown University awarded 1871 bachelor’s degrees and 2838 master’s degrees. In eight year their Master’s degree awards rose 83 percent; their bachelor degree awards increased 12 percent. This is largely the result of the student loan programs.

There are other awards available too but interestingly Mona doesn’t even mention Pell Grants. These are grants, not loans, so they needn’t be paid back at all. Pell grant amounts go up to just below six thousand dollars a year and are available to the poorest students. Senator Claiborne Pell who started this effort was a Democrat so quite naturally his name is not to be mentioned by Mona or the American Enterprise’s Andrew P. Kelly who happily excoriates Democrats for providing loans to “those who don’t need them” and for battling to stop the government from raising the interest rates on these loans; needy students are not Kelly’s concern. Kelly makes no suggestions about increasing the amount and number of Pell grants.

A huge for-profit college, Corinthian College, just went under. Loans taken out by students hoodwinked by misleading recruitment practices used by Corinthian are likely to be forgiven.  Mr. Kelly will be quite unhappy about that turn of events. Other giant for-profit colleges are in similar trouble; Kaplan college revenues had fallen 93 percent and the Washington Post which controls it had counted on this entity to pull it through rough financial times. Attempts to regulate the fraudulent practices of these for-profit colleges were opposed by intense lobbying efforts. Both sides of the aisle were recruited to support these frauds and vote down any meaningful regulation. The students borrowed money from the government to pay the exorbitant tuition, then that money was used to lobby Congress to keep the schools from any meaningful regulation so the schools could keep right on fleecing the students and subsequently the government.

Not much about these frauds in Mona’s column today; after all these are called “for-profit” colleges; how can any right wing person criticize that?

June 7^th

George Will’s column today purports to instruct us in socialism and in Senator Bernie Sander’s views about it. Will tells us that Senator Sanders is not an independent because he caucuses with the Democrats. Furthermore Will claims that everybody is now a socialist so the label “socialist” has no meaning; he says,  “If he (Sanders) is a socialist who isn’t?” He goes on to tell us that Republicans are socialists because they do not object to “regulation of commercial activities, government provision of a ‘social safety net,’ and redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation and entitlement programs” consequently the term is meaningless because everyone is a socialist. This will be interesting news to many Republican presidential candidates who have been campaigning to decrease social security payments and various other benefits, farm subsidies and oil subsidies excepted of course.

Will points out that socialist countries like Greece are in very bad shape; he doesn’t mention Denmark which was recently singled out as the happiest country surveyed, nor does he want to consider Sweden, Norway, Germany and many other countries whose social programs make ours look like they were designed by Ebenezer Scrooge. We have no mandatory maternity leave; it seems we are too busy condemning all abortions to bother caring for expectant mothers or providing healthcare for children once they are born. Will and his right wing buddies are big on protecting embryos; protecting children not so much!

He doesn’t bother to tell us that of these socialist welfare expenditures, about half are for Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Will claims that Sanders, by proposing to increase Social Security payments and them increase payroll taxes to pay for that, is transferring wealth to the “most affluent age cohort.” The over-67-year-olds are the most affluent age cohort? That’s absurd, George. The average family income for this group is about 35 thousand dollars a year and that includes their Social Security payments. For 64 percent of people in this group, their SS payments are half or more of their income. The bright spot is that income for the elderly is the fastest growing of any age cohort. Perhaps that’s what George meant; if he weren’t so eager to condemn all government help programs he might get his facts straight. Still, anyone, even George Will, who maintains that the over-67-year-olds are the most affluent age group must be on some sort of silly sauce! Given that medical costs are skyrocketing and that medical costs are highest for the elderly, even with Medicare, this increased income is of limited help.

He says, “Hectoring Hilary Clinton about her…reticence on public policy issues is unfair, she will tell us what her convictions are when she decides, or is told, what her convictions are.” My goodness George, have you any evidence, any evidence at all, that Hillary Clinton’s opinions are bought and paid for? That would be wonderful political ammunition if you did, but typical right wing nastiness if you don’t. I would have thought a crack like that was beneath you, but I was wrong; pity!

 

 

June 6^th

Charles Krauthammer has today provided us with some comic relief…but then most days we can count on comic relief from some politician, usually a Republican. Krauthammer has announced the results of an unusual poll. The question was, “Who are you least likely to vote for?” and the options were a batch of current Republican announced and unannounced candidates. Leading the list with 59% of respondents claiming they would never vote for him was Donald Trump. Other candidates did not look good in this poll either: Christy and Bush had high negatives but “The Donald” was the clear winner and he was most unhappy about it.

Trump’s reply came very quickly in a series of tweets; tweets allow very few words and Donald always needs a lot of words so he needed four tweets to properly vent his fury. Trump called Krauthammer “stupid” which was one of his more favorable and certainly least accurate comments. Charles Krauthammer has various failings but stupidity is not one of them.

George Will also entered the “dump on Donald” contest and claimed that he hoped Trump would run so that he would be beaten so badly that he would never be heard from again. Frankly, I doubt that he can be beaten that badly. Is it possible that the GOP has a new scapegoat; someone, a member of the tribe, on whom the party dumps its wrath and drives into the wilderness. OK, so the metaphor is a tad mixed, but you get my point. I thought Republicans had settled on ousting naughty little Rand Paul for his unorthodox views. It would be interesting to see both of these bozos in a Fox News debate. I wonder if Krauthammer could do a poll selecting the most arrogant candidate; surely either Paul or Trump would win that one

Krauthammer had another curious observation: he accused Hillary of “playing the race card.” Now I know this man is bright but the phrase “playing the race card” has become a splendid example of a political cliché and its use should be beneath him. (I’ll bet George Will wouldn’t say that.) Krauthammer’s evidence for this charge was that Clinton had pointed out the effects of many red state’s new voter ID requirements restricting minority voting. So if you suggest a national voter registration law to keep minorities eligible to vote you are focusing on race? Of course you are because that’s what these restrictive laws are designed to stop. Next Krauthammer will suggest that supporting anti-lynching laws is “playing the race card.” Sheesh!

June 5^th

Cal Thomas has read McCullough’s new book on the Wright Brothers. His column today is largely unconditional praise for the book. Of course he must also slam the current climate in this country which he claims discourages such efforts.

His comments on the book are laudatory and not entirely in agreement with other reviewers. I’ll not get into a criticism McCullough’s work here; this isn’t a book review blog. Let’s look at Thomas’ comments on the state of the nation then and now.

He points out the problem the Wright’s had getting any government funding but the government then did provide subsidies for some enterprises. In 1911 the federal government was subsidizing mail carrying steamships and had been doing so for some time. Then as now there were critics for any money set aside to finance harebrained schemes; harebrained of course in the mind of the protesting Senator. Senator Proxmire’s Golden Fleece awards, now famous, if a trifle antique were given for what that Senator thought were unnecessary, or foolish, projects. These awards in some cases were ridiculous; one was to determine if Army Officers should carry umbrellas in the rain; others were more ambiguous. Proxmire was particularly distressed that federal money was awarded a researcher to determine if Chimpanzees could communicate using sign language. The Senator, always quick to ridicule, said, “Who cares what chimpanzees think?” The senator apparently could not imagine that the techniques used to teach chimpanzees could also be used to teach intellectual disadvantaged children. Senators are not required to have imagination; they are only required to raise money.

Cal Thomas then waxes nostalgic for the bygone days that gave rise to the Wright Brother’s values. He cites their preacher father and their McGuffey Readers. Cal Thomas claims that,  “…if government taxation, regulation and envy of the successful had been the norm then the Wright Brothers dream of flying might never have gotten off the ground.” This statement is totally absurd. Imagine that the income tax had been 20 percent in 1900. Can’t you hear Wilbur saying to Orville, “I think we should just forget about this heavier than air flight; besides if we make it and get rich all of our friends will envy us. Let’s just stick to the bicycle shop.”

How about now; we have copious regulations and higher taxes than the Wright Brothers had. None of this stopped Bill gates from dropping out of Harvard and becoming one of the richest men in the world. Can you hear him saying, “Why bother, look at my taxes.” Maybe another example: try Dell Computers; it started in a dorm room in 1985 and grossed 73 million dollars its first year. Income taxes and regulation really hampered Michael Dell. Really?  Finally (for lack of space) there is the multi-billionaire Elizabeth Holmes creator of Theranos a privately held company she began at 19. Now at 31 she is worth about 4.5 billion dollars. Yes Cal, these odious taxes and regulations are sure stifling creativity and initiative.

June 4^th

Pat Buchanan is in an uproar today because of what he calls a “Cultural Cleansing of Christian Males.” In most situations this would perhaps apply to ISIL lining up Coptic Christians and beheading them. Pat’s hyperbole refers to nothing so dramatic; it refers to the removal of a statue of one Father De Smet from the grounds of St. Louis University, the removal of Father Junipero Serro’s statue from the Capital grounds, and the suggestion that Andrew Jackson’s picture be replaced on the twenty dollar bill. This, according to Pat Buchanan, represents the cultural cleansing of Christian males.

Why would Native Americans possibly be unwilling to accept the apparently benign God of their not at all benign conquerors? Pat Buchanan seems unfamiliar with the string of larcenous treaties forced on Native Americans and then broken by their Christian conquerors. There is no point listing even a small portion; it numbers in the hundreds. Now we have laws in place to protect the naïve from extortion. In the 1800s Christians were not supposed to need civil laws to keep them from taking advantage of these “simple savages.” Had there been laws the more sophisticated savages would have found ways to circumvent them; Christian principles be damned! When gold was discovered on Native American lands any treaty protecting that land from exploitation was immediately abrogated; what use had Indians for gold? Pat apparently doesn’t understand why Native Americans and their supporters are not impressed by the civilizing effects of his Mother Church and the statues of her agents.

Then we have his eruption against the very thought of putting a woman’s picture on our currency; never mind that a woman’s portrait was already on our dollar coin. The Susan B. Anthony dollar was followed by the Sacagawea dollar. But maybe a woman’s picture could appear on some higher circulation currency; the twenty dollar bill now has Andrew Jackson’s portrait. Buchanan’s response is that, “Jackson, it is said, was responsible, for the ethnic cleansing of the Cherokees in the Trail of Tears.” “It is said” really? There were about 150 thousand Native Americans living peacefully in territory white settlers wanted. The Supreme Court said at the time the white settlers had no claim to those lands. That didn’t stop Jackson who simply ignored the court and forced the Cherokees out at gun point and on a thousand mile trek to Oklahoma. Thousands died on that march, which had a lot in common with the Bataan death march. Hooray for General Jackson, right Buchanan?

Of course Buchanan is affronted at the very thought of a woman’s portrait replacing any of the current worthy’s on our currency. He blandly asks if, “Any of these women (referring to the candidates) really compete in historic achievement with what those great men accomplished?” Probably not, and given that women couldn’t even vote until 1920, that fact is hardly surprising.

 

June 3^rd

Mona Charen takes President Obama to task today (and what else is new?) for being inadequately repelled by anti-Semitism. She claims that, “With knee-jerk reliability Obama cannot permit any acknowledgment of the evils of other nations to pass without mentioning our own sins. ‘(There are deep strains of anti-Semitism in this country)’.” Mona says that, “This is an intellectual and moral failing on Obama’s part.” Of course Mona may not be familiar with the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says first get the beam out of your own eye before you try to take the mote from your brother’s eye. Mona thinks it is a “moral failing” on the President’s part to be concerned about this instruction. That is a truly curious position to take.

So what is the anti-Semitism situation in this country and in Iran? We know about the Iranian government’s position on Israel and on the Holocaust; I’ll get to that later, but what about Jews in Iran? How are they faring? There are about twenty-five Synagogues in Iran and Iranian Jews are protected by a fatwah from Ayatollah Khomeini himself. Khomeini has made a clear distinction between, “Our Jews and the blood sucking Zionists in Israel.” Even so I’m sure that Iranian Jews must be a bit nervous.

In this country Jews are not faring as well as they seem to be in Iran. Ms. Charen thinks it is “immoral” to consider this but I’ll do it anyway. A Synagogue in Rutherford New Jersey was, a few years ago, firebombed for the fourth time. The current data on Synagogues are not available but until recently there have been 52 recorded attacks in this country since 2000, compared with none in Iran. How about that Mona? Mona cannot grasp the fact that Iran’s antipathy is as much about Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians as it is about Jews. Many European countries have a similar view of Israel but they are not as careful as is Iran to separate their view of Israel from their view of Jews and so in Europe there is no fatwah protecting Synagogues. Netanyahu suggests European Jews move to Israel; maybe they should move to Iran.

President Obama is trying to cool down the heat here and his efforts may not be successful. It seems prudent, at the very least, to stall for time. We do have an American war party. McCain and his, “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,” Lindsey Graham and his other buddies with similar views provide a solution few Americans share with the possible exception of Sheldon Adelson and Mona Charen. For them, as for ISIS, the answer to any problem is to blow something up!

June 2^nd

Poor Rand Paul, every time he moves he steps in his own rhetoric. Rand is opposed to extension of the Patriot Act which allows federal authorities to record private communications. The point of this act is to catch potential terrorists before they kill people here. A recent police confrontation with a knife-wielding man in Boston is an illustration that ISIS inspired terrorists are not to be taken lightly. This man had been watched by the FBI and they were on their way to pick him up when he suddenly attacked a police officer and an FBI agent with a knife. From Rand Paul’s point of view the negation of our civil liberties by the Patriot Act isn’t worth the risk to our physical safety. His actions on the Senate floor have effectively eliminated, at least temporarily, the surveillance the government had been using to catch these people.

Now Senator Paul claims that his senate critics hope that a terrorist strike will occur just to prove that his antagonism to the Patriot Act is wrong. This accusation has outraged what few Republicans support his position.  The idea that Republican Senators would be happy with a successful terrorist strike just to spite Rand Paul has isolated Paul even further from his already miniscule Republican senatorial support. (It is important to note that Senator Paul’s positions on many issues have considerable support among members of the public; best not to confuse what the public supports with what Republican Senators support.) Paul has backtracked ever so slightly by claiming that he was just using hyperbole when he made that comment about Republicans hopping for an attack. In the very unlikely event that Paul becomes President I hope he will have learned to reign in his tendency to use hyperbole to make his points.

To that end Paul has now alienated that most powerful of all Republican influences, Roger Aisles and Fox News. In a recent review of the top ten Republican candidates Senator Paul was just inadvertently, entirely accidentally, left off the list even though he had more voter support than several of the candidates Fox had included. Fox claimed it was all a mistake, but then Fox made the same “mistake” again. I’m beginning to think that Senator Paul might not appear in the first debate. When Reince Priebus, the RNC chief factotum, was asked about this curious oversight he claimed that the party had complete faith in Fox News’ procedures.

Then there was his interaction with the statuesque and very bright Kelly Evans of CNBC who was trying to get him to answer a question while he was pontificating about something else. Not accustomed to being interrupted while instructing the masses, Paul said, “Now calm down Kelly…” CNBC is hardly a left wing outfit and Paul once again demonstrated a major disconnect between his pre-frontal cortex which controls judgment and his Broca’s area which controls speech production. Well, as I said in the first sentence, “Poor Rand Paul…”

 

 

June 1^st

Pat Buchanan’s column today comes to a conclusion with which I can’t disagree.  He writes, “To be a martyr for Allah, to create a new caliphate, to expel the infidels and their puppets, these are the causes Islamic men will die for.” Naturally he overreaches a bit; he should have written, “these are the causes (some) Islamic men will die for.” Still, it doesn’t take a great many people willing and eager to die to make a huge difference.

It is possible to get to an accurate conclusion even if you don’t fully understand the events leading up to it and this is the case with Buchanan’s column. He claims that the Iraqis are not cowards because they fought for Saddam Hussein against Iran for eight years and died by the “tens of thousands.” That they did, and they did that because if they weren’t willing to die for Saddam they would have been killed by Saddam. This is the same choice offered troops in the first World War, charge machine gun nests and die a hero or cower in you trench and be shot as a coward; some choice!

Buchanan does not understand that “Expel the crusaders from our lands.” Is exactly the rational that does motivate the Islamists. Of course the shoe bomber, the twin tower destroyers and the truck bombers in Beirut are murderers; so were the Irgun terrorists who blew up the King David Hotel. The Israelis who benefitted from that have now put up a bronze plaque commemorating their victory. The Irgun were terrorists as far as the British were concerned just as the Beirut bombers and the hapless shoe bomber were terrorists as far as we are concerned. But then what other weapon did these people have? Britain then and the United States now are great powers fielding enormous well equipped armies and drones capable of attacking without any risk to the attacker.

Most religions have prohibited suicide but Muslims have special religious incentives for those killed in a holy war and holy wars, jihad, can be declared by any appropriate religious leader. Special delights await those killed in a holy war. Such beliefs obviously add a serious incentive to Muslims convinced that their countries and, particularly, their holy places have been invaded yet again by infidels. Kill an infidel and earn an eternity of pleasure; that’s hard to trump!

Buchanan wonders how to counteract those beliefs with western ideas of women’s rights and appeals to democratic government. The answer is that you can’t and we should have thought of that in 2003 before the Iraq war and in 2001 before the Afghanistan war. It has turned out to be very expensive revenge for 9/11 and I don’t think we got any oil at all.