2016 May 31^st

We have two columnists today, both of whom are slashing away at Hillary Clinton. The columnists, Mona Charen and Cal Thomas, have each written taking Mrs. Clinton severely to task for her use of an in-home email server. Charen quotes Clinton, “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email.” Then Charen says that, “The State Department itself has declined to release 22 Clinton emails because they were secret. Having been trapped in a lie,…” But the lie here, or at least the gross mislead, is that these “secret” emails were, according to Charen, classified as secret, when they passed through Clinton’s server. After Clinton turned over her emails, a cottage industry developed dealing with the classification of her old emails. Can anyone say ex post facto, or understand the meaning of the term?

Then Charen turns her artillery on Donald Trump’s potential Presidency. She says, “Americans blanch at the thought of this unstable, emotionally stunted man with access to the nuclear codes… Trump deceives about serious matters. Thousands of American Muslims were not dancing in the streets after 9/11. Ford did not cancel plans for a factory in Mexico in response to criticism from Trump. Trump did not oppose the Iraq war pre-invasion. We are not losing $500 billion a year in trade with China…Wisconsin’s real unemployment rate is not anywhere close to 20%.” After exposing this chronicle of Trump’s lies, this columnist still believes that Clinton is just as bad. Charen is always conservatively correct.

Then on to Cal Thomas; Cal is more accurate; he points out that disconnecting the smoke detector on an airplane can get you fines and jail time. Then he asks, “Isn’t what Hillary Clinton did far worse than that, if she potentially compromised U.S. secrets?” Pleas not that Cal Thomas makes Clinton’s transgression conditional; he says, “…if she potentially compromised U.S. secrets.” Mona Charen, on the other hand, leaves no doubt about the matter.

The matter of Clinton’s server’s location seems to be of considerable importance to both of these folks, and to most other Clinton opponents. It seems very necessary that every time the personal server is mentioned it must be precisely located in the Clinton residence; to wit, in the Clinton’s bathroom closet. Note that it is never said simply to have been in their house, but to have been in a bathroom closet. One is almost convinced that Clinton’s opponents believe that having a server in a bathroom closet makes its contents much more available to Chinese or Russian master spies. Personally, I believe that the bathroom closet location is very sensible; if a spy thought secrets were available in the house, would they think to look there?

2015 May 26^th

(…and 2016 May 30th

Memorial Day is over. It is instructive to look back at the public’s attitude toward military veterans over the years. The 16 million veterans serving in WW 2 never heard “Thank you for your service” when they first came home. I never heard that during the first sixty-five years following my discharge from the Army Air Force after WW 2. The veterans then did what we thought we needed to do. There was no more expectation of a “thank you” then than for our children to say thank you for their dinner.

 The Korean War (excuse me, police action) was about the same. Except that MacArthur was so full of himself and eager to nuclear bomb China, that Uncle Harry had to cut him down a bit. There were 5.7 million veterans of that war and those veterans were largely ignored when they came home. They got the GI Bill and other help but no one thanked them for their service when they came back. A few people thought that we had no business opposing the North Koreans or their assistants, the Chinese, when they invaded South Korea; if they thought that they kept quiet about it.

The next major conflict was in Viet Nam and that was a very different scenario.  We began there by trying to salvage French interests. (French Indo-China) This escalated when we were told that the whole region would become communist if we did not roll back the North Vietnamese. Perhaps another hundred thousand troops would be needed. There were never enough; by 1968 the number of troops in Viet Nam was over half a million and 65 percent of those were draftees. The draft was enormously unpopular; if you were smart enough and reasonably wealthy you could get a deferment until you finished college and if you majored in religion and became a preacher with your own church your deferment was permanent. If that didn’t work you moved to Canada.

A large part of the problem was that the administration was not telling the public the truth about the war. This, along with other problems, led to the war’s unpopularity. The unpopularity finally led to some members of the public literally spitting on returning service men. Poor training and poorer leadership sometimes led to barbaric actions in Viet Nam by American soldiers. The public, after learning about the My Lai massacre, was not favorably impressed by American troops. In one case a young woman meeting her husband’s casket was told that he deserved what he got! There was no “thank you for your service” for these returning veterans.

Now comes the all-volunteer army; on closer examination the “volunteering” is really bought and paid for. The government now provides enormous incentives to young men and women if they volunteer for military service. If you serve for three years, even if you never see combat, you are entitled to 27 months of college tuition (that’s four years of college) and additional financial support while you’re in school. There are other incentives besides college. Keep in mind that the odds of being shot if you serve three years in the military are slightly less that the odds of being shot if you were a civilian of that age.  Make no mistake; some do enlist in the service for largely patriotic reasons.  So we should thank these volunteers for their service just as we should thank the Chinese for buying the bonds that finance our wars, wars that we refuse to pay for with increased taxes, thanks to propaganda from the right wing and from Grover Norquist.

A follow up: at the end of WW 2 privates earned $54/mo. Adjusted for today’s inflation that would now be $717/mo. Today’s new service enlistee earns $1531/mo., but gets a raise after just four months. What’s not to like about the new Army?

2016 May 29^th

A year ago, approximately, Dr. Charles Krauthammer, a favorite of the Fox News folks, penned a column on President Obama’s supposed loss of the Iraq War. Krauthammer is not an idiot but his political blinders lead him to overlook some important facts. At least this is a break from the current election cycle nausea. Herewith is his column:

2015 May 25^th

Dr. Charles Krauthammer has a recent revisionist column claiming that Obama lost the “victory” in Iraq by withdrawing our troops in 2011. Here is a quote from his column:

“[Victory,] which Obama proceeded to fully squander. With the 2012 election approaching, he chose to liquidate our military presence in Iraq…We surrendered our most valuable strategic assets, such as control of Iraqi airspace, soon to become the indispensable conduit for Iran to supply and sustain the Assad regime in Syria.”

Krauthammer’s utterances here are absurd on their face: “Liquidating our military presence in Iraq” (his term) was arranged by George Bush in a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government in 2008. Bush agreed to withdraw all US forces by December 31, 2011. This agreement was made before President Obama took office and he honored what his predecessor had agreed to. Well, shame on him, right Krauthammer?

We might have left a small force in Iraq if the Iraqi government had allowed our troops’ offenses to be tried in our military courts. They refused that request, so Obama removed all troops as previously agreed. This is how Obama lost the Iraq war that Bush had won.

Then we have the next page from the Krauthammer imagination, that we have lost control of Iraqi air space. What Krauthammer has done here is to conflate our abandonment of Iraqi airfields with abandonment of their air space. Dr. Krauthammer should stick to psychiatry; well maybe not, he’ll probably cause less damage writing right wing columns than he would if he were treating vulnerable people.

There have been literally thousands of sorties flown against various targets in Iraq since we supposedly “lost control of airspace.”  Everyone has seen the helicopter supply drop of food and the rescue of Yazidis in the Sinjar Mountains near the Kurdish section of Iraq. Isn’t it amazing that United States forces could do that without control of the airspace?

I appreciate the terrible trauma that Krauthammer has endured but perhaps he should, as a psychiatrist, have found enough self-knowledge to sublimate his aggression and redirect it to a more worthy target than President Obama.

2016 May 28^th

Memorial day weekend is upon us and Donald Trump is aghast at the inadequacies of the VA hospitals. He is helped mightily by the ham handed VA administrator who said the long waits endured by veterans seeking treatment were no worse than the waits endured by those waiting to get on rides at Disneyland. Of course he also said that the VA should be evaluated on the veteran’s total experience rather than simply on the wait times, but the damage had been done and now there will surely be more push toward privatization. Give vets vouchers and let them seek treatment with hospitals and physicians that accept Medicare.

That’s unworkable because while many physicians and hospitals accept Medicare, the payments Medicare will make on the patient’s behalf do not always cover the total cost of the care. The vet will still have to pay for a portion of his/her care under this plan.

Trump has also declared that California has no drought problem. This is incredibly good news for many residents of that state. According to Trump there is plenty of water it is just being diverted to save a very small endangered fish species. It is true that some water from the Sacramento River outflow is being diverted to ensure the survival of some fish species, but anyone looking at the water levels in California’s various dams and reservoirs will not believe anything so ridiculous as the notion that California has no water shortage.

Trump has had another abrupt change of mind; this time it was about his debate with Bernie Sanders. He was recorded, just yesterday, saying that he looked forward to such a debate, that he welcomed it. That has changed.  Now he says that as the Republican presumptive nominee it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to debate someone from the other party who is not likely to be their nominee at all. Of course nothing has changed from the period when he said he looked forward to the debate, to now, when he has declined.  It’s obvious that what has happened is that Trump’s advisors have convinced him that debating Bernie would gain him nothing, and could lose him a good deal. Imagine the image of the six foot three inch gold plated billionaire business man, leader now of America’s conservative party, losing a debate to a red-faced, angry, septuagenarian socialist; wouldn’t that have been a hoot?

Trump has been accused of profiting from the housing crisis by buying up cheap properties. His response is that he’s a businessman and that’s what businessmen do; they make a profit. I wonder what might happen if Trump is elected President; it occurs to me that once he has the codes required to launch our nuclear arsenal at an enemy he could ask, and get, an absurdly high price for that information from either China or Russia. Perhaps he could have them bid against each other for the information.  The money from that competition would surely run into the trillions. Trump could use it to pay down the national debt, but after he takes a personal commission of course; he is a businessman after all.

2016 May 27^th

Now that Trump has enough votes to win the Republican nomination, the candidate’s choice for his Vice President remains the party’s only unknown. There are many potential choices but most of these are discounted as improbable; Mitt Romney, for example, is a 200 to 1 shot according to Paddy Power, a Brit betting parlor that offers odds on such events. So, one may reasonably ask, who is the most favored politician to receive the honor of sharing the ticket to oblivion with Donald Trump. According to this same Paddy Power, it is Newt Gingrich, slightly favored over Scott Brown.

Scott Brown had been a Senator from Massachusetts until Senator Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren won his seat. Then Brown changed his residence to New Hampshire to run for the Senate there. He had no better luck in New Hampshire and lost to Senator Jean Shaheen, previously New Hampshire’s popular governor.

The slightly more probable pick, Newt Gingrich, has many of Trump’s characteristics, He has the mercurial shoot from the hip temperament and a very checkered past. Gingrich was once Speaker of the House and in that role was a very naughty boy. He ultimately resigned his position to avoid a more scandalous end. It seems that a history course he was teaching was, in fact, a propaganda effort for the Republican Party and did not merit certain financial privileges awarded by the IRS.

Gingrich and Trump also have had similar marital problems: (This would not be a family values ticket.) Each of these men is now with his third wife and each was accused of infidelity in a divorce action. Trump has bragged about his extra-marital affairs, and that many of them had subsequently required treatment for sexually transmitted diseases; we do not have such intimate knowledge of Gingrich’s extra-marital sex life, nor of any resultant medical problems.

Perhaps Trump will be encouraged by his newly hired handlers to pick Gingrich as his running mate. What will happen if, after picking Gingrich, Trump changes his mind? What happens if Gingrich, not known to be at all circumspect in his utterances, says something to which Trump takes offence? Let’s face it neither of these men seem to have effective neural connections between their pre-frontal cortex and their larynx. Once a Vice President is announced, I doubt he can be marginalized as easily as Trump has sidelined Dr. Ben Carson, nor if he attempts it will Gingrich retreat as quietly as has Ben Carson.

2016 May 26^th

Donald Trump arouses huge support for himself, and he generates equally furious opposition. We saw that in New Mexico where rioters were tear-gassed and pepper sprayed by police when they protested a Trump rally. Then on to a safer conservative spot in Southern California where the police presence was strong enough to tamp down any rioting before it started.

Trump is not able to let criticism, real or implied, be ignored. He must respond and he glories in his willingness to “fight back.” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has shown her contempt for Trump who now refers to the Senator as “Pocahontas” because she apparently has some Native American genes. He also claims that Senator Warren has done nothing in the Senate. Well, she has obviously irritated Trump considerably and although that doesn’t take much, she has done it with considerable panache; bless her heart.

Even the Republican Governor of New Mexico, the chairperson of the Republican Governors group got her comeuppance because she was too busy to attend Trump’s rally and welcome him to New Mexico. He specifically referred to her as ineffective and offered to run as New Mexico’s Governor to straighten out things for the state.

The fact that no one is immune from Trump’s thin-skinned anger is a great boon to Hillary (Crooked Hillary) Clinton.  Nothing Trump does will lose him any current fans, but the fans he has now cannot win him the national election. He brags about winning the primaries in various states by more than 50 percent of the vote, but these were over 50 percent of just those Republicans who turned out to vote and the Republicans who decided to vote in these primaries were often on the order of 40 percent of registered Republicans. So Trump appeals to about 20 percent of registered Republicans, and there are fewer registered Republicans than registered Democrats in this country.

Where will he get enough support to be competitive against Clinton? His appeal to Latinos, African Americans and women is dismally low. And he is making no  attempt to turn that around; witness his trashing of the Latina Governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez. There he manages to trash a woman and a minority simultaneously. Great work Donald, keep it up!

Now it is official Trump has held a press conference declaring that he has officially won the Republican primary and is the party’s nominee for President. At his press conference, he declared that he will revive the coal industry; that the coal miners just love their work (no mention of black lung) and he will reduce many of those pesky regulations that increase the price of coal (and keep coal miners from getting killed). Hey, we know that Trump will do anything to make a buck! 

2016 May 25^th

Mona Charen suggests that a Donald Trump Presidency would be a greater disaster than a Hillary Clinton Presidency. She bases this belief on the idea that the Republican obstructionism, currently practiced by the Congress, would continue under a Clinton Presidency, forcing her to rely on executive orders, which Charen assures us, would be declared unconstitutional by right wing judges.

Trump, on the other hand, if elected, will have no Republican opposition. Charen claims that, “Republicans will actively assist President Trump in undermining conservatism. From entitlements to trade to NATO to nuclear proliferation to universal healthcare to abortion, President Trump will get a free hand. He thus has it within his power to sabotage the whole conservative movement.” WOW! If I thought Charen was right I might vote for Trump. She isn’t right and I won’t vote for him.

If Trump is elected it is very likely that these “sabotage(s) of the whole conservative movement” that Charen so fears (and in which many others would delight) will prove as ephemeral as many of Trump’s other “positions.” While many conservative stalwarts have bent the knee to “the Donald,” others certainly have not. If Trump wins the Presidency and tries to push through a conservatively controlled House of Representatives legislation unacceptable to the Speaker of the House, there will be resistance and Trump will lose. Can you imagine Trump forced to push his programs into being by use of executive orders? What a hoot!

There are two different considerations here: First, Republican honchos want Trump to win the Presidency because they desperately want to control SCOTUS which can happen only if Trump wins. Second, there is no guarantee that the policies Trump advances this morning are the same ones he will push this afternoon. His political positions may be more agreeable to people like Charen once he is elected, and if they are not agreeable then a Republican Congress can certainly block them.

But here’s the rub. Charen’s benign view of a Clinton Presidency for conservatives hinges on failure of the Democrats to take back the Senate. That is certainly not a given: There are 34 Senate seats at risk. OK, perhaps that’s an exaggeration. I should have said up for election; few of them are really at risk. There are 24 seats now held by Republicans; some of these were won in the last election when Democrats lost many congressional seats. Some of those seats will be recovered and it will only take five of them for Democrats to regain the Senate and the treasured appointments to SCOTUS.

2016 May 24^th

There is not a bit of outrageous political news on which to comment today so I present a blog from exactly one year ago when the object of my affection was George Will; it follows:

May 24^th

George Will today is writing about war legitimacy. Mr. Will has only a distant acquaintance with war, having been a college student majoring in religion at Trinity University in 1962 and hence surely draft exempt during the Viet Nam War. His involvement now is entirely on the political side, rather like the boy who, hoping for a spectacle, says to his friend, “Let’s you and him fight.” (I must apologize here to the Council of Oxford University for mistakenly asserting in a previous blog that Mr. Will had earned a doctorate from Oxford University. He earned only an M.A. there; his doctorate was from Princeton University.)

Mr. Will is concerned that the Congress does not exercise sufficient control over our military involvement abroad. He cites the Kaine-McCain legislation as a way to more completely involve Congress. This isn’t likely to matter. Seventy percent of Congress voted to approve Bushes’ invasion of Iraq. The reason was the administration’s insistence that Iraq had, or would soon have, “methods of mass destruction,” WMDs; by that they meant atomic weapons.

Some in Congress didn’t believe the CIA briefing; for example Congressman Ron Paul claimed the CIA man’s body language convinced him that the man was lying. Lincoln Chaffee, the only Republican Senator to vote against the resolution, claimed the metal tubes presented as evidence could have been bought at any hardware store. Well, maybe, but the main point here is that regardless of the power Congress wields, its members will vote according to the intelligence they are given; control the intelligence, which any administration does, and you control how Congress will vote.

In an attempt to bolster its position that Iraq had, or was planning to produce, WMDs, the administration sent a senior diplomat, Joseph Wilson, to Niger in search of evidence that Saddam Hussein was buying yellow cake uranium, a basic material for the production of WMDs. He came back without it; indeed convinced that they were doing no such thing. This so infuriated the administration that Robert Novak, a right wing talking head, took his revenge against Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent. Novak’s outing of Valerie Plame would ordinarily be a treasonable offense but not for those as well-connected to the Bush-Cheney government as Robert Novak.

Ultimately no WMDs were found, and that’s in spite of very intensive searching. Now there is a revisionist position that those who claimed the Bush-Cheney people were lying about WMDs were themselves lying. What next?

Now a year later I can add that Lt. General Thomas G. McInerney (Ret. Thank heaven) tells us that the Russians, Chinese and French were responsible for secretly slipping into Iraq and spiriting away all of those awful WMDs as well as any race of their existence.The General could make a comfortable living in retirement as a writer of fiction.

2016 May 23^rd

Senator Sanders is fighting back against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) head, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. He believes that the DNC head has manipulated the primary election rules to favor Secretary Clinton. Many people, including me, believe he’s right. The Republican National Committee did the same thing to keep Trump from the nomination but they did a lousy job of it and now all of the mighty rightwing honchos are rolling over and playing dead for the Donald. The stop Trump campaign has stopped itself.

Sanders unhappiness with Ms. Wasserman Shultz is understandable, but misplaced. She is the head of the DNC and its spokesperson, but she does not dictate its policy. If the majority of the DNC were not on board with Clinton the DNC policy would be different. Secretary Clinton has been at this for a very long time and she has many powerful friends. Sanders has attempted to retaliate against the DNC chair by providing financial support for Tim Canova, a Nova Southeastern University Law Professor, who is contesting Ms. Wasserman Shultz in the primary. Mr. Canova is relatively unknown but he has a substantial war chest and the backing of the very popular Senator Sanders. If Canova loses to Wasserman Shultz in the primary, Sanders should not expect Wasserman Shultz to turn suddenly helpful. If the horse is already fractious why stick another burr under the saddle? Sanders must be careful not to come across as a vengeful and angry old man.

Much is made of new polls showing Trump and Clinton neck and neck in the general election. Sanders polls much better against Trump than Clinton does; this is hardly a surprise because the opposition has had years and years to generate trash talk against Clinton. No one really believed Sanders would be nominated so he was ignored. Now he revels in the polls showing him doing better than Clinton does against Trump. This is the reason he believes the DNC should choose him as its nominee.

Have the odds of a Clinton victory really changed? If you look at the polls it would seem obvious; Trump’s now matching Clinton in most national polls. Sometimes it’s instructive to get the view of an organization in it purely for the money with no ideological attachments whatever. Consider Paddy Power, the Brit’s betting parlour that provides odds and will actually allow you to bet on the outcome of our elections.  Here is how they see the general election at this hour: Hillary Clinton is a better that two to one favorite; actually 9 to 4. This means that you must bet 9 dollars to win an additional 4 dollars if Hillary is elected. If she loses you are out your nine dollars. Trump is a two to one underdog; A dollar bet on him will get you 2 dollars if he wins. Sanders is a 20 to 1 shot. Where do you think the smart money is going?

2016 May 22^nd

Everyone knows about Jeffery Lord, the white haired Trump sycophant who tries to clean up after Trump’s many public gaffes. The latest was on a cable show that played a 2011 tape of Trump insisting that the United States should remove Muammar Gadhafi, the Libyan dictator from power. Trump pointed out that Gadhafi was a murderous lunatic and he made a convincing case for his removal.  Gadhafi was responsible for the bombing destruction of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie. Scotland killing 270 people; he was also responsible for the bombing of a Berlin nightclub in 1988 that killed two American service members and injured dozens of others. In terms of American deaths and injuries there was surely more reason to remove this Libyan dictator than the dictator in Iraq.

Fast forward to 2016 and Trump has changed his tune; now the removal of Gadhafi was just awful because it left a vacuum in the Libyan power structure which the nasties were quick to fill. This is certainly Hillary Clinton’s fault because she was Secretary of State at the time, although a cynic might point out that it is more about Hillary Clinton being Trump’s likely antagonist for the Presidency. When Lord is asked about Trump’s switcheroo he tells us that Trump has just changed his mind and over the course of the years from 2011 to 2016, and anyone might do that. Lord doesn’t explain just why Trump’s view of the downing of Pan Am flight 103 has changed and with it Trump’s view of Gadhafi. Unfortunately, the interviewer never asked him.

Once again we have a Republican spokesman calling our attention to the not so improbable fact that fully 60 percent of those polled believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. Given that Trump has spent literally millions on an effort to persuade the country that it is going to hell in a hand basket, why wouldn’t that message begin to have an effect; couple that with Sanders telling anyone who will listen that the country is the victim of the “moneyed classes” who control the elections and everything else of importance, why isn’t the dissatisfaction with the country closer to 90 percent?

But it isn’t; the country is in fact doing remarkably well.  This morning’s paper has advertisements for at least 50 jobs. People keep trying to get into this country; they are not trying to get out of it. This in in spite of Donald Trump’s best efforts to convince everyone that only he can “make America great again.” If it isn’t great now why are so many trying to come here? I’ve said that before but I still haven’t gotten an answer!

2016 May 21^st

What follows is the Detritus from exactly one year ago; I present it again now because there is nothing new worth commenting on in the political arena. Sometimes it’s worth a look-back.

May 21^st

Now we have the distinguished senior senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, announcing that he will subsequently announce his candidacy for the President of the United States. How many Republican candidates, declared and undeclared, are there? (Keep in mind that there are some arcane regulations that control your campaigning once you declare, so the reluctance of some candidates to officially declare is not necessarily the result of timidity.)

As of today the number of people seriously advancing themselves as candidates is fourteen to seventeen. Of course that number is increasing almost daily. Perhaps this is seen as a weak field and weak fields always attract more entrants; this is true for any competitive event even arm wrestling.

This large field which may get even larger (Sarah Palin’s hat is not yet in the ring, nor is Newt Gingrich’s.) in the next couple of months. There are now so many candidates that Fox news, which is to host the first debates, has declared that they will limit the stage to just ten candidates. If you assume a two hour debate show that means each candidate will get about ten to twelve minutes to hear and answer questions. Perhaps Governor Perry will write down somewhere which government departments he wants to eliminate so as to avoid time spent in puzzlement. (But let’s remember he had to remember the names of three departments. Not an easy chore for a Texas governor as we might surmise from our recent experience with a Texas governor in the White House.) I would guess there will be an all-out sprint to do well in the next several polls for the polls will determine who the top ten debaters will be. Those not invited to the debate might as well close up shop; it’s hard to imagine anyone contributing to their campaigns if they can’t get on stage for the first debates.

We already have significant disagreements among some top candidates regarding appropriate US foreign policy as well as immigration policy and whether or not a national standard in education, the Common Core, is a good idea. Senator Graham believes we need “boots on the ground” from Libya to Iraq to counter ISIL. Naturally he has the backing of Senator McCain who is not a candidate this time around. Graham is an Air Force veteran but not a combat veteran. He served in the Judge Advocates Office briefing pilots on the rules of war.

Then there is Senator Rand Paul who believes, equally firmly, that we have no business sending our troops anywhere unless we are attacked. These two have other issues; Graham is not a fan of the Tea Party folks, he believes the party should be more inclusive. He is famously opposed to gay marriage and asked Attorney General Loretta Lynch why gay marriage could be approved by the court but not polygamy. Lynch was too smart to bite on that one but Lindsey polished his far right creds with the question. Rand Paul weasels a bit on gay marriage; he thinks it should be up to the states but then what happens if you move to a different state?

This battle of the pipsqueaks will be fun to watch. Paul and Graham do not see eye to eye on much of anything except an agreement that whatever position President Obama takes on anything is clearly wrong!

2015 May 20^th

Cal Thomas presents us with a glowing tribute to Alexander Hamilton and the wisdom of states’ rights.  Thomas contrasts big government with individual liberty. “Hillary Clinton is captive to the notion that big government, not individual liberty, is best. Of course it usually takes federal (big) government to guarantee individual liberty.  This is often imperfectly done; the right to vote, an important gate to liberty, is being closed to many under the guise of protecting the franchise from fraud.

After WW 2 there were states that prohibited some returning servicemen from eating in certain restaurants or sleeping in certain hotels or attending certain schools. These liberties were abrogated by states but subsequently restored by the federal (big) government. The Democratic Party that pushed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress turned the previously solid Democratic south Republican. The Democratic Party through the federal (big) government had eliminated the freedom of the southern bigots to discriminate.

There were also anti-miscegenation laws enacted by states that prohibited “interracial” marriage. If it were up to the states those laws would still exist; thankfully they do not and “race” is no longer a barrier to marriage.

Unfortunately, for Cal Thomas’ argument it is apparent that the states are still busy trying to restrict freedom and it is the federal government and the courts that are the protectors of it. The most recent flap is the attempt by some states to restrict the use of restrooms. From restricting the availability of abortions to restricting the use of restrooms, the states always seem to be in the forefront of restricting freedoms.

Thomas has a curious willingness to revere a constitution that originally restricted the right to vote to white, male property owners. Keep in mind that these white, male property owners could only vote for electors and these electors actually did the voting for the president and vice president. There was then, and there still is, a profound distrust of the common man by the party leaders.

Winston Churchill, hardly the typical Englishman, is said to have commented that the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Then along comes George Carlin to remind us that at least half of all voters are below average. Maybe Plato had something.

2016 May 19^th

There is little political news today. I watched Fox this morning until their resident retired General McInerney was asked what he thought our Secretary of State, who was already in Egypt, might do to help with that air disaster. The General, true to form, went into a rant about how such disasters were all our fault because we hadn’t eliminated ISIS; that absurdity led me to send an email to “Fox and Friends” to tell them what I thought of General McInerney. Then I found out more about him; we can be thankful that he has retired…or maybe has been retired!

Here are some gems from the General’s “thinking” courtesy of Rachel Maddow.

It begins when a Lt. Colonel, a physician, claims that his order to go overseas is not legitimate because the President has no right to be President. He has no right because he isn’t an American citizen; that’s the old birther argument and if Colonel boy pushes it he could be spending time in much worse places than overseas hospitals.

General McInerney believes the Colonel has a good point and congratulates him on having the courage to pursue this insanity. Rachel Maddow takes up the issue and tells us some of this General’s other favorite beliefs:

–He suggested that the alleged WMD that lead to the Iraq war and never found were “spirited away” just prior to the US invasion by Russia, China and France.

–He suggested the reason why the U.S. had not seen terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11 by asking “Why attack here when you have leftists in America who have aided and abetted the enemy more than Tokyo Rose did in World War II?”

–He suggested that to prevent another terrorist attack on an American airline the following “If you are an 18 to 28-year-old Muslim man, you should be strip-searched.”

Yes, the retired Lt. Gen made those suggestions, and if you are a regular viewer of Rachel Maddow, that is rather stunning evidence of crazy McInerney. However, there are probably just as many people who don’t watch Maddow that likely see those as examples as smart and reasonable approaches to stop terrorism. Maddow sums up the segment: “Ultimately, the story here is not that somebody’s trying to get out of the army because of some crazy birther conspiracy theory.  Ultimately, the story here is not even that a three- star general has joined the quixotic request. The real story, it seems to me, is that a guy this nuts gets paid to comment on foreign policy and wars. The birther general is on FOX News’ payroll. He’s the go-to guy for high-minded reporting on Muslim strip- searching, French people stealing WMDs, assurances of how easy it would be to wage war on Iran, and now, maybe the president’s birth certificate helps their guy. We report, you freak out. ”

One more of the General’s thoughts that Rachel didn’t mention.  The General is convinced the Malaysia flight 370 really flew to Pakistan. There he believes that it will be equipped with a bomb and flown back here to devastate some city or other.

Then we have Lt. General Boykin who is certain that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated all levels of the government. He is a hotshot at the Family Research Council, although whether he has a spot yet on Fox News I don’t know. I’m sure Fox would love to have him; in time they’ll vacuum him up.

2016 May 18^th

Cal Thomas is at it again! The poor man is so full of angst that it overflows in to his column.  He cites a poll claiming that 66 percent of respondents believe the country is “headed in the wrong direction.” He points out that members of Congress spend most of their time raising money so that they can be re-elected rather than in governing. He has very unkind things to say about the candidates each party is presenting for the Presidency. In his column he presents the expected right wing exaggerations when describing Hillary Clinton’s faults. He calls Mrs. Clinton “…a corrupt, lying, entitled, shady, and unaccomplished woman who has ignored her husband’s affairs in the pursuit of power.”

Oh come now, Cal!  Donald Trump is currently pillorying Mrs. Clinton for attacking her husband’s paramours years ago. How can you be taken seriously when you say that she ignored her husband’s affairs? Your own party’s nominee contradicts you.

Hillary Clinton, an “unaccomplished woman;” that is simply ludicrous. She is a former Senator from New York; winning her Senate seat twice, in 2000 and again in 2006. Then after losing to President Obama in the Democratic presidential primaries she accepted a position in his cabinet as Secretary of State. This is your idea of “unaccomplished?” Mr. Thomas, you are hopelessly out of touch.

Now about that 66 percent who view the country as headed in the wrong direction: It is election season and the public has been bombarded with “ain’t it awful” messages from the major political candidates. Their entire message is that change is necessary and they are just the person to bring it about. Trump’s “Make America great again” implies that it is not great now, indeed he’ll tell you that the country has been victimized by “bad deals” that he will correct given a chance.

Sanders brings much the same message: both Sanders and Trump appeal to the not so latent paranoia in the American psyche. They tell us that the election is rigged, that the government is corrupt, (much of this is probably true) and that all will be well if we just elect them (this most certainly isn’t true).

The morning paper has advertisements offering jobs for at least 50 people; so much for the terrible employment picture. That’s just more hype by the candidates. If America needs to be made great again and things are so bad here now, why does Trump believe we have to build a wall to keep people out?

2016 May 17^th

This morning on a cable network we had a Trump attorney commenting on the “New York Times” article about Donald Trump and his behavior toward women. Initially Trump claimed he would sue the “Times.” Now, Michael Cohen, Trump’s attorney, says Trump will settle for an apology. If this went to trial just imagine what a bucket of problems Trump would have sitting in a witness chair testifying under oath. No, I’m sure there will be no law suit by the Trump folks against the “New York Times.”

Mr. Cohen, Trump’s lawyer had excuses for Trump’s insulting comments.  Cohen insisted that Trump’s sexist remarks about women “were taken out of context.” That’s always a potential out when you’re trying to excuse some client’s gaffe; just say that his remarks were taken out of context. So when Trump calls Rosie O’Donnell “a fat pig” and “a slob,” or says of Carly Fiorina, “can you imagine that as the face of our next president?” or Arianna Huffington “with the face of a dog;” in exactly what context would these comments be acceptable? Unfortunately, Chris Cuomo, the show’s anchor, didn’t think to ask that question of Michael Cohen. Aren’t anchors supposed to be able to think on their feet? Could he have connections?

Trump claims that he wishes to be unpredictable. There is a lot of evidence that people who must deal with others who are unpredictable become very anxious. This is hardly surprising: a boss who is friendly and accommodating one day and an ogre the next does not make for a happy employee. You can deal with an ogre if you must, but not knowing what you must deal with can be hard to accommodate. Trump’s unpredictability manages to keep the people he deals with off balance. This, then, makes them easier for Trump to manipulate.

Is Trump’s unpredictability deliberate or is it the result of a quite different problem, lack of impulse control? Most children learn impulse control gradually, getting progressively better at it as they grow up. A few continue to have problems with it, particularly those whom we now describe as intellectually or mentally challenged. Then, later in life, we find that stroke victims often suffer from the same problem.

Trump seems to pride himself on not being “politically correct.” But what is political correctness but impulse control? You do not mock the handicapped (as Trump did with a handicapped reporter); you do not call your opponents names that would be expected from a third grade bully. Impulse control is essentially the ability to inhibit. Without that ability  we quickly return to savagery.

2016 May 16^th

The big news today is a New York Times piece interviewing a number of women about their experiences with Donald Trump. One of these interviewees, Rowanne Brewer Lane, is said to have met Trump at a pool party at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Trump was taken with Brewer Lane and asked her if she had a swimsuit. She hadn’t brought one, but he took her to a room where there was a drawer full pf bikinis. She was to pick one and to put it on. She did and Trump is said to have exclaimed, “Wow” at the sight of her in a bikini.

Well, not so fast. Ms. Brewer Lane now claims that this “Times” story was a hit job. That the paper had distorted the interview and none of this happened as described. That Rowanne Brewer Lane subsequently “dated” Donald Trump there is no doubt at all. Pictures of them together are on the internet; nor is there any doubt that this 26 year old swimsuit model was a “Wow” just as Trump had said. Pictures of her are also on the internet. Of course, at this Time Trump was also “seeing” Marla Maples. In due course after Trump and Maples produced a child, he would actually marry her. She would subsequently divorce him on the grounds of infidelity, the same grounds used by Ivana Trump, his first wife, some years earlier.

The question to be answered is what might motivate Brewer lane to disavow what the Times claims she said? Brewer Lane, now 52, has not been a swimsuit model for some time. Perhaps ingratiating herself once more with the Donald is now motivation enough.

Brewer Lane’s disclaimer of the Times comments about her and Trump will do nothing to help Trump’s woeful lack of popularity with women. Perhaps the case of his first wife Ivana Trump is instructive here. Trump gave Ivana considerable management responsibility within his organization; and he is unsparing in his praise for her abilities. When his children and their exemplary work ethic and behavior are mentioned, he claims that all of the credit for that goes to Ivana who was responsible for their children’s early upbringing. None of that praise for his wife, Ivana, stopped him from having a series of affairs culminating in his impregnating Marla Maples. This is his idea of how women should be “valued.”

We hardly need to list the derogatory comments he has made about women. From Megyn Kelly who must have been bleeding from her “whatever” to the awful face of Carly Fiorina who apparently forgave him for that insult and has climbed aboard the Trump wagon. Let’s face it, these folks know what they have to do; If Hillary Clinton wins the election they are out. Better to take any insult and be on the winning side than to lose with principles intact and be out in the cold.

2016 May 15^th

This is a consideration of North Carolina, Texas and Arkansas passing requirements that all persons use the restroom that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificates. Isn’t it odd that the right wing people who are pushing this regulation are just the ones to complain about the excessive number of government regulations.  

Just this afternoon I used the restroom at my local bookstore. There was a men’s restroom and a women’s room. I have never been in the women’s restroom but the men’s room, as is the case with most men’s restrooms had a urinal and a stall containing a standard toilet.  The stall had a privacy door. Now if a transgendered person entered this restroom and then entered the enclosed stall how in the world would anyone know that this was a transgendered person? Similarly, with the women’s rest room; if a person enters and goes into one of the enclosed stalls how is anyone to know that this is a transgendered person?

So how will any law about using the restroom corresponding to the sex listed on your birth certificate be enforced? I guess all people visiting North Carolina, Texas or Arkansas will have to be sure they have their birth certificates in hand; either that or they should plan for a very brief stay in the state.

Who will be stationed by the restroom doors to examine these birth certificates? This is a state law so I can’t imagine that local communities will be required to station their police officers by every restroom door to examine the birth certificates of those seeking entrance. I guess the examiners will have to be state employees. Perhaps they will be state troopers nearing retirement who can be given comfortable chairs by the restroom doors. Hey, I’m not being cynical here; I’m just following this nonsense to its logical conclusion.

2016 May 14^th

Mr. Trump has treated us to another bit of theatre. The plot began over thirty years ago but has emerged again recently in a Washington Post article. Trump back then had been using a fictional surrogate PR person named John Miller to make comments to the press. This was all back in 1991 so why worry now? The Washington Post has recently released details of these famous John Miller tapes. They aren’t saying how they obtained the tapes. Only one copy was known to exist and that copy was in the hands of the woman reporter, Sue Carswell, who talked to John Miller and made a tape of the conversation. She says that she didn’t give her copy to the Post. It’s a mystery!

OK, let’s recap this curious plot: In 1991 Sue Carswell, a reporter for “People” magazine, got a call from a John Miller who claimed to be a recent PR hire representing Donald Trump. Miller claimed to know Donald Trump very well, unbelievably well for someone so recently hired. At the time, Trump was cohabiting with the model Marla Maples who had been named by Ivana Trump, Trump’s first wife, in her divorce suit against Donald Trump.

John Miller commented to Sue Carswell at some length about Donald Trump’s love life. Indeed Miller did this in speech patterns, language and bombast typical even then of Donald Trump himself. Miller commented to Carswell that Mr. Trump was not ready to marry Marla Maples, but if he ever did, he would be the most wonderful husband. Miller also told Carswell that Mr. Trump had three other girlfriends in addition to Marla Maples and that other women called him all the time to arrange for “dates.”

Keep in mind that Trump admitted under oath that he sometimes used a surrogate, John Barron, to help negotiate certain business arrangements. This was common knowledge so Carswell hearing those Trumpian cadences was convinced she was, in fact, speaking to Donald Trump. Her interview was published in due course. Why would Trump, assuming it was Trump, pull such a stunt? Perhaps he wanted to communicate something to Marla Maples; who knows?

Subsequently, the real Trump called Carswell and admitted the John Miller phone call had been a hoax and he apologized for what he then viewed as a joke gone wrong. To make amends he offered to take Sue Carswell and her editor out to a nightclub. Carswell claims that a stretch limo bearing Donald Trump and Marla Maples arrived for them at the appointed time. After about fifteen minutes, Trump claimed that because he didn’t drink and that he had other activities needing his attention he was going to leave. Trump and Maples then left.

The tape of Trump (Miller) talking to Carswell has been analyzed by an analyst who claims that because of its age he cannot do all of the necessary sound spectrographic analyses but on the basis of what he can do he is certain that the voice on the tape is Donald Trump’s. Trump is now again in complete denial. He claims that isn’t his voice, that it doesn’t even sound like him. Still, many on the right believe that he will make a wonderful President. For them dissembling is not a problem.

2016 May 13^th

George Will’s column today is about Amtrak. Considering all of the urgent problems this country faces, from a Republican nominee for President who might well be certifiable, to a Russian  President intent on pushing fighter jets into barrel rolls around our observation planes, to a China constructing islands with airstrips so that they can extend their territorial limits, we have George Will singling out Amtrak for analysis. That’s exactly what he has done. Will is unhappy because Amtrak, a quasi-government entity is neither fish nor fowl.

Consider this final sentence in his column: “Now that both parties regard constitutional conservatism as an inconvenient anachronism, Amtrak is a harbinger of future bipartisanship: There will be the steady permeation of ostensibly, but not really, private entities with government presence, which for a century has been progressives’ consistent goal.” This is a splendid sentence; it is full to the brim of polysyllabic words; it will surely convince all readers that the writer is highly intelligent and well read…if very indignant; it has served its purpose. 

Now we can turn to Donald Trump who continues to make news; he clearly cannot help himself and it is unlikely that he wants to. First on the personal income tax front: During an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, Trump told Stephanopoulos that his tax rate “is none of your business.” Trump has continued with the fiction that he cannot release his income tax returns to the public while those returns are being audited. He has a problem with that because the IRS has said that releasing returns during an audit is no problem at all. At least it isn’t a problem for the IRS; it might well be a significant problem for Trump, and Clinton is quick to wonder publicly what Trump is trying to hide. Trump is not in an enviable position here. He won’t lose fans if they see him standing up to the hated IRS; he will lose face if he is seen as having lied about his income, his charitable deductions or other aspects of his financial bragging.

Then we go back twenty some years and find someone named John Miller and maybe someone else named John Barron who speak for Donald Trump but who sound suspiciously like Donald Trump. At about this time Trump is married to Marla Maples bur apparently not all that happily. John Miller who claims to know Donald trump very, very well has some less than complimentary thigs to say about Marla. Voice analysis finds remarkably similar speech patterns in the speech of John Miller and Donald Trump. It looks like the Donald was just trying on another persona back then in preparation for his current acting gig.

It is now apparent that Trump recognizes that his pronouncements about Muslims entering the country, the wall, tax policy and entitlements are all just “suggestions” because he recognizes that he isn’t the President yet. So once he becomes the President will these move from suggestions to demands? He is forgetting about the Congress.

2016 May 12^th

Back about 1930 when Herbert Hoover was intent on saving money and halting our slide into depression, a couple of well-meaning Republicans decided on a remedy. Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis Hawley introduced a bill that raised the tariff on some 20 thousand imported goods. OK, why not? If you cut off imports you provide an increased market for stuff made right here at home. What could go wrong? Answer: a whole lot could and a whole lot did.

The Smoot Hawley act, as it came to be known, is assumed by many (not all) economists to be responsible for pushing this country deeper into the great depression and taking the rest of the world along for the ride. When we increased the tariff on goods imported from other countries to protect our markets those other countries did the same thing to us and worldwide trade slowed considerably. Now we had reduced domestic markets and negligible foreign markets. This has become known as “protectionism” and has become a very ugly word for both Republicans and Democrats. About the only thing both parties can now agree on is opening avenues for trade; not all avenues because the Cuban American population in Florida is still mightily opposed to relaxing trade embargoes with the “homeland.” Hey, maybe another 50 years and these restrictions will work out.

Enter the nearly newly anointed Republican Presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump is sure that many Americans are out of work because of “bad trade deals” that he will fix once he is elected. Well, maybe not; Mr. Trump doesn’t understand that the President’s ability to fix any “bad trade deals” is very limited. Trump should familiarize himself with the Trade Protection Act (TPA) that manages to assign responsibilities among Senate, House and the Executive branch for trade deals. Trump should be aware that the President does not even have the authority to lift the embargo against trade with Cuba. If he had that authority, he would have used it.

Trump is not aware of the limits of the executive’s power. His claim that he would prohibit Muslims from entering the country (he now says that was just a suggestion) is not within the President’s power. Indeed, it is almost certainly unconstitutional, but Trump doesn’t know that. He claims that Mexico will pay for the wall because he will slap import tariffs on Mexican goods coming into the country but as President he wouldn’t have the authority to do that either. Trumps understanding of American Government is not quite at the level of a tenth grade civics student.

The problem is that not only doesn’t Donald Trump know that but neither do the placard waving supporters who are cheering for him.

2016 May 11^th

In his column yesterday, Cal Thomas made a number of blunders that I addressed in a previous blog. I was also sufficiently energized to write a letter to the Record-Eagle, the responsible party for publishing Thomas’ egregious inadequacies.

Well, there is more. Thomas maintains that good conservatives should defund, cancel or otherwise eliminate, the F-35, a very advanced and very over budget fighter weapons system; it has been plagued with design problems to the point where its critics claim that by the time all of these flaws are fixed the fighter will be out of date. Some of these fighters are flying now and the pilots who fly them are not particularly exuberant about the plane.

There might be a problem if this weapons system was defunded. There about 32.5 thousand jobs that depend on the continuing production of just this one airplane. The work is spread over 46 states. Do you suppose Cal Thomas has any idea how many Congress People would be getting angry calls from their suddenly out of work constituents if this project were defunded? Hey, he doesn’t care; his column is secure.

Back in the 1930s President Roosevelt instituted a number of make work projects designed to provide employment. They worked and the revolution forecast by some Communists didn’t happen. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were examples, there were others. My civil engineer father had a paycheck in the ‘30s thanks to President Roosevelt.

At the end of World War 2 we had to deal with an enormous number of returning service men who would not be quickly soaked up by factories gearing up to meet the demand for civilian goods. What would we do about these unemployed young men? Then there was the G.I. Bill and that largely solved the problem. It certainly solved my college problem. Notice that the country used the dreaded “social engineering” to deal with both of these issues.

At this point we have about 6 million jobs that depend on military spending. This is the minimum; it includes all active duty military and the 4.2 million jobs associated with military procurement and supply. That’s equivalent to about 27 General Motors payrolls. That’s a lot of jobs. It’s also about half of our budget. So instead of producing jobs that improve our infrastructure we fund jobs that add to our military power. It’s probably easier to get approval for military spending than it is for infrastructure spending.

You remember when President Eisenhower was trying to get congressional approval for the Interstate Highway expenditures he claimed that it was necessary for national defense. Then he had no problem.

2016 May 10^th

Cal Thomas writes a column titled “A shadow cabinet for the Trump presidency.” This column makes very little sense. A shadow cabinet in the British system is a cabinet composed by the election losers to monitor the cabinet officers appointed by the winner. If Trump is elected President then any “shadow cabinet” will be put in place by the Democrats; that is obviously not what Thomas is talking about in this piece. Here Thomas is talking about a cabinet composed of Republicans to take issue with the Democratic cabinet officers.

Cal Thomas is ready to eliminate the Department of Education. Thomas tells us that, “…The DOE educates no one and is another of those Washington bureaucracies that thinks it knows better than local districts and parents how best to educate….” How can one columnist produce so much misinformation in so few words?

Thomas has apparently never heard of Pell Grants. These grants, administered by the Department of Education, provide money for poor kids to help pay for college. These are grants, not loans, so they don’t need to be paid back. In the 2013-14 calendar year about one third of all undergraduate students in this country received Pell Grants administered by this do nothing Department of Education.

The DOE also administers the Stafford Loan program. There are two types of Stafford Loans, subsidized and unsubsidized. The subsidized loans have their interest paid for by the government until the student graduates. Once graduated there are ways to reduce the loan balance if the student undertakes certain teaching positions. Thomas apparently knows nothing about Stafford Loans either.

Now, about one of those, “… Washington bureaucracies that thinks it knows better than local districts and parents about how to educate…” What a hoot! In 2005 right here in Republican controlled Michigan, a state law was passed removing the public school starting date from local control and determining that public schools could not begin until after Labor Day. This was to allow students to finish their work for various portions of the tourist industry before the end of the summer tourist season; it had nothing to do with education. Students from other states begin school two to four weeks before Michigan students do. Advanced Placement tests are held at the same time for all students nationally, so Michigan students are behind the others in time to prepare for these tests. It’s not about education; it’s about the money.

If the public schools could start before Labor day they could also manage to save some snow days and still finish at a reasonable time in the spring. Sorry, the tourist industry here is just too important.

2016 May 9^th

What pithy phrase will now describe the Republican Party’s recent actions? Shooting themselves in the foot comes to mind, but such an injury isn’t fatal and Donald Trump’s rise will be lethal for them. And the irony is that these people, with their Tea Party members insisting on shutting down the government (to save the country of course), have given Trump both the gun and the ammunition he needed to finish off the Grand Old Party. There are those who say good riddance.

Grover Norquist, the anti-tax fanatic, is the poster boy for limited government. You can limit government if you starve it for money and that is just what Norquist, the Tea Party and other right wing Republicans want to do. They have been very successful with their program, successful enough that Congress has passed little meaningful legislation because to fund program “A” you must defund program “B.” This ineffective government has produced many very angry citizens; then along comes Donald Trump with a plan, non-specific of course, to “Make America Great Again.” (There are specifics but they have more to do with pandering to Patrick J. Buchanan’s xenophobia than providing health care, education and fixing the infrastructure.)

If the tax base could fund it, fixing the country’s infrastructure could provide many good-paying jobs. The Tea Party and right wing Republicans will not hear of that. Here in Michigan the Governor is focused on saving money so the antiquated Flint water systems continue to leach lead into the city’s drinking water. Governor Snyder tells us that the State of Michigan has a better than 500 million dollar surplus this year; isn’t that grand?

Consider the country’s highway system: Its disrepair is obvious to anyone who drives his/her car out of the garage. But then there is also the problem of the decreasing number of highway miles available for each car. From 1980 to 2010, a period of thirty years, this country has increased federal highway miles by just 5.8 percent. That’s not much. On the other hand, the number of vehicles on the highways has increased by nearly 77 percent over that same  period. I remember when “going for a drive” in the evening was a form of recreation; that has changed. The crowded, potholed highways have made the change from recreation to fogetaboutit?

The most recent Trumpian gaffe is the Donald’s suggestion that if elected President he would “negotiate” the nation’s enormous debt. By that he means that he might be willing to pay the debt but not 100 cents on the dollar.  Guess what that idea will do to the interest rates both in this country and overseas. If our treasury bonds become speculative what does that do to interest rates on everything from student loans to home mortgages? Trump cannot play with the country’s debt as he would with his own. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know that but he will learn and it will be at our expense.

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2016 May 8^th

Trump has been changing some of his positions; he now has a different view of taxation. His initial position was for a “flat tax” with a very congenial top rate considerably below the current 39 percent. This would benefit him to the tune of many millions a year. He would also abolish the estate tax to the very considerable benefit of his children.  All that has changed (or has it?), he now claims that the rich will have to pay more taxes. Given that he needs the rich to help pay for the billion dollars his campaign will need, this may not be a politic (?) move. He says that he will reduce business taxes and will particularly reduce the taxes on the middle classes who, he claims, have been much abused.

Trump’s largesse on the tax front will make him many friends…why else do you suppose he suggested it? But then there is the effect of all this tax reduction on the federal budget, None of these Trump questioners have asked him to say how he will compensate the treasury for all of these tax cuts. This is a problem if he also plans to increase the spending on our military. Maybe he’ll just borrow more money from China and Japan. But how is that possible if he plans to “renegotiate” our trade deals with China? If he does that why should China want to lend us the money to pay for our tax cuts and bolster our military… only the Donald knows.

In spite of his bouncing around on his recent talking points, Trump has remained steadfast on some of the things he’s said: We will build the wall, the 2 thousand mile wall he thinks we need to stop the trickle of Hispanics entering the country. Of course we must stop the drug smugglers but a 2 thousand mile wall won’t do that; smarter intelligence will do that. Of course that isn’t as colorful a talking point as the wall; the wall gets trotted out at every Trump rally, “What are we going to build?” he screams. “A wall,” his followers scream back. “Who’s going to pay for it, he yells? “Mexico!” they scream back. How could Trump ever give that up? That is his principle shtick and it has been for months.

He does have two other signature and controversial suggestions: He wants to deport about 11 million undocumented Hispanics and their children. The fact that the children are American citizens he seems to ignore. He also ignores the problem of getting their native countries to accept their re-entry. How could any of this be a problem for a deal maker like the Donald? Just don’t ask how he will accomplish it because all you’ll get is double talk. Incessant talking is the Donald’s contribution to any interview. If he keeps talking, the interviewer can’t ask questions so Trump keeps control.

Finally, there is the prohibition against any Muslims entering the country. This is an edict that will be ever so helpful in getting the cooperation of typical Muslims to defeat the extremists. Hey, you have to decide if you want to appeal to the xenophobic folks or perhaps would prefer to stop the attacks of Muslim extremists. Trump’s position on this is clear.

2016 May 7^th

A couple of days ago Thomas Sowell, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from the esteemed University of Chicago, published a column titled “Some thoughts on politics, life.” (That’s not a bad title so maybe I’ll use it myself someday.) Dr. Sowell’s initial thought, however, exposed the fact that a doctorate in anything is no guarantee that the holder has an education…training maybe, but that isn’t education. In an early paragraph, Dr. Sowell offers this opinion: “I don’t understand how people who cannot predict the weather five days in advance can predict the climate five decades from now.”

That is simply false to fact; the weather most certainly can be predicted, and with reasonable accuracy, five days in advance. Visit Key West in February and you won’t need a down coat; nor will you pack a bathing suit for a visit to Minneapolis at Christmas time.  Hurricane strikes are routinely predicted helping to save lives and property. We know that in the long run a certain number of people in any age cohort will die but we can’t predict who they will be; that’s how insurance rates are set. A man with a doctorate in economics doesn’t know that?

Of course he knows that but his political blinders force him to make the conservatively correct comments about global warming. As a result he makes a fool of himself.

Sowell continues with his litany of angst. He writes, “Of all the disheartening signs of the utter ignorance of so many college students, nothing so completely disheartened me as seeing on television a black college student who did not know what the Civil War was about.” Why are you surprised Dr. Sowell? The Texas board of education doesn’t know either. They have changed their textbooks so that slavery emerges as a minor cause.

The Texas statement on secession states in straightforward terms that Texas was leaving the union because the Union insisted that they abandon slavery. The Texas board of education couches leaving the Union in states’ rights terms but the “rights” alluded to was the right to have slaves.

When the secessionist states complained that the union was going to deprive the citizens of their property the property they were talking about were African Americans. So it is no surprise that a black college student should be unsure about the cause of the Civil War. Ask your right wing Texas friends why they doctored the state’s textbooks to show slavery was less a negligible factor in the Civil War.

2016 May 6^th

Today we have the interesting juxtaposition of two columnists on the Record-Eagle’s opinion page. At the top there is George Will with a column titled “The Misadventures of Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac.” Below his effort is Eugene Robinson’s “Trump fills a vacuum left by Republican Party.” (Robinson has the advantage of a photograph of Trump flanked by his six-foot tall, blonde, daughter Ivanka; his strikingly attractive Slovakian model wife, Melania, and son Eric’s very attractive, very tall blonde wife, Lara.) This is obviously an unfair contest.

Will describes GSEs of which Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are his most salient examples. For the uninitiated, GSEs are “government-sponsored enterprises.” These two agencies guarantee 80 percent of American mortgages. According to Mr. Will, these GSE’s should never have existed. Everyone would have been much better off if “market forces” instead of these GSEs had been involved. Then came the housing crash and many wind-fall financial opportunities erupted, all the result of government over reach. (In spite diligent searching I can find the term “government under reach” nowhere in any right wing lexicon.) Had enough? I certainly have.

Of all the interesting political things to write about, from Paul Ryan’s current reluctance to endorse Trump and Trump’s current reluctance to endorse Ryan’s “agenda” in their grade school tit for tat, carefully orchestrated game, why would George Will think anyone would be interested in an extended disquisition on GSEs? Of course it doesn’t matter to Mr. Will, if he can take some abstract, impenetrable, utterly boring topic, and illustrate his grasp of the issues, and by doing so illustrate his intellectual brilliance he really doesn’t care whether or not you are interested.

Eugene Robinson, on the other hand, has chosen to comment on the Republican Party in these days of its near terminal angst. His thesis is that the Republicans captured the Reagan Democrats and the let them hang out to dry and left them there for years, ignoring their economic concerns. “Trump is filling a vacuum left by years of inattention to voters who have been patronized and taken for granted. The fissures he exposed in the GOP will not go away.”  Robinson claims that the party has nominated a candidate who does not subscribe to many of the party’s core beliefs. “Post Trump, Republicans will have a choice: They can develop new policies or they can look for new voters.”

That’s quite straightforward, easy to understand and hardly debatable. The far right of the Republican Party has effectively stalled the government.  By crippling the legislative branch they have made sure that Congress has the lowest approval rating in its history and provided all the ammunition Donald Trump could possibly want. The leader of the Tea Party’s attempts to throttle the government is none other than Speaker Paul Ryan.

2016 May 5^th

Here we are on day one of Donald Trump’s “victory dance.” You might have supposed that Trump would have shown a little modesty as he basked in his triumph, but then, on second thought, you would suppose no such thing…and you would be right. It seems that Trump is Trump; he is not playing a part (or if he is he might not be able to remove the mask for one character to put on the mask of another).

The question for Trump now is how will he manage to turn from irritating every minority in the country, and some not in the minority, I think specifically of women, to positions which will let him win the general election? His earlier comments about Latino rapists and drug dealers are now being played to motivate Latin American soccer teams to play their best against the Americans. The Clinton campaign has put together a series of Trump’s Republican competitors commenting on Trump. They are uniformly very negative about their new party leader.

Trump’s nastiness toward nearly every minority is out there for the Clinton campaign to use as they like…and they surely like. These comments are also a problem for Donald in the general election. If he tries to soften any of the stands that have made him so attractive to his many followers; building the wall, excluding Moslems, etc., in order  to appeal to a broader electorate, will he start to lose the fans who have brought him to his present peak? These fans were mightily attracted to the positions Trump has taken, positions that has alienated him from most Republicans. It is worth noting that of the over 25 million votes cast in the Republican primaries, Trump got just about 10.5 million and the other 15 million votes went to somebody else. Trump is simply not the first choice of most Republicans who voted…and remember that a minority of registered Republicans bothered to vote.

What of the party leaders, how are they breaking on the Trump issue? Mitt Romney and the two former Bush Presidents will not be attending the convention nor will they be endorsing Donald Trump. That information plays right into Trump’s claim to be hated by the Republican establishment; you can’t get any more establishment than the immediate past party standard bearer and the two previous Republican Presidents. Trump might not care, nor will his fans, but what about broadening his appeal to others in the party? Trump might not care but Hillary Clinton is a happy camper. At a considerably lower level, among those officials still active in the party we have that party stalwart and former party standard-bearer Senator John McCain. The Senator is endorsing the party’s nominee because, after all, the Senator is a good Republican. It does seem that McCain’s loyalty to the Republican Party is more important to him than concern for his country. No one who would choose Sarah Palin to be his Vice Presidential nominee can have much interest in the welfare of his country. McCain’s support of Trump simply continues that tradition. This is in spite of McCain’s recognition that Trump at the head of the ticket makes McCain’s re-election in heavily Latino Arizona very difficult.

That’s not all, even Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, joins the Bushes and claims he isn’t ready yet to endorse his party’s standard bearer either; poor Donald.

2016 May 4^th

There is no end of news today, but none of it is surprising. Donald Trump’s “Victory Speech” after winning Indiana suggested that he wanted to bring the party together while at the same time he accused Cruz’ father of some complicity in the Kennedy assassination. That’s not a good start but Trump doesn’t care.

 Cruz, finally seeing the inevitable, has “suspended his campaign” which is political talk for “I’m outta here, although contributions are still welcome.” Trump commended Cruz as a great fighter. That probably isn’t enough to make Cruz decide to support Trump. Indeed, in his suspension speech Cruz called Trump a pathological liar, a serial philanderer and some other equally unpleasant names. Trump has not decided to reject any of the Cruz’ accusations. Do you suppose that Cruz’ answer to Chuck Todd’s “Meet the Press” Sunday question about voting for Donald Trump has changed? For Cruz I guess a serial philanderer and a pathological liar as a President is probably better than a Democrat. Even so, I’ll bet Cruz and friends will not be out trying to get votes for the Donald.

Now Kasich has dropped out as well, leaving the Donald all alone with no one to challenge him. Kasich never got any traction in this endeavor; maybe because he was seen as part of the establishment, which he was, and maybe because he came across as a colorless technocrat, very efficient but not very likeable. Whatever his problems were, it’s back to dealing with Ohio’s difficulties for him.

I wonder what Trump will do for publicity and airtime now that he has wrapped up his party’s nomination. I would bet that he will make absurd statements about Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Hillary’s granddaughter just to get noticed. Public notice for Trump is worth whatever he has to do to get it and there is no limit to what he will do to get it. He has proven that.

Hillary Clinton sat for an extended interview by Anderson Cooper. She claimed that she couldn’t wait to ask Trump about some of his policies, from demonizing Muslims to his comments about women. It was obvious that Secretary Clinton was not at all intimidated by the prospect of confronting Donald Trump with some of the things he has said, things that are on the record. She was quite specific that the media, when interviewing Trump,  had not really asked him to explain how he would carry out his plans. For example how would he round up the 11 million people he plans to deport… and how would he deal with the constitutional issues of deporting children many of whom are American citizens.

Later when various members of the commentariate had the opportunity to comment on the interview, Dana Bash jumped right in saying that she was very upset with Clinton’s claim that the press had been too easy on Trump because Bash claimed that she had indeed asked him over an over about his plans. She is right; the interviewers have asked Trump to explain himself but Trump doesn’t answer the interviewer’s questions and makes it quite clear that he wants to hear no more on that topic, so the questioner meekly moves on. Cruz tried that same evasive tactic with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press about whether or not he would vote for Trump in the general election and Todd made Cruz’ seven evasive answers quite clear to his audience.

While Trump can blow off the likes of Bash and others who must be careful not to irritate The Donald, lest he refuse to give them future interviews, Hillary Clinton will be a whole other matter. 

2016 May 3^rd

And now we wait to see just how badly Senator Cruz’ efforts to win Indiana have failed. It certainly hasn’t been for want of trying. At a recent rally the Senator was so focused on what he was saying that he did not notice his running mate, Carly Fiorina, falling off the stage. Then, energized by a group of protesters who waved banners telling him to get out of the race, he decided to “reason with them.” That didn’t work even though he kept his efforts going for some time. The protesters were not converted; indeed, they never paused in their calls for him to get out of the race.

The Senator’s appeal seems to slide to a halt once his audience no longer consists of fervent evangelicals. There are just not enough of those folks in Indiana to support a fervent Bible salesman, let alone a politician who at his most charming isn’t very charming at all. He is also plagued with a speaking style filled with pauses following nearly every phrase that is not at all pleasant to hear. As a final problem, as if he needed more, his antagonist, Donald Trump, has pulled in sports figures from Notre Dame’s legendary football coach, Lou Holtz, to Indiana’s legendary basketball coach, Bobby Knight. Once you make it to “legendary” status, some might wonder about your judgment when recommending Presidential candidates. (I’m not being ageist here because I’m more than a decade older than either of these guys…but then I’m not legendary…except of course to my wife.)

Why is no one paying any attention to Governor Kasich? In all of the polls Kasich is the only Republican candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton.so why is he ignored? OK, so he’s seen as part of the “establishment” so what? Are these Republicans so eager to avoid an insider that they will cheerfully nominate a sure loser? Part of Kasich’s problem may be that he just isn’t seen as likeable. He is certainly competent; he balances budgets, but beyond that what is his claim to fame? There doesn’t seem to be any levity at all in the man. That lack can be a killer. Kasich seems to be all policy all the time.

The Indiana primary results are now in enough to declare Trump the clear winner, Cruz a very bad second and Kasich should have stayed home! Trump and Cruz are about to speak as I write this. Trump will surely crow and Cruz might withdraw.

On the Democratic side, the race is too close to call. Sanders is ahead but not by nearly enough to give him the win.

2016 May 2^nd

It really is all over but the shouting and there continues to be plenty of that. Cruz is baiting Trump supporters is Indiana, a move that will get him no additional votes. Cruz’ absolute refusal to say he would vote against the man he claimed would be a disaster for the country if elected to the Presidency is playing everywhere. If there is another edition of “Profiles in Courage” Cruz will not make the cut. If anything, Cruz’ antics this past week have cost him votes and delighted Trump who now is unstoppable. Republicans are climbing aboard and trying to convince themselves that Trump can win the general election. This is because Trump’s followers have remained glued to his side no matter what he says. As a result, Republican poohbahs believe he can pull the general out of the hat too. Of course he has to do more than keep what following he has to win the general election; he has to add to his following and good luck convincing Latinos, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and women that he is just the guy for them.

Even his recent foreign policy speech was a disaster. It was just dandy for those Republicans who see the future and want to come aboard now. Of course when you say you’ll stand by our allies…but they must now pay their own way, or when you say you won’t take nuclear weapons off the table…and that you want to be unpredictable, you make both your friends and your enemies very nervous, and incline them to be unpredictable as well.

If Trump is confounding the Republicans, Senator Sanders is providing the same favor for Democrats. Sanders has little if any chance to be the Democratic nominee and sees no reason to drop out of the race even if he can’t win it. The problem is that now Sanders has become willing to diminish Clinton’s chances to win the general election in order to enhance, if ever so slightly, his own chances to get the nomination. He has stated that Clinton is “unqualified” to be President because of certain votes she has taken. This supposed “lack of qualification” is entirely in Sander’s mind, but now Trump has picked up that characterization and begun to use it against Clinton. Who is surprised by Trump’s ploy? Thanks Senator!

Sanders agrees that Clinton is a far better choice than Trump. Sanders slamming Clinton is done from desperation and gets Sanders nowhere; short of a physical infirmity, Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. Sander’s has had a remarkable run (which he emphasizes at every opportunity) and now, having moved Clinton to the left, Sanders should stop being a potential wrecking ball for the Democrats.

I voted for Sanders in the Michigan primary, I hope he won’t make me sorry.

2016 May 1^st

Today we look at Senator Ted Cruz’ performance on Chuck Todd’s “Meet the Press” program. Any time you give a politician free airtime you can be sure you’ll get multiple variations of his stump speech, and that’s just what Chuck Todd got from Ted Cruz. Late night comics have mocked Cruz’ halting delivery; he pauses, sometimes after every phrase, looking left or right before continuing, apparently believing this to be a successful rhetorical style. It isn’t, but it’s wonderful ammunition for late night comics. He didn’t stoop to that shtick on “Meet the Press” because it would have allowed Todd to slip in a question and Cruz wanted no interruptions to his non-stop talking points.

Much of Cruz harangue was aimed at the disaster Donald Trump’s election would be for the country. This theme was reiterated over and over again. Todd was obviously trying to break into Cruz’ monologue to ask a question and finally he was successful, “Senator Cruz, will you vote for Donald Trump if he is the nominee of your party?” Cruz answered that Trump would not be the party’s nominee. Todd persisted, reminding Cruz that he had said what a disaster Trump would be for the country and asking again if Cruz would vote for him. Cruz dodged the question again. Todd asked the question, altogether, seven times and each time he got evasive answers until, finally, he gave up. Then Cruz said, “You’re just trying to get me to say I support Donald Trump.” In what alternate universe does Senator Cruz live?

Maybe it’s time to look again at this wonderful Trump success in the Pennsylvania primary. Donald Trump won that primary with about 57 percent of the Republican vote. To be specific Trump got 893,716 votes. Trump’s opponents got 666,349 votes. His two principle opponents Ted Cruz and John Kasich got the great bulk of those non-Trump votes. It happens that there are about 3 million registered Republicans in Pennsylvania. If we total all of the primary votes we get about 1.5 million Republican primary votes. This means that about half of the registered Republicans just stayed home and weren’t interested in voting for any of the above.

On the Democratic side things are not all that different. Pennsylvania has about 4 million registered Democrats. Clinton got 918,689 votes and Sanders 710,955 so Clinton clearly beat Sanders. With 4 million registered Democrats in Pennsylvania and only 163,864 of them turning out to vote, that’s about 41 percent; so nearly 60 percent of registered Democrats didn’t care enough about the outcome to bother voting.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats are very excited about their potential candidates and after watching the President hosting the Correspondent’s Dinner I can see why.