Dec 7^th

Today is the 74^th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. We had more Americans killed on 9/11 than were lost at Pearl Harbor but when Pearl Harbor was attacked we knew who had attacked us; that wasn’t the case after 9/11.  In spite of the fact that 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudi citizens and that Saudi Arabia subsidized Madrasas that preached nothing but “hate Americans” (and still do) we attacked Iraq on the basis of likely deliberately faulty intelligence. Go figure!

Last night we had a speech by the President; this morning we had the usual condemnation of his speech by the right wing pundits…same old, same old. In fact the rhetoric coming from the right has now become predictable enough to be boring. Obama asks for an a renewed authorization to use force against ISIL (AUMF) but while some of the more bellicose in Congress want something like that, the majority will have nothing to do with any such authorization…so it languishes.

Most of the right wing columnists echo each other and then come around full circle to repeat themselves. Only occasionally will someone say something unusual as Kasich did when he recently claimed that we should allow those on the terrorist watch list to buy semi-automatic weapons, and presumably use them, because to stop the purchase would tell them that they were on the prohibited list! I have been doing this blog for just shy of a year and that is absolutely the nuttiest thing anyone has said.

Coming close was Trump’s suggestion to register all Muslims into a data base and require them to carry identification labeling them as Muslim. What he says is not all that scary; what’s scary is that huge numbers of Americans agree with him. They agree with him because they are frightened. Effective politicians know how to keep them afraid and then persuade the fearful they’ve created that they, and they alone, can keep them safe.

Now I’ve just wasted a few minutes listening to Trump’s fear mongering in a speech he is making in South Carolina.  He says that “we have no idea who is coming into this country.” If you have ever been out of the country and then returned you know that Trump’s assertion is nonsense. Then Trump takes the mandatory shot at the media singling out Katy Tur who had apparently not been worshipful enough with her coverage of him at some point. Now I’m sure that Ms. Tur and all of her NBC colleagues will fall right into line.

Maybe, in the next few days, there will be something worthwhile to comment about but if something doesn’t soon maybe I’ll be reduced to telling war stories.

Dec 6^th

George Will tells us that after the shooting in Southern California some 180 thousand people went out and bought guns. Will claimed that these people “voted with their feet.” Will doesn’t tell us how many of these purchasers were new owners and how many were just adding to an already existing arsenal. Then we have Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, suggesting that all of the university students there should carry concealed weapons.

John Kasich, the governor of Ohio says that he would have voted against banning those on the terrorism watch list from buying guns. He provides a new and interesting logic for his decision. Most of the right wingers who suggest not enforcing such a ban maintain that the list is flawed, that some are on the list that don’t belong there. (See Carly Fiorina’s comment about this.) Of course no test is perfect. The fact that there are a few false positives shouldn’t lead us to abandon such lists but to improve them. Kasich suggests that if we ban anyone on that list from buying an AR-15 or an AK-47, then they will know that they are on the list. So which is worse, having a couple of terrorists get AK-47s and shoot up a mall someplace or stop the gun purchase and in so doing reveal that they are on the watch list. Is Kasich serious that this is a choice?

Then we had a right wing Trump fan on a morning talk show who handed out the same curious information on the inadequacy of gun control laws we’ve heard over and over again. She claimed that California had strict gun control laws and that is spite of that, these terrorists had no problem getting weapons. Nonsense! California is just next door to Nevada and no one checks packages coming into California from Nevada where guns are easily obtainable. We get this same nonsense from right wingers about Chicago’s gun laws; just go outside the city limits and buy all you want; or Washington D.C which has strict gun laws, but is a ten minute cab ride from Virginia where buying is easy.

(Now it can be told: I got a Marksman medal in the USAAF during basic because the guy standing next to me was shooting at my target. We had three 5 shot clips for our .45s and my target had sixteen holes in it. The sergeant asked me what happened. I said I didn’t know…but I was mightily tempted to tell him that I was one helluva shot.)

 

Dec 5^th

Mona Charen is presenting her opinions again in the morning paper. Charen takes just three paragraphs to present her case and then to contradict herself.  She begins by quoting Hillary Clinton, “let’s be clear: Islam is not our adversary…” Then Charen asks, “What happens when a major political party becomes so wedded to political correctness that it feels constrained to deny reality?...the threat of Muslim extremism is glaringly,, blazingly obvious.” Finally Charen circles back and agrees with Clinton by saying that, “Most Muslims are peaceful. Beyond that they practice charity, care for the sick and practice good works.” Apparently Charen is upset because Clinton did not condemn Muslim extremism but simply said that our adversary is not Islam which Charen then seems to agree with.

What’s going on here? Charen must have needed a conservatively correct column, something that took a swipe at Hillary Clinton to maintain her conservative chops and what you saw is what you got.

Charen goes on to comment on the Muslim refugees and the ability to assimilate them into our society. She starts with a little scare tactic by telling us the percentages of Muslims who favor the death penalty for apostates. (Perhaps she should also direct us to Deut. 23: 6-9 which does he same for straying Jews and those who entice them.) Charen seems to forget that these refugees whom those on the right fear so much are refugees from this very extreme interpretation of Islam. If they agreed with it they wouldn’t be trying to get away from it.

Then comes Ted Cruz to assert that violent felons are all Democrats. That is nonsense of course but when does that stop Cruz who wondered not long ago why the Pope hadn’t been “fired” and Cruz, a Catholic, should know that isn’t how it works.  The research that Cruz misinterprets doesn’t distinguish “violent felons” from non-violent felons. A disproportionate number of convicted felons are poor, black or Latino and minimally employed. Anyone who fits into those categories is likely to vote Democratic whether or not they have been convicted of a crime.

Then Cruz points out that Democrats have tried to restore voting rights to felons who have served out their sentences. He says that “Democrats go in and fight for the right to vote to convicted felons. Why? Because Democrats know that ex-felons are more likely to vote Democrat.” What? You mean that after a felon has served his sentence and been released, and then he discovers that the Democrats have been actively trying to arrange for him to have the right to vote again he is likely to vote Democratic. Now isn’t that shocking?

Dec 4^th

Thomas Sowell is upset because of what he calls the intolerance shown for dissenting political views on American campuses. He is particularly aggrieved at the administrations of various Ivy League colleges for caving in to student’s sensitivities.  Harkening back to the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) of the late sixties, he refers to those protesters as “campus storm troopers” but finds the University of Chicago praiseworthy for “standing up to them.” His own doctorate in economics happens to be from the University of Chicago; it must be a heavy burden for him to admit that President Barack Obama taught constitutional law at his university for about twelve years. He never mentions that fact.

It is not easy for African-American students attending Princeton University to tolerate the fact that President Woodrow Wilson, a past president of Princeton and a past President of the United States was a world class bigot who, once he got in the White House, proceeded to “cleanse” the government rolls of Black workers. This action caused enormous hardship for many families. That, and his praise for the Ku Klux Klan make the reverence for his memory at Princeton hard to bear for many students regardless of color. It’s easy to dismiss those concerns and simply say that he was a man of his times, but he wasn’t, because the previous President, William Taft, or Theodore Roosevelt before him, had hired these bmen. Woodrow Wilson’s bigotry was obviously an anomaly and he was not a product of his times.

Sowell goes on to give high praise to a book, “Choosing the Right College,” an evaluation of many colleges on the basis of their “ideological intolerance.” Included are the book’s author’s opinions about how tolerant each rated college is to dissenting opinions. Most of the Ivy League schools get red marks signifying intolerance. As you might expect, the University of Chicago gets a green light and Sowell has written a resounding recommendation for the book on Amazon!

There are a good many lesser known colleges that probably should also be included in this book but are not, colleges that need have no worry about dissenting opinions; these are the fundamentalist and evangelical institutions that carefully screen their entering students lest anyone be admitted who might not be compatible with the college’s mission. Biola University, formerly the Bible college of Los Angeles, Is not included in the book Sowell recommends. Biola’s first requirement of any applicant is that he or she “must be an Evangelical believer in the Christian faith.” This is not a tiny school; its enrollment is oversix thousand students. With this rigorous entrance screening it is vanishingly unlikely that Biola students will cause the administration any problems.

There are many colleges and universities just like Biola, and it is unlikely that with their intense focus on careful student selection, that the issue of any divergent opinion would ever arise. One of these, Letourneau University, recently got some publicity when it banned its student athletes from supporting gay marriage. Perhaps their admissions officer needs to review the entrance requirements.

Dec 3^rd

Today a few words about guns; it seems appropriate given the news from Southern California. There an American citizen, a Muslim, and his wife, armed with military style rifles and an assortment of handguns murdered fourteen people and wounded seventeen others. There were no cries of ‘Allah Akbar’ from the shooters who were apparently very badly upset about something that went on during the celebratory dinner many of whose attendees they then murdered.  It does seem to me that Muslims can have murderous rages and kill people just like the Christians can. Although the enormous amount of ammunition and bomb making material found in their house points to additional agendas.

While this country is afloat in hand guns many households don’t have any. In 1977 about 77 percent of households had a gun but that has now dropped to 32 percent. So who has all the guns?  Many of the 32 percent that have a gun don’t stop at one. Maybe it’s like taking vitamins; who takes just one vitamin supplement? If one gun makes you feel a little safer, then five will make you feel even safer and fifteen guns safer still. How many are required to make you feel safe enough. There is no number because everyone knows that the Obama government will confiscate whatever guns you have. This means that you should bury several guns in your basement, some more in your back yard and hide some in the attic.

This morning Carly Fiorina appeared on “Morning Joe” to make her case for just why she isn’t doing better in the polls and to comment on the Southern California shooting. Ms. Fiorina quickly produced some curious logic. Scarborough asked her why we shouldn’t prohibit gun sales to those on the terrorist watch list. Fiorina claimed that the terrorist watch list was flawed and had many false positives. That’s almost certainly true. She claimed that to prohibit gun ownership to those on the government’s terrorist list simply deprived those citizens of their second amendment rights. (This terrorist watch list is quite controversial in itself.)    However flawed this list may be, by her curious logic because we find some innocent people guilty of crimes we should therefore ignore our laws.

Then she provided tis bit of misinformation about the watch list, indictment and firearm possession:

"That's kind of a red herring, honestly," she said. "If somebody is a suspected terrorist on a watch list they can be indicted at any time. And once you are indicted you cannot own a firearm. So let's enforce the laws we have. Let's start with that."

Nonsense! Anyone, not just those on a watch list, can be indicted at any time; all it takes is an aggressive prosecuting attorney. The person he wishes to indict does not get to respond until and if the case goes to court. In some cases the indictment alone can lead to imprisonment until the trial occurs. On the issue of gun ownership: You can most certainly own a gun while under indictment. Fiorina is simply wrong about that. However, while under indictment you cannot buy a gun, or transport a gun. The law does not specifically say that you cannot own a gun; it is very specific about buying and transporting,  so if the law meant to prohibit gun ownership it probably would have said so. Fiorina is much too full of herself to bother fact-checking what she says. That might have been part of her problem at H-P.

 

 

 

 

Dec 2^nd

“With malice toward none, and charity for all…” It is hard to believe now that those words were actually said by a Republican President at the end of this country’s bloodiest war. The latest style was for President George W. Bush to land on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and from a fixed wing aircraft when the carrier was well within his helicopter’s range.  Can we say theatrics? Then Bush announced “Mission Accomplished;” this was when the majority of the war casualties were yet to come. The times have changed and so have the nature of Republican politicians. Considering today’s crop, can anyone believe that the Republican Party once produced both Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and produced them within a forty-year span? Now look what they are offering us.

We have Donald Trump calling for the murder of ISIL killer’s family members as the “only way to stop them.” This is the Trump response to the panic about terrorists. Counting the loss’ of life when the Russian airliner was blown up and the murders recently in Paris we have less than five hundred deaths. These deaths were deliberate and that is appalling of course, but the deaths total about 1.5 percent of the 32 thousand plus who die every year in our country from automobile accidents.

When people panic in the face of fear they often do truly unspeakable things; Michael Stargardt in his new book, “The German War” describes the panic produced when the occasional Polish villager shot at the occupying German troops. The instructions were to deal with such an affront by burning down the house from which the firing came as well as all the other houses in that village. In the eight weeks following the invasion between 16 and 27 thousand Poles were executed and 531 town and villages burned. The German Army leaders worried about a “psychosis” that affected their men, an unreasoning fear of the Polish irregulars. This unreasoning fear, this psychosis, is exactly what Donald Trump is so successfully promoting in this country. The only terrorism deaths here have come from domestic terrorists. Consider Tim McVeigh who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing 168 people, most of them children. He did that because he hated the government. Of course we still have people who hate the government; some have been elected to Congress.

Trump wants to kill the families of terrorists and we now also have a Congressional candidate from Iowa, Mark Chelgren, who wants the death penalty for any deported convicted felon who tries to re-enter this country. Mr. Chelgren’s position has not been very popular even with Republicans; Republican officials said, “(These) do not represent the beliefs of Iowa Republicans.” The Democrats were less kind “vile, hateful and downright deplorable.” I doubt that Mr. Chelgren will have much luck raising money unless he backtracks very quickly.

 

Dec 1^st

Today we’ll take a brief look at Senator Ted Cruz. Cruz is not loved by the senior members of his own party. He is, after all, the junior senator from Texas and as such he is by custom supposed to keep his head down and speak rarely. He hasn’t kept his head down and he certainly hasn’t kept his mouth shut, even going so far as to calling the leader of his own party, Senator McConnell, a liar and doing it on the Senate floor. Indeed he had very unkind things to say about all the Republican Senators in a subsequent, and unusual, Sunday session. This man aspires to the Presidency, he is doing quite well in the polls, but if he can’t even make nice with members of his own party how can he govern if he is elected?

The Senator has so far been very careful not to get lodged crosswise with Mr. Trump. He has managed to mimic some of Trump’s more outrageous positions. He hasn’t locked in on Trump’s insistence on deporting eleven million undocumented immigrants but he has condemned Senator Rubio who some years back suggested an amnesty method that would allow them to get green cards and stay where they are.

His most recent and rather curious comment is to accuse the Democrats of focusing on what he calls the condom police. Now it is obvious to anyone that there is a certain segment of society that opposes any form of birth control. The Catholic Churches’ position on the issue is well known. It is also well known that not all Catholics accept the Church’s position. Cruz, a Catholic, is quite forthright in suggesting that he has no problems with condoms. He says that he has two daughters and that he has no wish to have seventeen children.

(Cruz is not only unwilling to abide by Catholic teaching about birth control, he has gone so far as suggesting that the Pope should “be fired.” He is very unhappy about the Pope’s comments on climate change. He says, “I don’t know how that whole Papal thing works but if they can fire him they should.” He’s absolutely right; he has no idea about how that whole thing works.)

It is quite clear that many in the fundamentalist community have a problem with many methods of birth control.  They oppose any procedure that keeps a fertilized egg, which they believe is already a human being, from implanting in the uterus, This eliminates a number of birth control methods including the famous “morning after pill” as well as devices inserted in the uterus which prevent an embryo from implanting. The result is that while relatively few fundamentalists object to a birth control method which is no more than a barrier to the sperm reaching an egg there are many other birth control methods which they find objectionable.

Cruz has also come up with the notion, devoid of any supporting data, that most convicted felons are Democrats.  I believe that most people would find it odd if many convicted felons were registered to vote in any political party. Certainly once they are convicted of a felony their voting rights are often severely restricted; just how restricted depends on their state of residence. Cruz is an attorney and he should know that. He probably does but he is a candidate in search of an issue. He should keep looking.