Buchanan and the Pope Sept 30^th

Once again Patrick J. Buchanan has put himself firmly on the side of the exclusionists. The Pope has managed to include a variety of people who had not heretofore been well regarded by the Catholic hierarchy; of homosexuals he said, “Who am I to judge?” This attitude was not at all well received by Buchanan. Now, in a somewhat different vein, Buchanan is ranting against the attempts to provide for the enormous influx of Near Eastern refugees.

Buchanan claims that, “Behind this rising resistance to illegal and mass migration is human nature—the innate desire of peoples of one tribe or nation who share a common language , history, faith, culture and identity—to live together and apart from all the rest.” Buchanan is certainly right; it is also the innate desire of people to want what their neighbor has and to take it by force if they can. This was tribalism, a primitive form of civilization that all but a very few people, and perhaps Pat Buchanan, have now outgrown. When people become civilized they control these “innate impulses” for the common good; lacking that ability a people will relapse into bigotry. It has happened in this country when we sent citizens of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps at the outbreak of WW 2; it is happening now when we demonize Muslims.

Buchanan tells us that, “In the real world, nationalism not globalism is ascendant.” It was nationalism hat precipitated both world wars. Of course Buchanan would like to blame them both on Winston Churchill as he does in his curious history about “the unnecessary war.” The collapse of empires into nationalism produced a nationalistic Serbia that rebelled against the Austro-Hungarian Empire and finally assassinated the Austro-Hungarian Arch Duke, an event that began the First World War. Then there were the Poles, the Czechs and other nationalist splinters from empires that provided the tinder for WW 2.

It is surprising that Buchanan does not remember the signs, “No Irish need apply” that greeted his ancestors in this country when they first came here and looked for work. Those signs were the result of the tribalism that Buchanan now seems to be favoring.

The Pope has it right; the whole progress of civilization consists of overcoming a genetic inheritance that hundreds of centuries ago may have served us well but unless we overcome it now, it may destroy us.

 

 

Trump tax Sept 29^th

Donald Trump has, at long last, revealed his tax plan, a major beneficiary of which is…Donald Trump! Trump has decided to completely eliminate the inheritance tax, lovingly called the “death tax” by its opponents. This tax, in its present form only applies to estates over 5.4 million dollars. Once your estate reaches the rarefied level of Trump’s estate, the tax can reach 50 percent. Eliminating this tax altogether will save Trump’s heirs a bundle! The great majority of Americans will not be affected. What else is new?

There is something here for the masses too: If you are married you pay no income tax at all if you earn less the 50 thousand dollars a year, 25 thousand if you are single. Then the tax increases gradually until you reach the very top bracket which results in a 25 percent marginal tax rate. The current top marginal tax rate is about 40 percent and that’s what Trump pays on his reported income last year of about 350 million dollars. His tax plan works out to a saving of about 50 million a year for the Trump family.

This reduction will decrease government revenues by an estimated 400 billion dollars a year. Over twenty years that would come to a loss of 7 trillion dollars. Trump hasn’t specified how this revenue would be recouped nor has he discussed which government programs he would cut. The General Accounting Office (GAO) has found about 200 billion dollars in what they term wasteful spending; of course this is outrageous and should be stopped. The problem is to get any legislator to admit that the government spending in his district is wasteful, particularly since he probably pushed the spending authorization through Congress himself. Each of these people is very upset about waste, fraud and abuse but they are certain none of that goes on in their district. Until that changes, we can’t afford to reduce the government’s income.

Donald Trump is inordinately proud of his business acumen. He inherited an amount that is in some dispute, but it was probably about 200 million dollars. George Will, who is no fan of the Donald, has pointed out in his column today that had Trump simply put his money in an index fund in the stock market he would be worth more than 6 billion dollars today instead of his reputed worth of perhaps 4 billion. Of course George Will doesn’t appreciate the enormous value Trump places on his “brand.” If he had just put his money in an index fund he would be richer in money but certainly not notoriety. And that is a coin above price for Donald Trump.

Mona Charen Sept 28^th

Mona Charen questions whether Dorothy Day, honored by Pope Francis, really deserved the accolade that followed from the liberal press.  Charen gleefully points out that while Dorothy Day was a pacifist and a liberal and a fervent worker for women’s rights, she was opposed to abortion, birth control, social security and the sexual revolution. After three marriages and one abortion Dorothy Day converted to Catholicism after which she showed the typical enthusiastic support for Catholic doctrine found in converts.

Charen castigates Day for opposing our entry into WW ll. Does she remember all of the isolationists in the Republican Party who refused to vote to extend the draft, who refused to provide money to our armed services forcing them to train with wooden rifles and wooden machine guns? These were people in government who could have made a difference in our preparedness that Dorothy Day could not make. Perhaps Charen would like to comment on the efforts of Martin Dies, Burton J. Wheeler and William Jenner to keep us from opposing Hitler. She could add in Gerald Nye who was not only a prominent America Firster but a notable anti-Semite. He was speaking his obstructionist policies the night of December 7 even though he knew of the attack against us. Mona Charen’s assistants must have been unable to discover these facts, or maybe Mona would like to forget about that.

Dorothy Day’s views of communism were more complex than Charen wishes to explain. Here is Day’s response to a request from the Daily Worker in the 1930s: “Catholic Worker joins in appeal for democracy and peace, therefore asks you to join (a) protest against all dictatorships, fascist and Bolshevist, against all suppression of civil liberties, fascist and Bolshevist, including freedom of religious propaganda, education, and organization, against all war, whether imperialist, civil, or class. Merry Christmas.”  I guess Day wasn’t exactly a lover of Bolshevism

Then Charen comes, once more, to Cuba; she has misrepresented this situation before. She begins by telling us what a high per capita income Cuba had before Castro and indeed it did. But she doesn’t tell us where it came from or how it was distributed. Pre-Castro Cuba had sugar exports from huge sugar plantations that employed cane cutters a few months of the year and hoped they wouldn’t starve to death in the off-season. There was also tourism. Wealthy gamblers loved Cuba where the Baptista regime had few rules and enforced none. When the gamblers weren’t gambling there were plenty of prostitutes available so their recreational experience wasn’t one-sided.

After Castro prevailed in Cuba there was a mass exodus of the wealthy and upper middle class to Miami  all made easier by their claim that they were escaping Castro’s communism and they were. In the 1960s anyone claiming to be escaping communism got a warm welcome from our government. Before the Castro regime deteriorated into murderous repression it was popular in this country. Fidel Castro gave a four hour plus speech to the United Nations in 1960. His entourage even brought their own chickens with them from Cuba. My wife, then a sixteen-year-old, got Raul Castro’s signature on her ice skates. (She did not become a communist!)

 

Sept. 27^th Football

 Somewhere around 63 percent of University of Michigan students graduate with debt. The average amount owed is over 27 thousand dollars. How’s that for a graduation present? One result of this circumstance is that students have a great concern for what they will be able to earn once they graduate; so do their parents.  The parents have often financed much of their student’s college costs with the fervent expectation that the kid will get a decent job when they finish. So instead of majoring in philosophy, which he enjoys, Johnny majors in education and will spend a good part of the rest of his life unhappily teaching twelve-year-olds history and social studies.

And then we have the athletes; these men, if they play football for a major school like Michigan, may finish debt-free, if they graduate at all, and if they graduate with a meaningful degree.  The preferred major is General Studies. No science is required, no foreign language is required and this is a very popular major for football players. Perhaps they will take some courses in coaching football. Some football coaches are very well paid. Michigan’s new coach, Bill Harbaugh, an alum and former football player at Michigan was recently hired by the school for 8 million dollars. That makes Coach Harbaugh the highest paid state employee. Then there is the Michigan State football coach. Mark Dantonio, who earns 5.6 million a year and must be close behind Coach Harbaugh. The football coaches for the regional universities earn less, usually just between 500 thousand and a million a year.

Not many of the varsity football players at Michigan will ever get to be coaches of a Big Ten football team. The data show that only about 6 percent will ever play professional football and those for an average of less than four years. This has a benefit; recently post mortem analyses have shown that about 95 percent of professional football players whose brains were examined by a pathologist showed that these men had suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, (CTE); this is brain damage severe enough to be debilitating.

When did this start, high school, college, or not until the pros? No one knows. We do know that so far this season three high school kids have died after football injuries. College players are now often over 300 pounds and can run 40 yards in less than 45 seconds. But football is entertaining to watch; alumni demand winning teams and they are eager to subsidize that demand with money. The players have their moment of adulation in the spotlight and they aren’t complaining.  After all it’s a free country and like most everything else, it’s all about the money.

 

The Speaker Sept 26^th

Today I’ll write about Speaker John Boehner who announced, just yesterday, that he was resigning his Speakership and resigning from Congress.  The Speaker is Catholic and serious about it; he is responsible for Pope Francis receiving an invitation to address a joint session of Congress and the Pope’s presence affected him deeply. This was obvious to anyone who watched his tearful face during the Pope’s message. (Lest we be overcome with sympathy for Boehner, remember that he also invited Netanyahu to speak to Congress on a much more hot button political topic!)

The Speaker of the House is third in line for the Presidency of the United States. While Boehner was unpopular in some quarters of his party and he would have faced a challenge for his position, it is agreed that his Speakership was safe. So why resign now? He claims he was planning to resign very soon anyway, which may be true, and this seemed to be a good time to do it. He’s right; it is. The Republican controlled House can accomplish nothing without the votes of Democrats, an enormously galling situation for his party.

There are just over 40 Republican Tea Party people who appear to want nothing done and will tolerate no legislative compromise whatever. They are largely responsible for Congresses reputation for ineffectiveness. They and some other like-minded Republicans have been responsible for about 50 Bills to overturn the Affordable Care Act, none of which stood any chance of passing and all of which spent the public’s money and Congressional time without effect.

It seems that Boehner has abdicated the responsibility to lead a House with 247 Republicans of which 45 are Tea Party people who actively want to get rid of him and 188 members of the opposing party who don’t admire him very much either. Who can blame Boehner for wanting to go and play golf; who would be willing to take his place?

Buchanan Sept 25^th

Once again Patrick J. Buchanan writes longingly of the good old days of the 1950s Eisenhower years and the 1980s Reagan years. He tells us, “In America 2015, homosexuality, abortion on demand and same sex marriage—shameful crimes in Ike’s America, mortal sins in the catechism of Pius XII—have become constitutional rights.  These represent the values that define Barack Obama’s America, the values our officials defend to the United Nations, the values we preach to the world.”

Buchanan is stuck in the past: twenty countries now permit homosexual marriage; these include Argentina, Brazil, Iceland, Canada, England, most all of Scandinavia and even Ireland. My guess that when Ireland legalized same sex marriage Patrick J. Buchanan had a very bad day, and he deserved every minute of it! Homosexuality is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Iran, Nigeria and others. Why doesn’t Buchanan mention these beacons of enlightenment and applaud their lethal decisions; they are just following Old Testament sanctions aren’t they Pat?

It is not surprising that Buchanan longs for Ike’s America; then there was a segregated south and a segregated Washington D.C, where, as Buchanan longingly said, “…they had their places and we had ours…” Harry Truman had managed to desegregate the military before he left office; he did that by executive order to the consternation of southern bigots. But those were the good old days for Pat Buchanan.

“Since Eisenhower’s time Christianity, the faith that created the West, has been purged from public life.”  Christianity has never been part of government in this country. The founding fathers were Deists, if they believed in a higher power they believed only in a Creator, a God. You will not find the words Jesus Christ, or any reference to any aspect of Christianity in The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. There have been various attempts to drag some aspect of religion into Government, the most recent by a County Clerk who got her fifteen minutes of fame by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. She could have resigned her position and thus avoided having to issue them but the pay (80 thousand dollars a year) was so good that she chose to go to jail instead.

Buchanan, like most bigots, pushes for exclusion: He has a history of excluding African Americans, Jews, homosexuals and immigrants. He agrees with Ann Coulter that our immigration policies will “turn America into a third world hell hole.” His policies of exclusion echo those of the right wing of the party he has served so well. They guarantee another election loss in 2016. Keep up the good work Pat!

The Pope and the scold, Sept 24^th

This morning I watched the Pope deliver an invited address to a joint session of Congress. His audience also included four of the nine justices of the Supreme Court; perhaps the others had urgent business elsewhere. The Pope read his speech in English, a language in which he was clearly not fluent; still, he was certainly understandable. Enough so that when he talked about our responsibility to protect the planet, Senator Inhofe, a leading climate change denier, sat firmly on his hands. The speech was enthusiastically received, Inhofe excepted, of course. This Pope is more concerned with following Jesus than with following rules so naturally that causes him some trouble.

What he had to tell the Congress formed a fascinating contrast with another national leader’s address on May 24^th when Bibi Netanyahu warned of catastrophe if the Iran agreement was not rejected. He claimed there would be a nuclear holocaust if we validated the agreement. His plea didn’t work; the agreement stands. Of course there is still a chance that Iran itself will reject it. Perhaps Netanyahu can wrangle an invitation to address the appropriate legislative body of Iranians about what an awful agreement this is, and encourage the Iranians to reject it. Keep in mind that Israel has never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and is estimated to have about 80 deliverable nuclear weapons of its own.

The scold in this narrative is none other than Thomas Sowell. He begins his column by claiming that, “The Pope has created political controversy by blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor.” That is certainly true; it is true that the Pope said it, and it is a fact. Capitalism is splendid at creating wealth, particularly the unregulated and largely uncontrolled capitalism favored by the right wing in this country. While capitalism is very good at creating wealth, it is not good at distributing it. The obvious result is that it tends to be concentrated in a very few hands.

Sowell claims that, “A scholar specializing in the study of Latin America said that the official poverty level in the United States is the upper middle class in Mexico. The much criticized market economy of the United States has done far more for the poor than the ideology of the left.” Why the comparison with Mexico? Why not a comparison with one of the Scandinavian countries, countries that offer government provided medical care for children born with birth defects which will otherwise probably bankrupt their parents? Our right wing is very concerned with the “pre-born,” the “post-born” is the parents responsibility. Then there is student debt; non-existent in many other countries where higher education is free. There are many other advantages that come from living in a country that controls the distribution of the wealth that capitalism can generate. Sowell will never understand this.

 

Clubbing Trump Sept 23^rd

(“Gloriskey Zero!” For those of you who don’t remember Little Annie Rooney, a comic strip that first saw the light of day three months before I did, that expression was uttered by Annie when she was pleasantly surprised. Yesterday the readership of this blog hit double digits for the first time. This surge was, I believe, due to the efforts of a person who shall remain anonymous for their own safety, but they certainly have my thanks.)

Now to the issue at hand: An organization called “The Club for Growth” is being sued for “millions” by Donald Trump. The basis for this suit is that Trump claims the Cub’s recent negative advertising about him has misrepresented his positions on various issues. This requires some analysis. First we shall look at the Club for Growth.

The Club is a right wing group dedicated to raising money to support politicians who agree with their agenda. This agenda is to lower taxes as much as possible and to reduce government as much as possible (excepting the military of course). They are particularly concerned with government restrictions on the ability of the wealthy to become wealthier; obviously they want lower taxes on the wealthy and have fewer restrictions on how their businesses can be conducted. In short the name is a misnomer; it should be called “The Club for the Growth of Wealth for the One Percent.” The Club collects money from those wealthy individuals who find its agenda agreeable (the Koch Brothers) and distribute money to legislators who follow instructions, or think of creative ideas agreeable to the Club (Tom Cotton). Tom Cotton was the guiding force behind the 47 Senators who felt it necessary to carry out their own diplomacy with the Iranians. (Trump claims they asked him for a million dollars which he refused to give them. Perhaps now they are getting even.)

The Club has placed some ads attacking Trump’s position on taxes specifically that Trump wants to raise them on at least some high income folks. They also claim that Trump favors various other positions much more to the left than the Club finds agreeable. As a result of this attack ad, Trump is suing the Club for Growth. Here is a quote from Trump’s message to the Club:

"In the interest of avoiding what will certainly be a costly litigation process, we are prepared to offer you the one-time opportunity to rectify this matter by providing us with your prompt written assurances that (i) you have stopped running the Attack Ads; and (ii) you will not generate or disseminate any misleading or inaccurate information or make any factually baseless accusations... with respect to my client at any point in the future." ---- I must say that phrase,” …we are prepared to offer you a one-time opportunity to rectify this matter…” sounds like a robo call from a collection agency.

If the Club for Growth refuses to heed Trump's warnings, the real estate mogul's counsel threatens: "we will commence a multi-million dollar lawsuit against you personally and your organization ... as well as pursue all other remedies available to us at law or in equity."

How does the Club respond? They tell us that the ads will continue just as before. As Trump should know the wealthy and their agents are not easily intimidated.

 

 

Sept 22^nd

 Religion and politics are an explosive mixture in this country where some people take both very seriously. Within a few minutes of my writing this Pope Francis will be arriving here and he won’t be greeted by cheers from everyone. Rick Santorum, a Catholic candidate for the Presidency, believes the Pope should not be discussing climate change as the Church does not have a credible history in science. Of course Santorum is quite certain that climate change is not influenced by mankind which, might possibly, influence his disagreement with Pope Francis on this issue. Santorum’s scientific credentials are nonexistent. One wonders if Santorum has ever heard of an Augustinian Monk named Gregor Mendel, probably not.

Then, moving from the ridiculous to the even more ridiculous, we see comments for that savant Bouncy-bouncy Limbaugh. He has spoken out quite forthrightly and wrong-headedly proclaiming the Pope is not a head of state and was not elected to his post, that he is a communist and should not be addressing a joint session of Congress. That is absurd. The Vatican is a State and is widely recognized as a state. We have an ambassador to The Holy See named Ken Hackett. Moreover, the Pope becomes Pope as a result of his election to that office by the College of Cardinals.

For Limbaugh, and for many others on the right, any concern for the poor that suggests the “haves” should have less so the “have nots” can have more is anathema and clearly communistic. A prominent Liberation Theologian, Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camara, said, “When I gave food to the poor they called me a Saint: when I asked why there were poor they called me a communist.” Has anything changed?

The news of the week concerns Ben Carson who has declared that a Muslim would be unfit to serve as President. Then after a considerable outcry from many—except for Donald Trump who declared that there were those who thought we already had a Muslim in the White House-- Carson modified his stance just slightly; he would agree if the Muslim would place loyalty to the constitution above “sharia law.” I wonder if Carson would be willing to place the Constitution above the Ten Commandments or other admonishments in the Old Testament. After all the Old Testament tells us that fathers should take disobedient sons to the elders so that they can be stoned to death, Deut. 21: 18-21. If you are a Biblical literalist would you support that? There are other Old Testament requirements such as the stoning to death of harlots that are probably not allowed by our constitution.

The ethical concerns of most religions evolve; some do not. Some believers accept aspects of their religious literature as metaphor; some cannot. These latter should not be in our body politic. The conundrum occurs when the Constitution’s Article 6, no religious test to hold office, allows for the election of someone whose intent it is to destroy our constitutional government and impose a different system.

 

 

Thomas Sowell, Sept 21^st

Thomas Sowell has now resorted to name calling, a strategy not uncommon for righteous right wingers talking about the President. (Referring to Sowell as a righteous right winger is hardly name calling.) Sowell writes, “…that after six years of repeated disasters, both domestically and internationally, under a glib egomaniac in the White House…;” then he claims Trump is just another egomaniac. Once again Sowell is half right; he’s certainly right about Trump as a glib egomaniac. He doesn’t stop to wonder why this glibster is running as a Republican; for some of us that is no surprise at all.

Now as to the President’s disasters, “both domestically and internationally,” Sowell doesn’t care to be specific. Perhaps this allergy to specifics has been picked up from Trump who has used it to great benefit in his various pronouncements.  The President’s domestic and international disasters include the following:  the bipartisan Trans Pacific Trade Agreement, passage of the Affordable Care Act, lowering the unemployment rate to 5.1 percent, doubling the value of the stock market, executing the man behind the 9/11 attacks, normalizing some relations with Cuba (after 50 years of failed policies) getting an agreement with Iran on nuclear proliferation… and producing his birth certificate… among many other achievements. What a litany of horrors this is for poor Thomas Sowell who is reduced to bundling them all together and calling them “failures.”

Then Sowell tell us that, “The media seem to think that participation in elections is a big deal.” It isn’t only the media who think participation in elections is a big deal. Sowell claims that, “…the purpose of elections is not participation but…to select people for offices…;” that is nonsense. We select people for office by means of elections; some countries do it by letting their military choose one of their own as national leader. Disputing the military’s choice could be very risky; just ask the mothers of the “Disappeared” in Argentina.

Elections can also provide widespread support for those elected. The franchise has been broadened over and over again. Women could not vote until 1920 when the 19^th amendment became law. In the early days of our country there were property ownership requirements to meet before you could vote. The result was that only about 10 percent of Americans could vote in early elections; in some areas the vote was limited to Christians. Now Sowell complains that some voters are “grossly uninformed, or misinformed,” and suggests the voting age be raised to 30! He claims that many people under that age “have never even had the responsibility of being self-supporting…” Incredible! Now, according to this right wing pundit, you can die for your country before you are responsible enough to vote against the fools who started the war.

George Will, Sept 20^th

George Will turns his invective on Poe Francis today. In a remarkable display of rancor Will excoriates the Pope as “…trailing clouds of sanctimony…Ideas demonstrably false and deeply reactionary. They would devastate the poor on whose behalf he purports to speak—if his policy descriptions were not as implausible as his social diagnoses are shrill.” Nonsense! Pope Francis is a reactionary? By my dictionary that would make the Pope deeply conservative and that is simply an absurd way to describe this Pope.

He quotes the Pope who claims that, “People occasionally forgive, but nature never does.” and then Will points out that some environmental damage can be reversed; indeed it can. The Cuyahoga River will no longer catch fire; clear cut forests can be replanted, provided mudslides don’t remove all the topsoil. Raising the pH of the oceans to compensate for the dissolved carbon dioxide which increases the ocean’s carbonic acid content may take a bit longer. The increased acidity and increased temperature have already decimated coral reefs.

Speaking of an environmental conference Will, in a remarkable absence of insight, claims “…rhetorical exhibitionism increases as its effectiveness decreases.” He said it; I didn’t.

Will makes a good case that fossil fuels have brought significant benefits to mankind; no one can doubt that. Now, however, there is evidence that used as fuel the continuation of this process is hazardous for humanity. Will claims that, “fertilizer manufactured with gas halved the amount of land needed to produce a given amount of food.” He then goes on to praise “fossil fuels” for their inclusion in synthetic fibers, fertilizers and pesticides. Without fossil fuels global cropland would have to increase 150 percent—equal to the combined land areas of the European Union and South America-- to meet current food needs.” No one argues with that. There is simply no question that natural gas, coal and oil, produce products that have enormous benefits for all of us. And that is not the issue.

That fossil fuels are constituents in many wonderful products there is no doubt; in how many of these products are these fossil fuels burned?  How much is burned producing fibers, pesticides or fertilizers?  These products are not the issue here and Will must know that; the concern is with fossil fuels as fuels. The problem with fossil fuels comes when you burn enormous quantities of them that produce fly-ash and CO2.

France derives 75 percent of its power from nuclear sources. Why can’t we do at least as well?

Post-Debate Sept 18^th

Before the 2008 Presidential election a woman talking to Senator McCain called then Senator Obama an “Arab.” McCain took back the microphone and said , “No ma’am; he is a good American with whom I have some political differences.” Now when someone calls President a Muslim in a Donald Trump event, what happens? Trump screws up his face in his standard knowing pout and nods his head. What a difference eight years has made. Then the questioner followed up by asking what Trump planned to do about “all of these Muslim camps that want to kill us.” Trump again rose to the occasion by saying that as President he would look into it. Later another fan commented that farmers were being charged for pasturing their cattle on BLM (public) lands. I suppose these folks believe anyone has the right to cut timber, mine coal or perhaps even sell public land for their personal benefit. They don’t!

Humans have a long and sordid history of “demonizing the other.” The tendency might well be genetic. The enemy in war is always pictured as savage, brutish and not at all like us. Newcomers in residential neighborhoods are often viewed with suspicion particularly if they look different or have different customs. Having a black President is more than many people can tolerate, so he has to be presented as not only black but very different otherwise, a Muslim and probably not eligible to be President because he wasn’t even born in America

This failure of citizenship was pushed by Trump before, and this in spite of the President releasing his birth certificate, so it’s no surprise that Trump’s still coy about discussing it. Now he says that he has other things to talk about but he hasn’t recanted his skepticism about President Obama’s citizenship.

On the Muslim front remember that one poll finds that 43 percent of Republicans actually believe President Obama is a Muslim, that’s 57 percent of Trump supporters. Having failed to counter this questioner’s notion that The President is a Muslim, Trump is in a pickle. Perhaps this time he will need to regroup; he has cancelled an appearance because his people say he has an important business deal in the works. (Why of course he does.) His problem is obvious: if he claims that Obama is not a Muslim he risks losing those 43 percent of Republicans who say he is a Muslim; but if he continues to allow questioners to claim the President is a Muslim without objecting, he could lose the support of the 57 percent who claim they don’t know, or claim that he is a Christian. Poor Donald, no wonder he needs to think about this a bit. (Trump’s excuse for not answering the guy who claimed the President was a Muslim has just surfaced; Trump says that he didn’t hear what the man said. I don’t believe that dog will hunt!)

 

 

Sowell Sept 17^th

Sowell’s nose has come badly out of joint as a result of someone criticizing his most recent book. The comment was, “there is apparently no level of inequality of income or opportunity that Thomas Sowell would find unacceptable.” Sowell maintains that the reviewer has “missed the whole point of the book.” The book, “Wealth, Poverty and Politics” is listed on Amazon; it has five reviews so far (It’s very recent) and every single one of these reviewers gives the book five stars, the highest rating possible. Not only that, but there is not one single negative comment about any of these glowing five star reviews. Normally there are at least a few on the opposite side politically who will disagree with hagiographic reviews such as these.

Sowell has interesting ideas about just what constitutes opportunity. He points out that children raised in homes where they are not given “parental care and attention” are less able to take advantage of opportunities when these opportunities are subsequently presented. He says that “this is so obvious that you would have to be an intellectual to misconstrue it. Yet many among the intelligentsia equate differences in outcome with differences in opportunity.” Well yeah!

Sowell completely misses the point that he, himself, has just made; the child not given attention and conversation does not have an equal ability to take advantage of opportunity when it is presented. He is right about one thing: as an intellectual he did misconstrue it.

Later he says. “But when people with low credit scores are not approved for loans as often as people with high credit scores, is that a failure of opportunity or a failure to meet standards.” Apparently second order causality is beyond the comprehension of this “intellectual;” it is the failure of opportunity to meet standards. What are your opportunities if you are not even a high school graduate and you earn a wage of 9 dollars an hour, or 18 thousand dollars a year, if your credit cards are maxed out and you struggle to find food and clothing for your two kids. There is clearly a failure of opportunity here to meet the credit standards required for a loan to buy even a used mobile home.

Sowell must believe that everyone has the opportunity to do anything if they would just buckle down and try hard. Most high school graduates will not get into Harvard as Sowell did no matter how hard they try. Unless of course they are legacies, that is the child of a Harvard graduate. I suppose Sowell believes that anyone can be the child of a Harvard graduate and therefore get into Harvard if they just try hard enough.

 

Fiorina Sept 16^th

Donald Trump made some ungentlemanly remarks denigrating Carly Fiorina’s face; then he tried to back out of his comments by saying that he was talking about her “persona.” Now that’s lame! It’s lame but it isn’t surprising because he did the same thing when he was incensed at Megyn Kelly for asking him questions he didn’t like. He claimed she was so angry she was bleeding “from her eyes…and her whatever.” He obviously meant that she was upset because she was menstruating but he didn’t say that, and then when called to task about his comment he insisted that he meant no such thing, he really meant her nose. Then why didn’t he say that? Trump will back up pathetically fast when his mouth gets him in certain kinds of trouble.

In tonight’s debate, which is no debate at all but is rather a Q&A period, Fiorina claims that she has some remarks for Trump. She did well in the last debate, albeit at the kiddies’ table, so great things are expected of her tonight. Fiorina needs to be very careful here because she is sitting on a powder keg. No one has taken a match to it yet but eventually someone will and while Fiorina has her pat speech excusing her disastrous performance at H-P this mess is very different. google_share|article-5979947|article-share-redesign|6

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina still owes nearly $500,000 to creditors from her failed 2010 Senate campaign to unseat Barbara Boxer.Back to Gallerygallery_thumbs_close|article-gallery-5979947|article-gallery-5979947|0  This information, including exactly how much money Fiorina owes and to whom she owes it is readily available on the net. It is interesting that the Fox News moderators in the last debate never asked Fiorina about this interesting bit of information and neither did any of the other participants. Tonight might be different; it will be fun to see how long it will take before someone fires up the powder keg upon which Ms. Fiorina is perched.

 

Suppose Fiorina has paid off this debt; she could do it any time and knowing that it’s hanging over her head should be a considerable motivator to get rid of it. She can surely afford to pay it off; she is worth millions. The blot will still be there because she did stiff these folks for years. Paying them off now doesn’t change that.

 

Trump, Sept 15^th

I watched just a bit of Donald Trump’s triumphant performance in Texas last night; it was typical Trump and it was about nothing but him. In responding to Ben Carson’s surge in the polls, Trump complains, “What about me? What about my surge? Where’s my name?” Trump had surged all of three percent and Carson zoomed from 6 percent to 23 percent. Of course Trump is still ahead of Carson but it’s a statistical dead heat and that’s something Trump can’t tolerate.

Much of his speech was a rehash of previous bombasts; he tells us that as soon as he is elected he will call the President of Ford Motor Company and tell him that if he goes ahead with this billion dollar Mexican Ford plant that he, Donald Trump, will put a surcharge of 30 percent on each Ford car brought into this country. This intelligence brings wild cheers from his audience who doesn’t know that Congress determines trade policy, including the setting of tariffs. Naturally he doesn’t mention the largest BMW plant in the world in South Carolina whose presence was negotiated by these ineffective and pathetically inept government negotiators.

Donald Trump is a gift to academia; particularly the political science, sociology and, perhaps the psychology departments. Within the next ten years there will be dozens of theses and dissertations analyzing Trump’s appeal and drawing parallels with other political figures. Many of Trump’s proposals are nonsense. How can you possibly deport 12 million people “back where they came from?” Quite aside from the expense and the legality of deporting people born here and who are consequently citizens, we have the issue of whether or not their countries of origin would accept them. (Trump might have to pay these countries to allow the repatriation.)

Then there is the wall which he claims Mexico will pay for, although he doesn’t tell us how that will be arranged…and no one asks him. One end of this wall finishes in California on the Pacific coast the other end in Texas on the Caribbean coast. So will Trump post destroyers off these coasts to keep people from taking boats to get around these walls? I‘ll bet he hasn’t thought of that possibility but Latinos will think of it if he builds his wall. Of course no matter how far into the ground he sinks the wall it will be possible to tunnel under it. Good luck with your wall Mr. Trump.

There are enough of Trump’s proposals which are unconvincing but seem to be eagerly accepted by his supporters that one wonders about the supporters. Are they really as gullible as they appear? They are. People believe what they really want to believe. Some believed a space ship was hiding in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet was ready to welcome them if they left their bodies behind on earth; 39 people killed themselves believing that nonsense. Then we have 43 percent of Republicans believing that President Obama is a Muslim. Ben Carson’s improbable beliefs about the President might require a psychiatrist!

 

 

 

Buchanan Sept 14^th

Buchanan’s column today is titled, “Kim Davis fighting judicial tyranny.” As I’ve written, this issue has been thoroughly covered and Buchanan adds nothing new. I’m sure newspaper editors must take what they get when they agree to publish a columnist’s work, but paying to read these remarks now is not different from paying to read other bits of last week’s news.

Buchanan writes, “Some conservatives say that Kim Davis as a public official has to carry out court orders, even those she believes to be immoral, or quit. Yet the course she took has undeniably advanced her cause in our culture war.” That’s silly!  I would guess that most conservatives believe in the rule of law, George Will certainly does. Maybe Buchanan should read his column. Jeb Bush says that Davis has sworn to uphold the law. Donald Trump says that “same sex marriage is the law of the land.” Even the first runner up in the Miss America contest slammed Kim Davis’ stand. Her stand is more about holding on to that 80 thousand dollar a year job than it is about religious belief. She was willing to go to jail but not willing to give up her job, money talks!

Buchanan has brought up other “lawbreakers” like Rosa Parks and even Martin Luther King as a comparison with Kim Davis. These people were trying to gain inclusion; Kim Davis is aiming to exclude people. The more appropriate comparison would be with Governor George Wallace who “stood in the schoolhouse door” fighting against school integration until federal authorities removed him. Notice again that Wallace also wanted to exclude people.

Buchanan’s bigotry is clearly in evidence here. He has demonstrated his homophobia over and over and nowhere more obviously than in this column. As Carlos Maza writing for “Equality Matters” has written, “Pat Buchanan remains an anti-gay bigot. There really is no other way to put it. On Friday, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan (who also has his issues on race and religion issues) wrote a piece for WorldNetDaily headlined “Let’s hear it for prejudice” (not a joke). Buchanan laments New York’s recent decision to embrace marriage equality, arguing that homosexuality is “unnatural and immoral” while calling same-sex marriage “an Orwellian absurdity” (also not a joke).

William F. Buckley wrote a 40 thousand word piece for “The national Review” in 1991 which concluded that Buchanan was indeed a bigot; this was anti-Semitic bigotry however. One thing about Buchanan, he is an equal opportunity bigot: Jews, homosexuals and African-Americans are all included; none of them is particularly favored.

G. Will on D. Trump, Sept 13^th

This morning George Will unloads on Donald Trump; prior to that he has some uncomplimentary things to say about the following: Huckabee, Jindal, Paul, Walker and Cruz. These worthy Republicans climbed aboard the Kim Davis bandwagon, all of them lamenting the court’s refusal to let ignore her sworn county government responsibilities to cater to her religious beliefs. Kim was quite willing to go to jail for her beliefs but certainly not willing to give up an 80 thousand dollar a year county clerk’s job; sacrificing for religious beliefs has its limits for Kim Davis.

Then George Will takes on Donald Trump. Trump criticized Jeb Bush for answering, in Spanish, a question asked of him in Spanish. Will pointed out that Lincoln himself had bought a German language newspaper and was taking German lessons. Poor Donald. But Trump takes delight in being admired by Kanye West so he must appeal to the “rap” crowd.

Then Trump complains that Japan is pouring cars into this country and refusing to consume our beef. He’s wrong of course, because most of these Japanese cars are assembled here of parts also made here. In 2012 Toyota employed 31 thousand Americans. Will quotes Nikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina, who claims that South Carolina is home to five foreign owned tire companies, a bicycle company recently moved back here from China, a flat screen TV company, and the largest BMW plant in the world, one that produces a BMW every minute. All of this done, I assume, by our incredibly stupid trade negotiators.

Then we have Trump claiming that hedge fund managers pay too little income tax, that we need a single payer health insurance plan and other non-conservatively correct ideas.

George Will has demonstrated what everyone already knew; that Donald Trump “is a loud malleable mess.” OK, I certainly agree; now perhaps George will tell us why Donald Trump has chosen to run for President as a Republican. Could it be that Trump believes his antics have a particular appeal to many Republicans?  I’ll bet he does and apparently he’s right!

Who cares? Sept 12^th

In today’s paper are four full columns from factcheck.org titled “More spin on Hillary Clinton emails.” What follows is a summary, nearly a day-by-day summary, of the torturous revelations about Hillary Clinton’s personal server. On Aug.11 Clinton directed her legal team to turn over her personal server and a thumb drive to the Justice Department. There has been much back and forth about this server, particularly about whether or not it contained information compromising national security.

The right has claimed that Clinton was as guilty of compromising national security as was General Petraeus. The charge is absurd on its face. Petraeus maintained personal briefing books which he handed over to his mistress. The one-time CIA director didn’t just disclose secrets to his mistress. He shared with her some of the most sensitive information the Pentagon had. The information came in the form of eight black books that contained everything from identities of covert officers to discussions with President Obama. Clinton’s emails are supposed to contain information like this? Ridiculous!

But not to the Fox News people, their Chief Intelligence correspondent, Catherine Herridge, claims the prosecution of Petraeus and the non-prosecution of Clinton reflects a double standard. Herridge, who makes about a million a year from Fox News, may be paid more for her political enthusiasm than for her reportorial accuracy. Another member of the Fox News stable, Melissa Francis, has chimed in telling us that, “This is exactly what General Petraeus is accused of.” Hey, it’s Fox News, what do you expect?

For Clinton’s supporters it is “Ho hum, who cares?”

On the other side is Donald Trump who comments on Carly Fiorina’s face and then pretends he was talking about her persona…and some people believe him.  He will also send back to their home countries 12 million undocumented aliens and their U.S. citizen children. He will do this whether or not the countries they came from will allow them to return…and some people believe him. He will build an impenetrable wall across our border with Mexico and make Mexico pay for it…and some people believe him. Donald Trump says that, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese to make U.S manufacturing non-competitive”…and some people believe him.

For Trump’s supporters it is “Ho hum, who cares?”

Potpourri Sept 11^th

There is no new right wing outrage to contest today, although I’m sure there soon will be. Kim Davis is out of jail and out of the limelight until she goes back to work. Once back in the courthouse she’ll find something that will restore her appeal to the cameras. Let’s face it she has yet to be interviewed by Megyn Kelly of Fox News.

 

Shifting gears…the committee investigating the affair between the two very socially conservative freshman Republican legislators in Michigan, Cindy Gamrat and Tod Courser, have voted to expel them both. Courser resigned just before the critical vote. Gamrat and Courser shared an office and were apparently having an affair which was not a well-kept secret.  When major leakage about the affair began Courser claimed he was being blackmailed and concocted a fake message about a homosexual liaison to throw off suspicion. He thought that if he admitted to a homosexual affair no one would believe he was having a heterosexual affair. When his staffer refused to send the fake document Courser fired him. Eventually, after much politicking the required two-thirds votes for expulsion were obtained and now I suppose the Republicans feel cleansed.

 

Bobby Jindal, in what may be a dying gasp, has launched an all-out attack on Donald Trump. The details of the attack are not really relevant but perhaps Jindal hopes Trump’s well known propensity to over-react will get him some badly needed publicity. He only makes the afternoon junior debate on Sept. 16; his polling is firmly stuck at 1 to 2 percent. At this point he might be seen as so irrelevant that Trump will ignore him and that would be the ultimate crusher. Jindal may soon follow Governor Rick Perry and get out of the competition altogether.

That’s all folks! None of these candidates, or the right wing columnists I can normally count on, has given me any ammunition today. Tomorrow will be better or I’ll be reduced to telling stories like this: There is a true story about the marriage license clerk in a western state who issued a marriage license to a gay couple. There was great hue and cry about this as you would expect. Two days later a cowboy showed up with his horse and wanted a marriage license for himself and his horse. The clerk, all seriousness, asked the cowboy how old he was, 25 said the cowboy. How old is your horse asked the clerk, 8 years old said the cowboy. I’m sorry, said the clerk, your horse is too young.

 

 

 

 

The odds, Sept 10^th

It is illegal to bet on the outcomes of elections in this country but you can bet on them in Britain. The result is that in Britain there are bookmakers who will take your money if you wish to bet on your favorite candidate; they will also determine the odds of your candidate winning.

For example, in spite of the undeniable fact that Donald Trump is leading all other candidates in the polls for the Republican nomination, William Hill, a premier British odds maker, has Trump an 8 to 1 underdog to win the nomination. If you believe that those are laughably low odds then you can bet 100 dollars that Trump wins the nomination and if he does you will collect 800 dollars from Mr. Hill. Of course Mr. Hill makes his living offering odds and his evaluation of Trump’s chances must be respected regardless of Trump's sturdy poll numbers.

Sometimes it is instructive to look at the odds Hill provides for various outcomes: Who is the favorite to win the Republican nomination? It isn’t Donald Trump; it is Jeb Bush who lags Trump substantially in the current popularity contest. Hill’s odds for Jeb to win the nomination are 11 to 8. That means that if you want to bet on Jeb, an 8 dollar bet will win 11 dollars for you if Jeb wins. Among all of the Republican hopefuls those are the most favorable odds for any candidate. Rubio and Walker are each 7 to 2. From there the odds of winning the Republican nomination fall off very fast; Ben Carson is a 20 to 1 shot; Carly Fiorina and Rick Santorum are each 50 to 1 shots.

Of course Hill will also give odds on the Democrats; he sees Hilary Clinton as the most likely Democratic nominee, In spite of her recent and continuing pounding from conservatives about her server, Hill has her as 1 to 6 favorite to win the Democratic nomination. Bernie Sanders is listed as 8 to 1, exactly the same odds Hill gives Donald Trump to win the Republican nomination. How about the general election; what are Hill’s odds on the ultimate winner in 2016? At this admittedly early point the odds for the Democrats are 8 to 11 and for the Republicans 11 to 10. So the odds right now favor the Democrats…at least according to a well-connected British bookie.

On another note, albeit somewhat discordant, but since it’s about Donald Trump who should be surprised. Mr. Trump, for no particular reason, attacked the appearance of Carly Fiorina. He said that “her face makes her unelectable.” He launched attacks against her for other reasons as well; he dwelt on her controversial tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Given that she is not much above water in the polls one wonders why Trump bothers, perhaps for Trump to be nasty is to be happy or maybe it’s vice-versa.

Huckabee Sept 9^th

The Republican circus is now a three ringer; Donald Trump’s selling snake oil bluster occupies the center ring and gets most of the attention. There is another ring, at least for the moment, and Mike Huckabee has that ring all to himself. He has increased his morning talk show appeal and he has done this by proclaiming his support for Kim Davis who is famous for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

Huckabee nearly blew it; he declared that he was going to visit Kim Davis in jail but by the time he got to Kansas Kim had been released from jail because the other clerks in the courthouse were issuing those awful marriage licenses, so  the judge no longer had any reason to keep Kim locked up. Even though Kim had been released she remained inside the courthouse for some time, probably letting crowd enthusiasm build up before she went on stage.

Not only did Huckabee get to Kansas a day late but when he arrived he found Senator Ted Cruz already there and eager to share the spotlight with him as well. Bummer! Of course there was Kim’s attorney who also stuck to her side. This attorney raised some eyebrows by declaring that SCOTUS had no right to interpret the constitution so as to permit same sex marriage. Some members of the court probably agreed with him but it’s too late now.

After a considerable wait the heroine of the hour emerged from the jail building; she was preceded by Senator Ted Cruz who attempted to turn to his right as he exited but his way was blocked by a much shorter figure. The blocker kept shifting his position so as to continuing to block the Senator’s progress. Cruz finally smiled and gave up; it seemed the blocker was a paid Huckabee supporter whose job is to see that only his boss shared the platform with Kim and her attorney.

Now we see a heartwarming spectacle: Kim is smiling and raising her hands to the sky in thanksgiving for her release. It is clear that she believes she has won a great victory. How is that possible? The judge has told her that if she interferes with the other clerks who have been issuing same sex licenses in her absence she will go right back into the pokey. Some victory. Huckabee uses the microphone to make some curious comments about civil disobedience which this surely was, but the comparisons he makes are all with civilian disobedience not with the failure of an elected official to do what she had sworn an oath to do. That difference seems to have escaped Reverend Huckabee. He also seems surprised that this horror has been visited on a Democrat and he specifically points that out. He doesn’t mention that the Judge who imprisoned Kim was appointed by President G.W. Bush and was likely a Republican.

Kim Davis and her supporters are clearly overjoyed; they liked the way the first act ended but the play isn’t over yet. Kim is happy too; she can keep her job and jobs that pay 80 thousand a year plus tidy benefits are not easily obtained in rural Kansas.

Buchanan Sept 8^th

Patrick Buchanan asks, “Do the lives of police matter to Obama?” His thesis is that of course they don’t. To make his case he has to leave out some data and distort some other facts. We should expect no less from Patrick J. Buchanan.

Buchanan tells us that Deputy Goforth was shot 15 times by “an alleged black racist.” He tells us too that the President called this officer’s widow but “he didn’t show the…indignation and outrage he exhibited...at what happened to Michael Brown…and Trevon Martin.” So now Buchanan evaluates the President’s condolence phone calls on whether he believes they have shown the proper degree of “outrage.” Buchanan’s arrogance here is right up there with Donald Trump’s… maybe Buchanan is planning to get into the Presidential race once again.

Deputy Goforth’s killer, Shannon J. Miles, was charged with assault in 2012. He was then declared mentally incompetent to stand trial. It seems that Shannon J. Miles was probably not in his right mind when he murdered Officer Goforth either. The question that Buchanan ought to be asking, and one he doesn’t even touch, is how does someone like this get a weapon capable of firing 15 shots with 15 trigger pulls? Buchanan would much rather talk about President Obama’s lack of adequate outrage at Officer Goforth’s killing than ask how his killer, once declared mentally incompetent, acquired the weapon that killed him. One question fits Buchanan’s agenda, the other question doesn’t.

Moving right along Buchanan tells us that “Eric Garner had an encounter with the police on Staten Island…” Indeed he did have “an encounter with the police…” actually he had an encounter with five police officers and as a result of this “encounter” he was choked to death. His “crime” was selling individual cigarettes. As he was forced to the sidewalk with an illegal chokehold he said, “I can’t breathe.” This utterance was taken by the police as evidence that he certainly could breathe. The police, apparently unfamiliar with the mechanics of breathing, should know that making a sound requires expelling air; it is not evidence that you can bring air into your lungs. The result was that Mr. Garner died right there with his face pushed into the concrete sidewalk and this “encounter” cost the city 5.9 million dollars. Again, Buchanan mentions none of that.

Then Buchanan describes his favorite crime fighter, Ronald Reagan; he tells us that Reagan, beginning about 1980, increased the number of people incarcerated from 600 thousand to 2 million. “Muggers, robbers, rapists and killers were taken off the streets and put away for decades.” Well perhaps, but the great majority of these criminals were minor drug offenders, many were pot smokers; this was the beginning of the “war on drugs” which has led to long prison terms and overcrowded prisons for the possession of small amounts of marijuana. The Corrections Corporation of America whose mission it is to privatize prisons and profit from swelling prison populations began  its ascent in 1983; just another bow to the free enterprise system from Buchanan’s conservative hero, Ronald Reagan.

Labor Day Sept. 7^th

Within the past week the local paper had an article about a business man who was complaining that he couldn’t open his new restaurant because he couldn’t find employees in spite of offering 8.50/hour in wages. Now that’s encouraging! Certainly it isn’t encouraging for this restaurateur but it is wonderful news for folks in the labor market who are trying to make enough money to avoid eligibility for food stamps; it might finally encourage employers to offer a decent starting wage.

The Republican legislature is no help; they passed a bill which would gradually raise the minimum wage to 9.25/hour… by 2018. They also banned any municipalities from increasing the minimum wage within their jurisdiction by making it unlawful for them to require a minimum wage greater than the wage specified by the state. While they were at it the also banned localities from requiring paid sick leave. Apparently local control only applies if it does not interfere with profits. You may remember that local school boards were not permitted to start their schools before Labor Day lest that reduce the profits from the vacationing tourist businesses. Local control of schools had once been important to conservatives but now it doesn’t trump businesses making money!

Where does the current crop of Republican candidates stand on the minimum wage? The answer is, “all over the place.” Jeb Bush claims the minimum wage “serves no useful purpose.” Scott Walker says focusing on the minimum wage is “lame.” By that he means we should be equipping people to land higher paying jobs. Why can’t we do both? Does the Governor Walker tell us where the money will come from to provide the training for these high-paying jobs? Perhaps he believes that is beyond his pay grade. Certainly with the cuts he has made to education in his home state it is unlikely that low wage workers there will have any opportunity to get the training Walker talks about. Donald Trump believes the minimum wage should remain “low.” He has said that “low minimum wage is not a bad thing.” He has also mentioned the possibility of a two tiered minimum wage although, like most of Trump’s other ideas, he comes up a tad short on specifics. Rand Paul opposes raising the minimum wage because it leads to unemployment. Paul is dead wrong about this as has been shown repeatedly. I’m not sure there is any transfer from being a fine eye surgeon to understanding economics; it seems that such transfer is unlikely.

Where does all this lead? Republicans are accused of waging a war on women. You might remember Jeb’s famous gaffe claiming that 500 million dollars was too much to spend on women’s health issues. Jeb has more problems expressing himself without hurting himself than his brother did. Now it looks as if the Republicans have also declared war on workers, particularly those close to the poverty line. They are already at war with Latinos and African Americans, a few more segments of the population won’t make any difference.

 

 

 

George Will Sept 6^th

George Will’s column today is titled, “Out with the Redskins…and everything else.” He is taking issue with the perennial attempts to change the name of Washington D.C.’s football team because it might offend Native Americans. Mr. Will is clearly unconcerned with the feelings of Native Americans…and who should be surprised about that?  But then since 2009 this team has lost two-thirds of its games; if you were a Native American wouldn’t you be embarrassed by having this miserable excuse for a football team named Redskins? Will never even considers this possibility.

His concern is not with the Redskins of course; it is with the recent politically correct unhappiness with the country’s tendency to revere its slaveholding former heroes. He is sure there will be moves afoot to change the name of Washington and Lee University, Jacksonville, Florida, San Francisco, and on and on.

This strikes me as a very curious column because this ground has already been plowed and harrowed thoroughly. On July 10 South Carolina took down the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (which, incidentally, had never been anywhere near South Carolina), and many voices then raised these same issues: Confederate monuments would be destroyed. The statue of Nathan Bedford Forest would be torn down and other sacrilegious politically correct activities would surely occur.  None of that has happened, but now, nearly two months later, we have George Will finally taking notice of these possibilities. Of course he knows perfectly well that the name of the Capital will not be changed and neither will San Francisco be renamed; so what’s his point? Maybe it’s just a need to write a conservatively correct column about political correctness.

That’s too bad because if Will had been willing to exert a little effort we could have had his views on taking just 1500 refugees, apparently our current limit, from the 800 thousand streaming into Europe from Asia Minor. He might have given us his views on global warming, the result of which is now beginning to flood islands in Northern Alaska requiring the relocation of entire communities. We might have heard him comment about the famous Kim Davis, darling of some in the fundamentalist set, for refusing to abide by the SCOTUS decision and issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.

I’m now going to guess the reason for this very strange column; perhaps George Will wrote it about July 12 when the clamor to lower the battle flag was at its height. After all the murderer of nine church goers had a picture of himself cradling his weapon with this flag conspicuously in view. This produced unhappiness with all symbols of the antebellum south. Now, when George wants a head start for Memorial Day weekend fun, he pulls out this column and sends it off to his editors. No? Well I don’t really believe that’s what happened either, but it’s the best I can come up with. If you’ve a better explanation leave a comment.

 

 

 

 

 

Kim Davis (marriage license clerk) Aug 5^th

I’m not sure it was necessary to add “marriage license clerk” to Kim Davis to identify her; she has become one of the few modern women to become famous for refusing to obey a law that required them to do something that their conscience prohibited. She has refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples as required by law.  She is now in the Ashland County, Kentucky, jail, put there by Judge Bunning a G.W. Bush appointee who put her there for refusing to issue the marriage licenses. He also declares that he, himself, is opposed to gay marriage but it is now the law, and he insists that clerk Davis obey the law or remain in jail.

The clerk has had some notable supporters: Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister claimed that he planned to visit her in jail. Rand Paul, a Libertarian supports her position as do others. Some do not: Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham and Donald Trump have all maintained that SCOTUS has spoken and we should abide by their decision.

There is a certain inconsistency here. Ms. Davis has a rather novel marital past for someone professing a compelling belief in Biblical values. I will try to recap the plays and players: Kim was married to “A” but has an affair with “B” and becomes pregnant with twins, then divorces “A.” After giving birth to the twins she marries “C” who agrees to adopt the children. She then divorces “C” and marries “B” the father of the twins whom she also subsequently divorces. She is now married to “D.” She has been divorced three times and married four times. When this interesting background is mentioned her legal counsel is quick to point out that all this happened before she became a Christian and therefore shouldn’t “count.” But wait, there’s more: During Kim’s various peregrinations, when her attorney claims she wasn’t a Christian, she was, in fact, a Baptist. Indeed her first three marriages were all performed in Baptist churches and by Baptist ministers. Her most recent marriage was performed by a judge. That her attorney claims she wasn’t a Christian when she was a Baptist will not sit well with many Baptists who would otherwise support her position.

What do we do about this? We’ve faced it before when SCOTUS decided that inter-racial marriage was permitted. Surely there were clerks then who thought it was Biblically incorrect to license those marriages. If your religion teaches that you can have more than one wife at a time you cannot practice that aspect of your religion openly without going to jail. In short, if your religious beliefs require you to act in conflict with federal law and you follow those beliefs you will go to jail and that is just what has happened to Kim Davis. You are free to practice your religion in this country as long as the practicing of it doesn’t violate the law.

 

 

Aug 4^th Donald Trump

As everyone must know by now, Donald Trump has signed the required pledge not to run as an independent. The man has power; Reince Priebus, the RNC chairman came all the way from Washington D.C. to confer with Trump at the famous Trump Tower after which Trump held a press conference. He waved a copy of the unenforceable pledge he had signed in which he agreed to support whoever is nominated and not to run as a third party candidate.

Of course he did; why not? He is leading big time in all polls except Iowa where the fundamentalist retired neurosurgeon, Ben Carson, is tied with him. Being a fundamentalist in Iowa and not being a politician is worth several points. Some of these seriously church going folks may not have been willing to laugh off Trump’s comments about “not needing forgiveness because if I do something bad I fix it myself.” There was also this gem when Trump said of the Sacrament, “I take my little glass of wine…and eat my little cracker.” For devout Christians who believe that the wine symbolizes the blood of Christ and the wafer his flesh this skirts blasphemy but doesn’t skirt it by very much. Who should be surprised that Trump, in Iowa, is head to head with a man who claims that evolution is a myth?

Other than Iowa which might be close, Trump is ahead everywhere, Why not sign this pledge if it looks fairly certain that he’s going to win the nomination?  If he runs as an Independent he faces enormous challenge and much expense trying to get on the ballot in many states. On the other hand his appeal relies heavily on his thumbing his nose at convention and authority; signing this pledge like a good little boy doesn’t fit that image at all.  Even so I doubt that this move will damage his popularity. We’ll see when the next polls appear.

Yesterday on a radio show Trump was interviewed by a host, Hugh Hewitt, a conservative, who asked him if he was familiar with the names of some Middle Eastern leaders. The host then named the leader of Quod, Hassem Soleimani, and Trump was stumped. Then Hewitt explained that he was the leader of Quod and Trump thought he heard “Kurds” and responded accordingly. A fuming Trump later complained that it was a “gotcha” question and some intellectuals like Laura Ingalls heartily agreed.  Hewitt said that he has asked tough questions of all his interviewees; he is a graduate of the University of Michigan and of Harvard Law School so maybe he expects more from candidates who hope to be President of the United States.

So what constitutes a gotcha question? It is a question designed to make its target look foolish when they can’t answer it. If the target can’t answer a question, any question, then the target will label that a gotcha question, witness Katie Couric asking Sarah Palin what periodicals she read. When Palin blew it she labeled it a gotcha question. A candidate once asked himself what turned out to be a gotcha question. Governor Perry, running for President in 2012, said he would shut down three government cabinets; then, virtually asking himself the question, which ones, tried to name them and could only name two. His failure to answer his own question helped doom his candidacy.

Aug 3^rd Cal Thomas

Cal Thomas spends much of his column today commiserating with the parents of the murdered TV journalists in Roanoke, Virginia. He also spends considerable space telling us about his own early days as a journalist covering his share of horrible events. He did this, he tells us, because he loved his job, loved it in spite of its low pay because eventual fame and wealth awaited him if he was successful. Then he talks about the murders and that “Governor McAuliffe and President Obama were quick to exploit the incident, predictably calling for more gun laws Understandably Parker’s father echoed their sentiments.”

Cal then reiterates this bit of inanity,” Laws do not stop lawbreakers, but good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns.” It’s obvious that laws don’t stop all lawbreakers, which is why we have a judicial system; if they don’t stop any lawbreakers, do we abolish laws? What nonsense. Then his next bit about good guys with guns…! If good guys with guns could stop bad guys with guns there would be no dead policemen; the police officer recently murdered in Illinois would be alive. He was armed and now he is dead!

Cal Thomas wants to know how Vester Flanagan, the killer of those two journalists, was able to get a firearm. “They will want to learn why his mental problems, unprofessional behavior and displays of anger that led to his dismissal from more than one TV station…did not show up during a required background check.” Say what? Why would any of that “show up on a background check?” Background checks do not require a ‘nice guy’ certification from previous employers. And, of course it requires little intelligence for anyone wanting a gun to avoid background checks altogether. You just buy your gun at a gun show from someone who isn’t a licensed dealer; plenty of people selling weapons at these shows are not licensed dealers. If there’s no gun show handy you can buy a gun from the guy down the street, or you can order one by mail.

This killer would have had no problem passing a background check, he had not been arrested and he had not been treated for mental illness, which doesn’t mean he wasn’t psychotic. It would take less than an hour for him to pass a background check, pay for the weapon, buy ammunition for it and be on his way. There is no waiting period, no cooling off period, required to get your weapon in Virginia,  so you can shoot someone while you’re still really angry at them.

It does not surprise me that Cal Thomas seems to know so little about the purchase of weapons even though this is a main focus of his column. He has a history of writing about issues with which he has little familiarity. I am surprised that newspapers, including the Record Eagle, are willing to pay him for his columns in spite of his ignorance.

Mona Charen, Sept 2^nd

Beginning now I’m going precede the date stamp with the name of the miscreant targeted for that day.

Mona is just beside herself (whatever that means) today about the utter, complete and unmitigated lawlessness of President Obama. She has many, many complaints and any of them could lead to impeachment except that “impeachment would tear the country apart” not that this possibility has previously concerned any conservatives. What is she so upset about? Her major complaint is President Obama granting legal status to 4 million, plus or minus, undocumented aliens. What’s the background here? A comprehensive immigration reform bill had passed the Senate 68 to 32 with 14 Republicans crossing party line to vote with the Democrats. Then the bill went to the Republican-dominated House which refused to take it up and there it languished. These undocumented people were in limbo because any employer could take advantage of them and they couldn’t complain for fear of deportation so President Obama granted them “Green Cards” which meant that they were now here legally.

The President did this by executive action, another very sore point for Charen. During his Presidency Ronald Reagan used executive action 381 times; President Obama in six years has used it 191 times. He’ll have to hurry to catch up with Reagan. Then President Reagan used executive action to defer the deporting of 100 thousand undocumented aliens; this isn’t mentioned by Charen. President G.H.W. Bush used executive orders to defer the deporting of 1.5 million undocumented aliens; this isn’t mentioned by Charen. Perhaps it isn’t so much what the President does but the party the President belongs to that influences Charen? Surely not!

President Obama has had to deal with a recalcitrant Congress ever since he took office. Most recently we have the case of the Attorney General Loretta Lynch. This woman’s appointment was held up for 166 days for purely political reasons. Her qualifications were never in dispute. Finally an embarrassed Senate managed to approve her. The Republican leadership opposed anything President Obama wanted to do and they opposed it even before he became President.

What follows is an excerpt from Robert Draper’s book, “Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the House of Representatives.”

“It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.”

It is obvious that for this President to accomplish anything he would have to control Congress or he would have to bypass it. He did what he had to do and Republicans and their crony columnists can’t stop screaming about it.