Bye Bye, Benny

It may seem a little weird to usher in the New Year by saying goodbye, but that is the circumstance we find ourselves in with the news that Pope Benedict XVI (or I guess I should call him “Pope Emeritus” to be precise) passed away as the sands of time, as it were, slowly departed for 2022.

There is what I guess you could call the typical amount of praiseworthy news coverage and commentary currently being generated for the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, particularly from conservative media since Benedict is, truth be told, the pope they prefer as opposed to Pope Francis, who espouses his own brand of what you could call “liberation theology” on behalf of the poor, particularly in the third world. Benedict, on the other hand, was more palatable to conservative Catholics, particularly in the U.S.

However, I don’t believe any summary of Benedict’s papacy is complete without also noting the following (and by the way, a lot of the sourced content links have expired – just warning you now):

• He once said that condoms weren’t the answer, or something, in dealing with the AIDS epidemic in Africa (maybe not the 100-percent solution, but using them inhibits the transmission of the disease as we know by now – here).
• He also lifted the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, though to be fair, Benny realized his mistake and admonished the bishop to publicly recant his views (here).
• He also once said that Orthodox churches were “defective” because they didn’t recognize the primacy of the pope, called for a return to the Tridentine Latin rite mass which advocates the conversion of Jews to Catholicism, dismissed the Vatican’s chief astronomer for correctly pointing out that “intelligent design” isn’t science, issued a “Ten Commandments For Drivers” – “thou shalt not swear while signaling for a left turn”?? – and once called Bob Dylan a “false prophet” (he may have “found the nut” on that one, I’ll admit), and went out of his way to criticize Islam…all are noted here.
• He spoke on protecting the environment here (which is good), but he also denied climate change science here (which is bad).
• Benedict also condemned former President Obama’s repeal of the ban on U.S. funding for foreign family planning aid groups who offer abortion services here (and yes, I know that’s pretty much right out of the Roman Catholic playbook, as it were, though such bans overwhelmingly harm women and families in poverty around the world).
• In addition, he once traveled to the U.S. and visited Washington and New York, but ignored Boston, which, at the time, was the epicenter of the abuse scandal (here).
• He also excommunicated a 9-year-old child for having a life-saving abortion after her stepfather raped and impregnated her with twins; Benedict also excommunicated her mother. Guess who he didn’t excommunicate? The rapist stepfather (here).
• Benedict also mishandled four cases involving the sexual abuse of minors while he was an archbishop in Germany (noted in a “grab bag” kind of article with good and bad stuff about Benedict’s papacy here).

For a time, Pope Benedict XVI was the vicar of Christ, which carries a lot of weight for yours truly and millions of others I know. However, like everyone else, I believe he deserves to have a full accounting, which to me is particularly true for people in positions of power and authority. This is owed to everyone I believe, even the most humble among us who (if the Bible is to be believed) will be the first to be welcomed into eternal life.

May that be true for each of us when the time comes (but hopefully not for a good while yet :-).

My 2020 Election Postscript (Updates)

OK, as I type this, it’s all but done for Biden/Harris, now that they’re leading in PA and GA, thank God (and by the way, I was dismissive in the past of Stacey Abrams for being this almost ubiquitous presence on MSNBC about any center-left issue that existed without having won an election, even though by rights she should be Georgia governor now, but boy, was I wrong – it turned out she worked her ass off to GOTV for Biden/Harris and definitely should be rewarded in the new incoming administration – my apologies and congratulations to her for her efforts).

The White House was, of course, the big prize that we absolutely needed to win, though I’m sure there will be subsequent legal stuff for the foreseeable future (I remember how much the Repugs fought Al Franken getting seated in the U.S. Senate from Minnesota, and you can expect them to do that at a minimum for the White House). However, at this point, you would really have to wonder about any judge or politician doing anything whatsoever to reward a Trumpster, since, electorally, they’re “dead men walking,” and could only end up staining the reputation of anyone who could still help them at this point.

What does it tell you that it was so close? Well, for starters, it’s incredibly hard to knock off an incumbent politician unless they utterly self-destruct (which the Gropenfuhrer most certainly did, basically causing the worst health crisis this country has faced in over 100 years as well as an economy on the verge of collapse). There are many on my side who have claimed and will continue to claim that Biden was a little too chummy with Republicans. Well, that may be. But a win is a win is a win is a win is a win, and that’s what matters at the end of the day, not some damn Dem/liberal/progressive purity test.

I guess I need to remind our side of this again…in 1964, the Republican Party was flat on its back, having been decimated in a presidential and congressional elections. However, they incrementally worked their way back to power (partly by “working the refs” as always) to the point where they were positioned first in 1976 for their movement conservative guy (The Sainted Ronnie R), who actually showed up 4 years too early and caused the Republican split that led to Jimmy Carter winning. By 1980, though (with the internal fight going on between Carter and Ted Kennedy…I vaguely recall a white-haired guy named John Anderson too), they were poised to return to power, which they did with disastrous consequences. It took 16 years, but they pulled it off. And we’ll need to do something like that to accomplish the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, electoral and tax reform, common-sense gun laws, and on and on (though I realize we don’t have 16 years when it comes to the health of this planet).

The moral of the story is that you have no choice but to play the long game. Like many of you I’m sure, I saw people online like Peter Daou absolutely losing their minds, railing against “corporate Dems.” Yes, I most definitely don’t like them either. But to build a winning coalition (especially for our side), you have to bring a lot of folks to the table, including them. And if you don’t have the political inclination for the sort of “horse trading” and deal-making you need to engage in as a politician to pull off that feat or something like it, then why the hell are you bothering to run in the first place? That’s just the reality, and I don’t know what else to say about it.

Any by the way (speaking of politicians adept at “horse trading”), how about giving Nancy Pelosi a little credit for holding the U.S. House (though apparently Dems lost seats, which will, and should, prompt some self-reflection)? And unfortunately, it looks unlikely that Christina Finello will be going to D.C. as part of the majority, with the PA-01 contest very nearly settled in Brian Fitzpatrick’s favor. However, as far as I could see, Finello ran the best campaign I’ve seen a Dem run for that seat in a long time. I thought Steve Santarsiero acquitted himself admirably in 2016 – Scott Wallace has a great progressive lineage but not much else for my money two years ago, and Kathy Boockvar worked hard and ran well (I always felt the best Dem for that was Patrick Murphy, who managed to win twice), but I loved Finello’s combativeness and the fact that she NEVER let up on reminding everyone just how wedded to Trump Bri-Fi really is. Also, Finello expertly used social media to advance her campaign. The biggest factor going for Bri-Fi, though, is that he does have a bit of a record of some votes that are actually sane, though I believe his terrible votes far outweigh that. Also (and this is something else I’ve said before), never forget how Repug-friendly this district truly is. That sliver of Montco may be a little “swingy,” but Bucks County is red to its core. I honestly don’t know how you make enough of an inroads on that to effect a different electoral outcome, but we have a couple of years to go back to the drawing board and try to come up with a new strategy for next time (also, congratulations to Perry Warren, re-elected for another term in Harrisburg from PA-31).

And speaking of self-reflection on the U.S. House Dems, I thought this was an interesting thread on Twitter from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Yes, I realize the country overall doesn’t share the same demographic composition of her district (not yet, anyway), but I thought she made a lot of good points about the people who are really the core for a lot of the party (African Americans, poor working class…and that’s not a pejorative comment by the way…various other demographics including LGBTQ and non-whites) and how their issues need to be addressed. This was spurred a bit by recent comments here from “centrist” Dems like Conor Lamb and Abigail Spanberger, who all but blamed “the squad” for their harder re-election prospects and the House Dems losing seats. And in response, I would say that there needs to be give-and-take on both sides. Lamb, for example, who has championed fracking in PA, could say that we also need to watch out for children’s health issues that have been linked to fracking, and that affects Lamb’s district too (Will Bunch recently noted this on Twitter also along with AOC), and the NY-14 rep could say that, yeah, I support resolutions to local issues for my constituents, but these people also go out and work in districts that are more centrist than where they live, so issues related to their well-being impact there also (and stuff like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, again, could be beneficial to the whole country if the party could finally get its messaging together on that – a big “if” I know, unfortunately).

Now to the Senate…

To say I’m relieved that Gary Peters won another term in Michigan is an understatement (though, in typical Trumpian fashion, Peters’ opponent John James is apparently refusing to concede). However, part of me seriously wants to email Peters and say, “Congratulations on your victory. Now, announce to the entire world that you’ll serve your term until 2026 and never seek re-election to the Senate again.”

When you’ve been connected to this stuff for as long as I have (not that I’m a big deal, I hasten to emphasize), a lot of different candidates from all over the place are going to put the bite on you for money. And the Peters campaign was easily the worst at that (or best I guess, depending on how you look at it). I would get easily 3-4 emails every day (“Just got off the phone with my team,” “Outraised again,” “I was the only Democrat for the U.S. Senate outraised this cycle,” “No path to the Senate without Michigan”…true, I know, but DAMN, did it get tiresome).

So I thought, well, maybe I can find a somewhat current video from the campaign to include at this blog. Yeah, well, good luck with that. I was able to find a couple of clips from years ago, along with a testimonial from former President Obama…and that was it. Also (for some reason), Peters and James couldn’t work out some way for the two of them to debate, and all the while, I kept thinking to myself “This could be Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly all over again, BUT THIS IS FREAKING MICHIGAN!” And yes, I know the dynamic was also altered by all of the crazy militia garbage going on along with the DeVos family throwing around stupid money to try and get James elected. In a nutshell, I thought Peters’ social media presence (tying into the AOC post earlier) left much to be desired.

So I also thought, if I’m going to focus my contributions on one Senate race in particular, it had damn well better be this one. And after I made my donation, what was I rewarded with? A video of Peters riding a motorcycle.

Ummm…why the hell am I supposed to actually care about that (and as long as I’m on the subject of U.S. Senate Dems having to “get the memo,” someone had better let this guy know his time is about up also. The Repugs ran that stiff Bob Hugin in NJ against him last time, but they won’t make that mistake again.). As for Peters, though, he sure as hell ought to make campaign finance reform a big issue after a performance like this (which it should be for all Dems anyway). Just to show how out-of-hand the money situation has gotten, his office sent out a tweet yesterday saying “Let’s congratulate Gary Peters on his re-election – click here to make a contribution.” HE’S ALREADY FREAKING WON! WILL YOU STOP WITH THE PANHANDLING ALREADY??!!

Update 12/16/20: OK, fair is fair – kudos to Peters for going after that disgusting fraud and utterly repellent human being Ron Johnson here.

Also, it is beyond discouraging that, of all the U.S. Senate races where Dems challenged, so far, we have only ended up with 2 pickups (even though I know that, yes, it’s hard to knock off an incumbent as already stated). One pickup was Mark Kelly in Arizona, who had all kinds of built-in name recognition and was lucky enough to run against the weakest of all Republican Senate incumbents in Martha McSally (not trying to detract from Kelly’s campaign when I say that). The other pickup came in Colorado, where John Hickenlooper had even more built-in name recognition as former Governor, and was running against the second-weakest candidate in Cory Gardner (I was hoping that would work for Steve Bullock in Montana, but it didn’t of course). People like Cenk Uygur have been going nuts over the Dems not running enough progressives, like Daou, and that’s why they didn’t get pickups, which is partly true but also partly wrong. Hickenlooper is most definitely NOT progressive, but it would have been insanity to name another Dem to go against Gardner.

I know you have to put a bit an asterisk next to anyone running in the South (with all due respect to Southern Democrats, fighting a truly lonely and uphill fight, f*ck the South right in the ear – I’ve learned NEVER to trust them in elections, though that doesn’t mean we should throw in the towel either of course). What the hell else was Jaime Harrison supposed to do in South Carolina, for example? Also, this didn’t help Cal Cunningham either – dumb. And even someone as thoroughly corrupt as David Perdue in Georgia is going to a runoff with Jon Ossoff only because the libertarian candidate kept Perdue from 50 percent of the vote (last I saw, Perdue actually was leading Ossoff by about 100K votes, even though Ossoff totally owned Perdue in that last debate). And I have to admit that, deep down, even though I supported her in my way of course, I never took Amy McGrath seriously as a candidate. Yes, we know what Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao is, but he hasn’t lasted this long in his job by being a fool or somehow forgetting how to count. McGrath ended up spending her own stupid amount of money in this campaign and was still beaten by about 20 points. Even if she’d reached out to Charles Booker (who spent a fraction of that money in the Dem primary and very nearly beat her), could she have won working with Booker? Maybe not, but I don’t think Mitch McConnell would have cleaned her clock either.

As far as I’m concerned, there were at least a couple of winnable races out there that we could have captured with a little more imagination and better strategy (and no, I wasn’t “on the ground” in those states). And the pattern was always the same…some social media posts or information getting out there that, say, Texas or Kansas was going purple, or “oh, the Dem has a lead…it’s narrowing, but still leading”…and the Dem ends up losing by double digits. I’m talking about Theresa Greenfield in Iowa and Sara Gideon in Maine (Are you seriously trying to tell me that you couldn’t find a way to knock off somebody as thoroughly compromised as Susan Collins? That being said, I thought this was a very interesting post; again, if there is no message of economic populism – apparently because you don’t have the people on the ground to canvas your electorate and motivate them and independents somehow based on proposed solutions to issues they care about, or don’t understand how to make those kinds of inroads because the political terrain is tougher than you thought – well then, isn’t that the fault of whoever it was who allegedly came up with your strategy? And to be honest, I’d forgotten how red Maine really is also, having elected that brainless oaf Paul LePage as governor for not one but two terms).

Update: And speaking of Greenfield, who raised a ton of dough (though that isn’t an automatic indicator of success as we know), I thought this was interesting.

(Farron Cousins of Ring of Fire presented a recent clip of how quickly voters forgot about Collins and “I Like Beer” Kavanaugh…we’re dealing with easily distracted, low-information voters..and no, I’m not a lib looking down on anybody; I’m just pointing out a fact – I get it that they’re trying to hold everything together with themselves and their families, but it’s just that, for a variety of reasons, the David’s in this country end up firing their slingshots at other David’s instead of the Goliath like they’re supposed to, and I think that’s the biggest obstacle we’re up against. And I overwhelmingly blame Fox News, local news coverage which is more and more conservative, and AM talk radio which is ALL conservative, to say nothing of right-wing social networking and related sites, but that topic is a discussion for another day.)

And yeah, about Sara Gideon in Maine…I went to her web site, and what did I see? Beautiful sweeping vistas of the Maine woods…and oh look, there’s Sara Gideon talking to somebody on a small town street corner in front of clean streets and well-manicured grass surrounding main street shops…and Sara Gideon talking to somebody else on a small town street corner in front of clean streets and well-manicured grass surrounding main street shops…and why the hell am I even at this web site again? I forgot.

Hey, alleged DSCC geniuses…you have literally SECONDS to grab the attention of someone navigating to a web site, especially for candidates like Greenfield (where I saw something similar) and Gideon who have ZERO NATIONAL NAME RECOGNITION! Where the “elevator pitch”? What’s the value proposition for me in giving you my support?

So, given all of that, let’s talk about what that alleged political maven Chuck Schumer, Senate Dem Minority Leader, actually DID DO this cycle. Well, I must say that I just LOVED the hectoring popups to videos with Schumer saying, “Hey YOU. Yes YOU. We have a MAJOR fundraising deadline coming up.” As if I’m supposed to goddamn care when you people GIVE ME NO REASON AT ALL TO VOTE FOR YOUR CANDIDATE!

Here’s something to consider: I hate to use The Lincoln Project as an example (yeah, I know they’re basically Republican grifters), but they would run their good ads, then show a quick video afterwards about how to make a contribution. Maybe Schumer and the Dems should try something like that instead. Stop assuming people will automatically support you because you’re not Republicans. Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!

This election cycle made my physically sick with stress (I’m sure you can relate…and don’t get me started on the texts and phone calls), and that should NEVER happen! To me, this is even more of a reason for a progressive version of Americans for Prosperity to pretty much indoctrinate Dem/progressive candidates so they can speak intelligently to issues particular to their state and present common sense solutions, and explain the benefits to voters “on the fence” (and DON’T rely on our corporate media for that, which is worse than useless on this stuff…if you need help with crafting policy recommendations, talk to Bernie Sanders…and yes, if Democrats ever got serious about this, I would support such an organization with a recurring contribution). Aside from basic common sense, maybe, if Schumer and the Dems did that MUCH EARLIER in the election cycle, then they wouldn’t fall prey so much to the negative ads when the dark money descends at the very end (something else Schumer and co. continually hectored me about, as if they’re somehow surprised by that). Hell, it’s worth a shot, because what they’re doing NOW isn’t resulting in any pickups (unless you have the situations in Arizona or Colorado as already noted).

Regardless, this should absolutely be the LAST election cycle with Chuck Schumer as the point person in charge of running elections for the DSCC. His track record absolutely stinks. And yes, as noted already, I know all about the “oh help us…dark money has created a lot of last-minute attack ads against our candidates and we’re losing ground” appeals. Maybe if you spent more time cementing in the mind of voters the populism you’re supposed to be all about and had fewer pictures of candidates on farms posing in front of tractors, the last-minute negative garbage wouldn’t be so effective!

Well (as noted previously), at least we still have two opportunities in Georgia, which is a blessing, even though they’re definitely long shots. And I sincerely hope the DSCC makes the ads not really about Perdue or Kelly Loeffler, but McConnell. Drum it into the heads of GA’s voters that they have NO SHOT AT ALL of relief of any kind for the COVID-19 plague with McConnell as Senate Majority Leader, which of course is the God’s-honest truth (and by the way, I commented on Alabama and Doug Jones/Tommy Tuberville elsewhere).

We have no choice but to continue the fight. Let’s try a different, more intelligent strategy. And stop getting the vapors over what centrist Dems may think (and don’t get me started on “socialism,” though, as I’ve often said, “defund the police” is terrible messaging). People like Conor Lamb and Abigail Spanberger, for example, are no more or less important than anyone else in the “big tent.” We all need to find a way to work together, or we will surely sink separately.

Update 1 11/8/20: I think this supports AOC’s argument even more, and confirms what I always suspected about the DNC.

Update 2 11/8/20: I thought this was an incredibly interesting interview with AOC (if you can get to it behind the NYT paywall). Some of what we learn is as follows: she reached out to Democrats running U.S. House campaigns to help with strategy, and 5 took her up on her offer, and all 5 won (and they were in swing districts). Also, she expressed a great deal of frustration with basically being vilified by some members in her caucus, to the point where she doesn’t even know whether or not she’ll even remain in politics 5 years from now, let alone take a run at the U.S. Senate, for example. If she were to get so exasperated to the point where she would walk away, it would be an incalculable loss for the country, let alone the Democrats and her constituents. But, if her frustration reached that point, I wouldn’t blame her one bit if she said the hell with it and gave up.

Update 7/2/21: When it comes to election strategy, advertising, use of social media and all that, I think there’s a ton of good advice in this post. I actually haven’t made my way through all of it, but I definitely intend to.

Toomey and Trump, Forever and Ever, Amen (update)

Now that U.S. Senate Republicans (with the notable exception of Mitt Romney) have voted to allow Our Treasonous, Tiny-Handed Orange Pretender to get away with soiling the Constitution and act not unlike a tin pot dictator (here), which is all he ever was and ever will be, leave it to his sycophants to try and gloss over their ignominy in Dear Leader’s service.

Which brings us to this screed from “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey (R-Mistake) of PA (here)…

“Do these actions rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors necessary to justify the most obviously anti-democratic act the Senate can engage in — overturning an election by convicting the president?” In 1999, then-Sen. Joe Biden answered his own question by voting against removing President Bill Clinton from office.

It is this constitutionally grounded framework — articulated well by Biden — that guided my review of President Donald Trump’s impeachment and, ultimately, my decision to oppose his removal.

House Democrats’ impeachment articles allege that President Trump briefly paused aid, and withheld a White House meeting with Ukraine’s president, to pressure Ukraine into investigating two publicly reported corruption matters. The first matter was possible Ukrainian interference in our 2016 election. The second was Biden’s role in firing the controversial Ukrainian prosecutor investigating a company on whose board Biden’s son sat. When House Democrats demanded witnesses and documents concerning the president’s conduct, he invoked constitutional rights and resisted their demands.

The phrase “briefly paused” concerning the first matter is typically deceptive of course, because it implies that Trump would have released the aid anyway, and there is no indication that that would have happened; actually, all indications are that Trump would have continued sitting on it as long as possible.

And regarding the second matter, I give you this…

The release adds new documentation to the timeline of events in which Trump ordered the delay of military aid to Ukraine to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, allegations that are central to the impeachment trial.

Also, as noted here…

“Public reporting shows how senior Ukrainian officials interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign in favor of Secretary Clinton and in opposition to then-candidate Trump,” Republicans wrote in a memo of “key points” distributed Tuesday ahead of the House impeachment inquiry’s first open hearings this week.

But behind closed doors, many of the witnesses who recently testified to House investigators balked at any such comparison to Russia’s efforts.

“We’re talking about a completely different scale of interference,” Army Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, a National Security Council expert on Ukraine, testified.

At the Kremlin’s direction, Russia’s intelligence services waged a pro-Trump disinformation campaign on social media and secretly stole tens of thousands of private emails from the Democratic National Committee, the U.S. intelligence community concluded.

That government-backed campaign was a “deep” and “insidious effort to undermine a foreign country’s elections,” Vindman said. In fact, last year the Justice Department indicted 25 Russian operatives for their alleged roles in election interference during the 2016 campaign – none has been taken into custody yet.

“What a couple of actors in Ukraine might do in order to tip the scales in one direction or another is very different,” Vindman noted.

Oh, and given this, the wingnuts absolutely had to find a way to try and destroy Lt. Col. Vindman (with help from #MoscowMarsha, as noted here). And as far as the Biden/Burisma allegations are concerned, I give you this.

Returning to Toomey…

The president’s actions were not “perfect.” Some were inappropriate. But the question before the Senate is not whether his actions were perfect. It is whether they constitute impeachable offenses that justify removing a sitting president from office for the first time and forbidding him from seeking office again.

Let’s consider the case against President Trump: obstruction of Congress and abuse of power. On obstruction, House Democrats allege the president lacked “lawful cause or excuse” to resist their subpoenas. This ignores that his resistance was based on constitutionally grounded legal defenses and immunities that are consistent with long-standing positions taken by administrations of both parties.

As far as Trump’s grounds for resisting subpoenas are concerned, I give you this.

Returning to Toomey…

Instead of negotiating a resolution or litigating in court, House Democrats rushed to impeach. But as House Democrats noted during the Clinton impeachment, a president’s defense of his legal and constitutional rights and responsibilities is not an impeachable offense.

I will grant Toomey a bit of a point on the timing of the impeachment inquiry and trial. However, the following should be noted here (namely, that the Democrats felt the timing was right for the impeachment given this year’s elections).

And I would be willing to go along with Toomey a bit if it weren’t for the fact that the U.S. Senate under #MidnightMitch has done NOTHING to improve the security of our election infrastructure in time for the fall (here).

Returning to Toomey…

House Democrats separately allege President Trump abused his power by conditioning a White House meeting, and the release of aid, on Ukraine agreeing to pursue corruption investigations. Their case rests entirely on the faulty claim that the only possible motive for his actions was his personal political gain. In fact, there are also legitimate national interests for seeking investigations into apparent corruption, especially when taxpayer dollars are involved.

Actually, the supposedly “faulty” claim rests on the testimony of Lt. Col. Vindman and Ambassadors Gordon Sondland and Bill Taylor, as noted here.

Returning to Toomey…

Here is what ultimately occurred: President Trump met with Ukraine’s president and the aid was released after a brief pause. These actions happened without Ukraine announcing or conducting investigations.

That’s right, but it happened only because of the whistle blower who filed the complaint against Trump, as noted here (the person that odious mongrel Rand Paul recently announced as noted here).

Returning to Toomey…

The idea that President Trump committed an impeachable offense by meeting with Ukraine’s president at the United Nations in New York instead of Washington, D.C. is absurd. Moreover, the pause in aid did not hinder Ukraine’s ability to combat Russia. In fact, as witnesses in the House stated, U.S. policy supporting Ukraine is stronger under President Trump than under President Barack Obama.

On the matter of Trump and Obama on military aid to Ukraine is concerned, I give you this. And as far as any further equivalency between Trump and Obama on Ukraine is concerned, I also give you this.

Returning to Toomey…

Even if House Democrats’ presumptions about President Trump’s motives are true, additional witnesses in the Senate, beyond the 17 who testified in the House, are unnecessary because the president’s actions do not rise to the level of removing him from office.

So, as far as Toomey is concerned, we have a “trial” that doesn’t need witnesses or testimony because he’s already made up his mind.

If you or I ever end up in a court of law, dear reader, I sincerely hope Toomey is a juror in our case, because he will no doubt attempt to bar witnesses or testimony against us also and thus work on our behalf for acquittal (snark mode off).

Toomey once more…

Nor do they warrant the societal upheaval that would result from his removal from office and the ballot months before an election. Our country is already far too divided, and this would only make matters worse.

As far as the “vox populi” stuff on Trump’s impeachment is concerned, it looks like 2/3rds of those polled wanted witnesses as his trial as noted here, though I will grant that you could go either way on the question of Trump’s removal. And besides, I’m old enough to remember the Clinton impeachment circus, and I don’t recall any concerns about “societal upheaval” at that time vs. now.

Returning to Toomey…

As Biden also stated during President Clinton’s trial, “the Constitution sets the bar for impeachment very high.” A president can only be impeached and removed for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” While there’s debate about the precise meaning of “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” it’s clear that impeachable conduct must be comparable to the serious offenses of treason and bribery.

Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a blow job. I don’t see any comparison between that and treason and bribery.

Toomey once more…

The Constitution sets the impeachment bar so high for good reasons. Removing a president from office, and forbidding him from seeking future office, overturns the results of the last election and denies Americans the right to vote for him in the next one. The Senate’s impeachment power essentially allows 67 senators to substitute their judgment for the judgment of millions of Americans.

Toomey really should give up this argument of raw numbers supporting Trump’s removal from office vs. opposing it, if for no other reason than this (another “vox populi” item – this too…as noted here, Mango Mussolini was acquitted, but not exonerated).

Toomey again…

The framework Biden articulated in 1999 for judging an impeachment was right then, and it is right now. President Trump’s conduct does not meet the very high bar required to justify overturning the election, removing him from office, and kicking him off the ballot in an election that has already begun. In November, the American people will decide for themselves whether President Trump should stay in office. In our democratic system, that’s the way it should be.

In response, I thought this Op-Ed from the Inquirer made some excellent points, including the following…

Sen. Toomey attempted to justify his vote by claiming that the president was simply invoking his constitutional rights in blocking testimony. His explanation ignores the fact that the witnesses have been blocked by an unprecedented and legally dubious blanket decree of absolute immunity that has already been resoundingly rejected by a federal judge. No defendant in America has the right to blatantly order witnesses not to testify in court, yet Sen. Toomey’s action sets a different standard for defendants who belong to one’s own political party.

To know Sen. Toomey’s true motivations, look no further than his own words: “We don’t need to drag this out any longer. … We should move as quickly as we can to get this thing over with.” His rationale for his vote to acquit is cut from the same self-serving cloth. The senator makes sweeping conclusions about the president’s other possible motives for withholding aid as witnesses with direct knowledge of such facts sit muzzled on the sidelines. The senator harps upon the potential damage to the country wrought by removing a president without stopping for even a moment to address the potential long-term damage done to our democracy by the president’s conduct.

Sen. Toomey’s collective responses are not those of a representative of the people looking to do impartial justice or seek the truth. They are the words of someone who voluntarily chose to put himself and his party above the people of Pennsylvania and his solemn duty to the Constitution.

I think it’s safe to say, based on this and Toomey’s votes, that he will also be bound to Generalissimo Trump by a “cord of steel,” as noted below. And that is exactly what Toomey deserves.

Update 2/8/20: Yeah, this sure was predicatable, wasn’t it?

Report Card for “Bri-Fi,” 2018

As we know, the mid-term elections are fast approaching, so I thought now was as good a time as any to take a look at what our Wet Noodle 2.0 U.S. House Rep for PA-01 was up to (I’m referring to Brian Fitzpatrick of course).

To begin, it should be noted that Bri-Fi sought to burnish his “pro-life” bona fides by voting for a 20-week abortion ban (that and other votes are noted here – fortunately, as noted here, the ban was rejected by the U.S. Senate in January).

As noted here, though…

Nearly 99 percent of abortions occur before 21 weeks, but when they are needed later in pregnancy, it’s often in very complex circumstances. For example, severe fetal anomalies and serious risks to the woman’s health — the kind of situations where a woman and her doctor need every medical option available.

20-week bans are also highly unpopular throughout the country. 61% of all voters say abortion should be legal after 20 weeks. Plus, Democrats (78%), Republicans (62%), and Independents (71%) say this is the wrong issue for lawmakers to be spending time on.

Fitzpatrick also voted for a permanent ban on federal funds for abortions or health coverage that includes abortions (which is pointless because federal funding for abortions is already banned under the Hyde Amendment, named after a serial philanderer in Congress – more here).

When it comes to civil liberties, Fitzpatrick also voted to reauthorize warrantless spying under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); Republicans managed to make it worse in the process according to some fourth amendment advocates (a group which should include everyone I realize).

As noted here…

“Not only does the (reauthorized) bill say you have our blessing to collect communications that contain a target’s email address, it also endorses collecting communications that merely contain a reference to the target,” says Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security program at New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. “So literally if you and I sent an email to each other that had the word ISIS in it, if you and I send an email that talks about ISIS, under this bill the government is authorized to collect it.” (Assuming ISIS is a group that the NSA is specifically targeting.)

The bill does impose a warrant requirement upon the FBI, but the way it’s written appears to weaken privacy protections rather than strengthen them, says Goitein. Under the legislation, FBI agents need a warrant to search the Section 702 database when a criminal investigation has already been opened, but not when national security is involved. That means the FBI can query the database on nothing more than a tip. “It incentivizes doing searches earlier and earlier, when it’s less and less justified,” says Goitein.

Fitzpatrick also voted along with Generalissimo Trump (which he has done about 83 percent of the time according to Nate Silver) in the matter of disciplining VA whistleblowers (here).

Also, as noted here…

The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s report says VA whistleblowers are far more likely than their colleagues to face discipline or removal after reporting misconduct.

…

The number of VA workers fired is up under President Trump. But congressional Democrats and the VA’s union cite VA data showing that the vast majority of those fired in the first five months of 2018 were low-level food service, laundry and custodial staff the majority of whom are veterans. In that same period, only 15 out of 1,096 employees fired were supervisors.

This report comes as the VA’s own inspector general has publicly clashed recently with the VA leadership over access to documents and information about whistleblower adjudication.

A recent NPR investigation showed a pattern of often vicious whistleblower retaliation at the VA in central Alabama and sidelining of whistleblowers in Indiana.

There’s also a news report this week that the VA, under Acting Secretary Peter O’Rourke, is aggressively reassigning or forcing out VA staff members thought to be disloyal to President Trump and his agenda for the agency.

I realize that we’ve had VA issues with both Democratic and Republican presidents (probably the result of too many damn wars and too many of our heroes getting maimed in our country’s service and putting a strain on available resources), but I don’t know of anyone being forced out for being “disloyal” to President Obama.

And speaking of Number 44, Fitzpatrick repeatedly attacked Obama-era rules, including a rule blocking states from defunding Planned Parenthood (here) as well as another rule requiring employers to keep better record of workplace injuries (here). He also voted to overturn a rule prohibiting labor law violators from eligibility for federal contracts, allowing these companies to underpay their workers once more and evade safety regulations (here).

Fitzpatrick also voted to overturn an Obama rule banning drug testing jobless applying for unemployment. As noted here…

As things have long stood, states only had the authority to institute drug tests for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash welfare program. Thus far, 13 states have instituted such regimes. But what their experience has proven year after year is that the tests, while costly to administer, turn up very few positive test results. Out of about 250,000 applicants and recipients among these states in 2016, just 369 tested positive; in four states, exactly zero people tested positive for illegal drug use. In the states with positive results, they ranged from a low of 0.07 percent of all applicants to a high of 2.14 percent, rates far below the nearly 10 percent drug use rate among the general population.

…

Meanwhile, states collectively spent $1.6 million on drug testing, on top of the nearly $2 million spent during the previous two years, despite the apparent ineffectiveness of these programs. That’s money that could instead be used to expand welfare benefits or even drug treatment programs.

Another vote from Fitzpatrick to overturn Internet privacy rules allowed internet service providers, or ISPs, to sell “financial and medical information. Social Security numbers, web browsing history, mobile app usage (and) even the content of your emails and online chats,” according to Sam Gustin of the web site Motherboard (vote is here).

Fitzpatrick also voted to end federal checks preventing more than 167,000 veterans deemed “mentally incompetent” from keeping or purchasing firearms (H.R. 1181). This is part and parcel of Bri-Fi’s utterly craven voting recording in near-total fealty to the NRA. As noted here:

In February 2017, Fitzpatrick voted to block the Social Security Administration from sharing information with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System on people with mental disorders in order to prevent them from purchasing firearms.

In November, 2017 Fitzpatrick voted twice to block the establishment of a select committee on gun violence prevention.

In December 2017, Fitzpatrick said he supports concealed carry reciprocity which would force states like Pennsylvania to defer to the concealed carry weapon laws of more pro-gun states like Texas.

In February 2018, Fitzpatrick voted to kill consideration of legislation on gun regulations.

In March 2018, Fitzpatrick voted to block three bills to close gun safety loopholes including the gun show, internet sale, and classified ad background check loopholes to prevent the sale of guns without a completed background check.

Fitzpatrick also voted to prohibit Department of Justice (DOJ) settlements requiring parties to donate monies to outside groups. This may seem a bit obscure, but as a result, the following should be noted from here…

The decision (to distribute settlement funds only to those directly harmed by wrongdoing) by the Justice Department throws into question an upcoming $12 million settlement against Harley-Davidson. As part of the settlement, the motorcycle manufacturer agreed to stop selling illegal after-market devices that increase the air pollution emitted by the motorcycles.

Harley-Davidson had agreed to donate $3 million to a project to reduce air pollution, the Justice Department said in August. With Sessions’s decision Monday, that settlement’s fate is now up in the air.

Also, Fitzpatrick voted to get rid of financial protection regulations, otherwise known as the Dodd-Frank Act, put in place to increase financial stability and consumer protections in the wake of the 2008 recession. As Gregg Gelzinis of the Center for American Progress notes here…

The CHOICE Act also allows banks of any size to opt out of a suite of crucial regulations—such as stress testing, living wills, risk-based capital requirements, liquidity requirements and more—if they maintain a leverage ratio of 10 percent. And it repeals the Volcker Rule’s ban on risky proprietary trading bets. A 10 percent leverage ratio is not nearly enough capital to justify such drastic deregulation.

Furthermore, the CHOICE Act shreds the authority and resources of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, the council of financial regulators tasked with looking at risks across the financial system. FSOC would no longer have the power to address dangers that emerge outside of the traditional banking sector, putting taxpayers at risk. The bill also eliminates the Office of Financial Research, which provides data-driven research support to FSOC to help identify emerging risks.

And speaking of money matters, Fitzpatrick also voted for his party’s so-called tax reform bill last December, which adds about $1 trillion to the deficit (which, of course, Republicans only care about when they’re trying to utterly gut the social safety net). The non-partisan Tax Policy Center found that after the tax plan has taken full effect in 2027, 80 percent of the benefits would go to the top 1 percent of earners in this country. When it comes to tax cuts, the top 1 percent will get an average cut of $1,022,120, while the middle 20 percent will get an average cut of $420, eviscerating any notion that the middle class are the key beneficiaries of the Republicans’ “Unified Framework for Fixing Our Broken Tax Code.”

As noted here…

Should Trump-state Senate Democrats who voted against the tax bill, like Claire McCaskill (Missouri), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Joe Donnelly (Indiana), and Jon Tester (Montana), really fear electoral backlash?

Absolutely not, according to our analysis. In fact, they should highlight their opposition to Trump’s tax bill even in these red states.

Most polling about the bill has been national, and it suggests broad unpopularity. Our analysis of exclusive national data to model state support for the tax bill suggests that Democrats have little to fear from the GOP law and should embrace progressive policies to mobilize opposition.

Update 10/5/18: For the record, here is Fitzpatrick’s vote from December, and here is a recent vote to make the tax cuts for the rich permanent – heckuva job!

And for anyone out there who may have bought into the “trickle down” lie still after all this time, I give you the following (here)…

In the first six months after the Trump tax cuts were passed, corporate investment in equipment declined, America’s projected long-term deficit swelled by nearly $2 trillion, and wages for the vast majority of American workers fell on an inflation-adjusted basis.

And there is no sign that reality will start comporting with the GOP’s predictions any time soon. As the Washington Post’s Heather Long notes, Morgan Stanley reported last month that America’s businesses are planning less future capital spending now than they were a few months ago. And that finding is bolstered by a recent survey of 393 businesses from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the audit firm RSM, which found that only 38 percent of those firms plan to increase investment over the next three years.

Instead of channeling their profits into productive investment, S&P 500 companies are on pace to plow a record-setting $800 billion into buying back their own stocks. The point of such “stock buybacks” is to increase a firm’s share price (and thus, in many cases, the performance-based pay of its CEO) by reducing the supply of shares on the market.

Oh, and for good measure, it should be noted that, according to Nate Silver, Fitzpatrick voted no to impeachment resolutions against Trump at least twice (I realize this isn’t shocking given that they’re in the same party, but it should be pointed out for the record).

By himself, as far as I’m concerned, Brian Fitzpatrick hasn’t done nearly enough to merit another two years in the U.S. Congress. Worse, he’s part of a majority that has done nothing whatsoever to rein in a calamitously unqualified individual currently taking up space in An Oval Office.

Given that, I see absolutely no alternative than to vote for Scott Wallace for Congress from PA-01 on November 6th.

How About Giving The Faithful A Hand-Up, Chuck? (Update)

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent for Roman Catholics. This is traditionally a time for fasting, atonement, and making sacrifices (as in, “giving up stuff for” for the uninitiated).

And while I freely admit that I have to do my share of atoning for a variety of things (some of which I may be guilty of in this post, though I’ll try to avoid that), I would submit that that shepherd of our flock, if you will (that would be Archbishop Charles Chaput…pronounced shay-poo…head of the Philadelphia archdiocese), has some work to do on that score also for reasons I’ll try to explain here.

Recently, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article about Chaput timed for the release of his new book (naaah, the beginning of Lent has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with that! What are you to suggest such a thing, a heretic or something?). And if you know anything about Chaput, you know that, when he gets on his proverbial moral high horse, there’s enough apocalyptic doom and gloom for everyone. Fun for the whole family!

(By the way, there’s one snarky comment from writer David O’Reilly that I objected to, though he also provided what I would call some commendable context – if not him, then his editor deserves scorn for the former and credit for the latter.)

Anyway, here is O’Reilly…

Had Charles J. Chaput been raised Baptist or Methodist in his native Kansas, he might today be a circuit-riding, finger-wagging stump preacher, calling folks to repent their evil ways and “come to Jesus.”

But this fierce evangelist was raised Roman Catholic. He would become a priest, then a bishop, and today, at 72, is archbishop of Philadelphia.

America of the 1950s, where families prayed together and stayed together, is rapidly disappearing, Chaput laments in his latest book, Strangers in a Strange Land: Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World, being published Tuesday.

I realize I could go in a lot of directions to respond to such a lame-brained statement (did Chaput ever get the memo about the energy crisis in the ‘70s, for example, which basically mandated two-parent incomes for most of the families of this country, along with inflation during that decade?), but for now, I’ll add only this from here…

The efforts to bring God into the state reached their peak during the so-called “religious revival” of the 1950s. It was a time when Norman Vincent Peale grafted religion onto the era’s feel-good consumerism in his best-selling The Power of Positive Thinking; when Billy Graham rose to fame as a Red-baiter who warned that Americans would perish in a nuclear holocaust unless they embraced Jesus Christ; when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles believed that the United States should oppose communism not because the Soviet Union was a totalitarian regime but because its leaders were atheists.

Hand in hand with the Red Scare, to which it was inextricably linked, the new religiosity overran Washington. Politicians outbid one another to prove their piety. President Eisenhower inaugurated that Washington staple: the prayer breakfast. Congress created a prayer room in the Capitol. In 1955, with Ike’s support, Congress added the words “In God We Trust” on all paper money. In 1956 it made the same four words the nation’s official motto, replacing “E Pluribus Unum.” Legislators introduced Constitutional amendments to state that Americans obeyed “the authority and law of Jesus Christ.”

Oh, and the Pledge of Allegiance (which used to be this, by the way) was also changed in the 1950s to include “under God,” which I’m sure warmed the cockles of Chaput’s heart, also stated in the Slate article. Depending on how you look at it, I suppose that’s progress of a sort, given that people died in this country over the so-called “Bible riots” of 1844 (noted here), and, to my knowledge, no one was ever injured over reciting the “pledge” (kind of a “glass half empty” perspective I know, but there you are).

Amyway, back to O’Reilly…

Across the land, Chaput, who declined a request for a sit-down interview, sees “an unraveling of bonds, an aging of the spirit, a fatigue with the world,” and “a loss of purpose and hope.”

I suppose there could have been a schedule conflict, but if Chucky declined an interview with O’Reilly, who is pretty sympathetic I must say, then Chaput’s skin is thinner than I thought.

Continuing…

Our nation might wear “In God We Trust” on its currency, but its soul has been hijacked, in Chaput’s view, by a secularist, pleasure-seeking, self-absorbed worldview with little place for Jesus, religious worship, or traditional morality.

Yeah, again, that’s par for the course for Chaput. I look at it this way – people doing a lot of the “heavy lifting” in our faith are the ones involved in Aid for Friends, Catholic Social Services, and other groups doing tremendous work in our communities. Ya’ think they merit anything from Chaput here? Fat chance.

Continuing…

To a degree unimaginable just decades ago, the archbishop laments, the nation has embraced divorce, contraception, abortion, materialism, invasive government, casual sex — and gay marriage, which he views as the inevitable outcome of an unrelenting liberal agenda of personal freedom masquerading as civil rights.

Gee, I wonder what type of “invasive government” Chaput means? The Affordable Care Law that insures over 20 million people and is facing a threat from the Republicans that Chaput isn’t supposed to (wink, wink) be officially endorsing (wink, wink) or else the Church’s non-profit status would be threatened? Medicare? Medicaid? The stimulus under President Obama that rescued this country from economic destruction and saved the auto industry? Prevailing wage laws? Clean air and water? The FEC? NTSB?

Continuing…

And it’s not stopping there, he adds.

The Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision of 2015, that required states to allow same-sex marriage, was “a collapse of sane reasoning,” writes Chaput, yet it seems only to have whetted the “mainstream” media’s appetite for even more destabilizing folly.

How about basic human rights for LGBTQ people? And by the way, prior to Obergefell (which legalized same-sex marriage), 36 states, the District of Columbia and Guam were issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. But of course, Chaput doesn’t care about the inexorable turn of human events, which I realize is partly his prerogative (but only partly).

Continuing…

What he calls the “sexualized” and “angry” media (that would be us) are now bombarding a laughably pliant public (that would be you) with a view of gender fluidity and transgender rights he calls “lavish and lopsidedly positive.”

In short, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Actually, based on this, I think Kansas is exactly where Chaput wants us to be.

Continuing…

The United States is sliding into a dystopian Oz where the Wicked Witch and her ilk are in charge, Chaput contends, and he is not speaking in metaphor.

Oh, I KNOW Chaput isn’t “speaking in metaphor” (here).

Continuing…

“Satan is a real personal being, a supremely intelligent spirit, a rebel against God and an enemy of everything human,” he writes. To smirking liberals who would dismiss his words as the ranting of an embittered arch-conservative, Chaput notes that the smiling and inclusive Pope Francis likewise regards the devil as ontologically real, and dangerous.

“Smirking liberals”? Just a bit of editorial license here, I would say (oh, right, I’m sorry – I forgot we’re talking about Philadelphia’s conservative newspaper of record here).

I’ll tell you what – here is the picture of Chaput that accompanied this article:

Now you tell me, dear reader: who’s “smirking” who?

And, according to Chaput/O’Reilly, the fact that Pope Francis is “smiling and inclusive” means that “the left” automatically loves him. Yes, there is much to admire about the Pontiff, but he’s also a doctrinaire guy (a lot of that is noted here along with other stuff).

To be fair, though, I give O’Reilly credit for the following…

Readers whose own circle of acquaintances do not seem populated by children being raised as accessories, or by married couples who view one another as commodities, might wonder in what social orbit Chaput travels to know the America he writes of.

They will find no clue in the pages of Strangers in a Strange Land. In its pages there is never the voice of the widow raising children alone in the suburbs, no voice of a Center City gay man accepting his sexuality, no immigrant family in Port Richmond frantic with fear of deportation, no pastor or nun who has created a popular youth outreach program, no pregnant teenager anguishing over abortion.

Only the disembodied voices of fellow writers make their way into Chaput’s jeremiad. The ordinary people of America seem an anonymous crowd viewed through a telescope, and are found wanting.

Maybe that’s why Chaput “declined a request for a sit-down interview.” Too bad.

Oh, and with Chaput trying to plug his book in mind, I thought I’d comment on another column featuring our non-cardinal from about two weeks ago (here)…

Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput told a radio talk show host Monday that he believes fewer than 25 percent of those working in the “mainstream … elite” media have religious faith, and expressed surprise at what he termed was media hostility to President Trump.

“It’s just amazing to me how hostile the press is to everything the president does,” Chaput told the California-based Hugh Hewitt, a Catholic conservative.

Spoken like a leader of an institution that has been frequently intolerant of other religious ethnicities and gender preferences (and by the way, Trump is pretty bad too).

I’ll tell you what, Chuck – take a look here at the protests after Number 45 was sworn in and try to find a clue (oh, but all of those protesters are baaaad because they “embraced divorce, contraception, abortion, materialism, invasive government,” etc.).

I should note, though, that Chaput and Hewitt are pals from way back, as noted here when Chucky was head of the Denver archdiocese and appeared on Hewitt’s program and was allowed to claim that “most Americans” agree that homosexual acts are immoral (uh, no…those pesky facts got in the way again – I think the culprit here, though, is the Rocky Mountain News).

Continuing…

“I don’t want to be partisan in my comments here, but it seems to me if we are really serious about our common responsibilities, we support the president,” Chaput said, “whether we accept everything he stands for or not, and wish him success rather than trying to undermine him.

Now why on earth would we think you’re “partisan,” Chuck? Because of this?…

Chaput has said that Trump’s opposition to abortion — the real-estate mogul supported abortion rights until he entered politics — was a key factor for Catholic voters.

“Mr. Trump is now President Trump, and curiously, some of the harshest, on-going fury directed at him has nothing to do with his personal character,” Chaput wrote. “Rather, it’s a very special brand of ‘progressive’ intolerance for the approach his administration may take toward a range of difficult social issues, including abortion.”

Yep, once more it’s ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION ABORTION and ABORTION…that’s the ONLY issue you’re supposed to vote on to be considered a “good” Catholic.

Oh, and let’s not forget the potential threats posed to our daily lives by euthanasia (also serious, I know – just saying we should address it in context, that’s all), and what I would call the laughable specter of human cloning (yes, I’ve actually heard this from the pulpit, though not recently I’ll admit).

Besides, people, why on earth should we be mad at Number 45 and not consider him a godly man of faith? Merely because he said this (from here)?…

Moderator Frank Luntz asked Trump whether he has ever asked God for forgiveness for his actions.

“I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don’t think so,” he said. “I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”

Given the conduct of his presidential campaign and his administration to date, I definitely believe that (also given this – not exactly a godly reaction I must say).

Continuing…

Trump said that while he hasn’t asked God for forgiveness, he does participate in Holy Communion.

“When I drink my little wine — which is about the only wine I drink — and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed,” he said. “I think in terms of ‘let’s go on and let’s make it right.’”

To Catholics, Holy Communion represents the sacramental body of Our Lord offered in the Eucharist. To the “Gropenfuhrer,” however, it’s “my little cracker.”

But “I don’t want to be partisan in my comments here,” of course.

Given all of this (and considering where Chucky’s allegiances truly lie – again, wink, wink) I think we should also recall the following about Chaput (from here – last bullet)…

Before he was named…to lead the prominent but troubled Archdiocese of Philadelphia (taking over for Justin Cardinal Rigali), Archbishop Charles J. Chaput spent the last 14 years in Denver establishing himself as one of the nation’s most prominent advocates of a politically engaged and conservative Catholicism.

…

He is among a minority of Roman Catholic bishops who have spoken in favor of denying communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights. He helped defeat legislation that would have legalized civil unions for gay couples in Colorado. And he condemned the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic institution, for granting President Obama an honorary degree in 2009 because of his stance on abortion.

And…

Advocates for sexual abuse victims, however, bristle at the characterization of Archbishop Chaput as a reformer. They point out that he fought hard against legislation in Colorado that would have extended the statute of limitations for people who say they were sexually abused to sue the church.

I don’t know if there’s a way to bring this post (a “jeremiad” of my own, I guess) to a positive conclusion of sorts, but I’ll try by noting the following (from the earlier O’Reilly column about Chaput’s book)…

“Each of our lives lifts up or drags down the soul of the world,” Chaput writes at the very end. “What we do here makes all the difference.”

I actually agree with that.

Update 3/16/17: I’ll await to hear if Chaput has anything to say about this or this – or does providing services to those most in need constitute the “invasive government” Chaput doesn’t like?

Life In These United States, Donald J. Trump Edition (updates)

So President Big Orange Cheetoh has been in office barely a week, and there are so many horrors and outrages that it’s practically impossible to catalogue them all:

• Issued an executive order to underfund (and ultimately destroy) “Obamacare”? Check.
• Issued an executive order to approve the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines? Check (see above…and by the way, is anyone out there besides me going to be impolite enough to point out that, last I checked, Trump was still an investor in Trans Energy, the company behind DAPL?).
• Pull back $5 million of already-paid-for advertising encouraging people to sign up for health care through the Affordable Care Law by 1/31? Check (here is an update – good!).
• Floated Supreme Court nominees who are almost certain to roll back provisions on worker safety, economic justice, minority rights, environmental protection and women’s reproductive health? Check.
• Supported an alleged plan to rebuild our infrastructure which is nothing but a giveaway to the plutocrats who supported his campaign (here) and now comprise almost his entire gaggle of cabinet position nominees, including this soulless shill? Check.

And oh yeah, he threw a hissy fit about the actual size of the crowd at his inauguration, even asking a Park Service official to find a picture of an allegedly larger crowd (here), gave a political speech at a hallowed location at the CIA which was nothing but an insult to the memories of those who have given their lives in service to our country (here), confused visiting British Prime Minister Theresa May with a porn star (here), lied about alleged shooting victims at Former President Obama’s farewell speech (here), squelched reporting by government agencies funded by our tax dollars (here), told U.S. taxpayers that we’re supposed to go along with paying for that stinking, idiotic wall of his on the Mexican border (here), and NOW (as noted here), he signed an executive order banning Muslims from entering this country. And I know this list of all of his ridiculous antics is incomplete.

And here is my question to anyone who supported this tiny brained, hateful egomaniac – why is this surprising to you in any way whatsoever?

Oh, maybe it’s because you’re FINALLY focusing on “Donald Drumpf” since we’re no longer in a political campaign and that supposedly godawful Hillary Clinton isn’t in the news anymore. Maybe it’s because you’re FINALLY realizing that you’ve been played for a sap by our usual corporate media suspects and you’ve fallen for the “fake news” garbage from Breitbart, Infowars and other purveyors of this utter slime.

You’re also apparently shocked, shocked I tell you that Trump is acting like a thoroughly ignorant, narcissistic, misogynistic clown as president. Again, what the hell else can you expect when he acted like nothing but a thoroughly ignorant, narcissistic, misogynistic clown as a presidential candidate?

Gee, welcome back to reality, huh?

Sucks, doesn’t it?

And by the way, don’t think this means that I’m now head over heels with the toadies in the DNC political/media/industrial complex who do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for us except lose elections. While the marches last weekend and recently in Philadelphia were absolutely awesome, that did not take place at the behest of the clueless knuckleheads I just mentioned, not in any way whatsoever. Instead, team “D” seems to be preoccupied with this ABSOLUTELY INTERMINABLE contest between former Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez, Dem U.S. House Rep Keith Ellison of Minnesota, and (I believe he’s still a candidate) former DNC head and presidential candidate Howard Dean (personally I prefer Keith Ellison) to head the Democratic National Committee.

Note to the Democrats: I stopped giving a shit about this weeks ago. Just name Keith Ellison (or, if not, provide a damn good reason why) and be done with it, OK?

Update 2/19/17: And in a related story, as they say, kudos to Laurence Lewis at Daily Kos for this.

Update 2/22/17: Oh, for God’s sake, ENOUGH ALREADY! (here).

Also, speaking only for myself, I’ve been inundated with requests to contact Sens. Bob Casey and “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey (as well as Repug U.S. House Rep Brian “No, I’m Not Really My Brother Mike, But Just Pretend That I Am And It Will Be Fine, Honest” Fitzpatrick) in response to just about every single bilious development concerning the tiny-handed man-child now taking up space in An Oval Office. And I’ll actually act on some of those requests, but don’t expect me to take the bait and spend the majority of my time calling/petitioning/whatever every single time “Fergus Laing” says, does, or tweets anything stupid.

The election is over. And sorry if this sounds self-serving, but it’s not like I didn’t warn you (here).

Update 1 1/28/17: I don’t know about you, but we regularly deal with people who, by all accounts, are good neighbors and friends and people who are really good at their jobs. And oh yeah, they’re Trumpsters too. But when Mrs. Doomsy and I describe these people, we end up having to add the inevitable suffix of “But (he or she) is a good person” or “But (he or she) is a good worker.”

And then I take a look at my phone to see what’s going on, and this is the first thing that pops up (tied to what I linked to above).

You know what? I don’t give a crap about any “P.S.” remarks about these human beings any more, these utterly soulless, craven life forms who, when cornered, retreat to the inevitable fallback of “Oh yeah? Well, liberals this and minorities and welfare cheats that and unwed minority mothers this and Section 8 housing that and Clintons this and Ted Kennedy that, blah blah blah.”

I’m sick of that garbage. The actions of this monstrous fraud in the White House are going to impact this country for generations. And aside from what Sen. Chris Murphy said here (which is entirely correct), it’s also going to hasten the “brain drain” in this country that we can ill afford (and by the way…).

Wingnuts, you “built this.” At least have something like the courage and/or intestinal fortitude to own it yourselves.

Update 2 1/28/17: Uh, yep…

A Word About “Fake” News (updates)

I think it’s safe to say that we’re going to be trying to pin down the reasons for Hillary Clinton’s campaign loss for a little while, especially given the fact that, at this moment, the Electoral College is all but certain to proclaim Donald J. Trump as our next president, as horrifying as that reality is (and believe me when I tell you that I’d love to be wrong). And yes, I know I personally have already engaged in this exercise in this space, and at a certain point the whole damn thing starts to become repetitive or self-serving, or both.

However, I believe I must add something to the discussion about so-called “fake” news that, as nearly as I can tell, has been missing.

As far as I’m concerned, the concept of “fake” news isn’t new at all. You could argue that the means to propagate it is relatively new (that is, by means of social networking sites, most infamously Facebook). To me, though, “fake” news has propagated like metaphorical weeds all over the manicured green grass of what should be our information landscape ever since the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 (and, not coincidentally at all, the arrival of Fox “News” 20 years ago).

There has definitely been a conservative element in this country from its inception, of course – isolationist, capitalistic, racist, among other faults (not to say that the other side has been perfect on this stuff either…far from it, actually). And they have had their own sympathetic media voices for a long time (such as Westbrook Pegler and Jack O’Brian in the 1950s, who were precursors to William F. Buckley, Irving Kristol, and others). However, they remained relegated to the sidelines by comparison in response to the legitimate news networks and professionals of our corporate media who, long ago, were not saddled with the burden of profitability. I would also argue that conservatives realized just what kind of an impact the media could have on our politics when the work of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led to Richard Nixon’s resignation in Watergate of course (if conservatives don’t have a sense of resentment over something and a need to attack “the other” in response – and Nixon’s fall gave them that in their estimation – then they truly have nothing).

The ascendancy of their hero Ronald Reagan gave them the excuse for triumphalism in their media and discourse overall (print back in those days), but it wasn’t until the election of Bill Clinton and the advent of communication online at about that time that they found a way to generate a self-sustaining media presence that (as far as I’m concerned) led to the whole “weed” thing I mentioned earlier. They saw that they could generate the requisite outrage aimed chiefly at our 42nd president over the “controversy du jour” and maintain their profitability in their little devil’s bargain (and of course, the financial success of Fox “News” speaks for itself, unfortunately).

To me, that is when the whole “fake” news thing started. And when the Supreme Court installed Clinton’s successor (aided by plenty of “fake” news from Frank Bruni, for one, in favor of the Republican nominee in that election), we found ourselves with a presidential administration that, to no small degree, started to fix its often disastrous policies in no small part on “fake” news (see Miller, Judith and the Iraq War).

Of course, the whole “fake” news industry had to shift gears when President Hopey Changey was elected in 2008 – I mean, they had to be outsiders all over again, so of course that led to all of the birther stuff, Bill Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, etc. I’ll never forget that useless hack J.D. Mullane’s column about how Obama was supposedly “racist” for saying that white people in this country cling to their guns and their religion in times of crisis, or something (even though that whole dustup almost sunk Obama’s campaign – again, the whole “fake” news business falls apart without a heaping dose of white resentment – I don’t think there was a speck of untruth in that statement).

So along comes 2016, and so what does the “fake” news industry do now? The answer is almost too easy, especially since another Clinton is now the candidate of the Democratic Party for president. And I would argue that this campaign brought us yet another evolution in the fake news industry…that is, not just to support a political party and opponent who is sympathetic to the corporate, conservative cause (with the so-called “values voters” being played for saps yet again), but to go for the whole enchilada, if you will. And by that I mean to roll back all reforms sponsored and initiated by the Democratic Party since the post-Great Depression and World War II era of Franklin D. Roosevelt (if you think I’m wrong, by the way, I give you this in response).

So yeah, the whole “fake” news industry has existed for a little while. And it has existed to the benefit of one political and corporate constituency only as far as I’m concerned.

Is it dirty and lowdown? Of course it is. But for any Democrat to campaign in this day and age without knowing that reality and finding a way to combat it somehow (including staging and broadcasting your own events, finding a way to interact with the key constituencies you need without the help of the usual alphabet soup of media culprits…in short, making your own damn media in response) shows a naivete that, as far as I’m concerned, is staggering.

Yes, “fake” news is one reason why Hillary Clinton lost. But there were many others, including the James Comey stuff and Putin’s hacking, as well as the fact that Trump knew that the election would be won or lost in the primarily white suburbs of this country, mainly in the Rust Belt (of course, Trump typically lied his ass off about protecting Social Security, Medicare and the Affordable Care Law, which those who supported him will learn to their horror I’m sure). And as nearly as I can tell, Trump made the election just close enough for the Comey/Putin stuff to make an impact; my point, though, is that the Clinton campaign should never have let it get that close in the first place (I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard about HRC beating up Trump but not making the case somehow as to why she would have been an infinitely better president).

I wish I could say that “fake” news will go away. However, given its impact in what has just happened, I cannot possibly imagine that that will be the case.

Update 12/20/16: I thought this was a good related post on this subject.

Update 1/13/17: Of course, I could be totally self-serving and point out that I’ve spent literally years trying to debunk fake news at this site and also at the Blogger site.

That is, if I really were self-serving of course (wink).

Update 2/1/17: Uh, yep.

More Deep (?) Thoughts On the 2016 Election (updates)

(Which has ultimately led to the behavior shown in this pic, by the way – this ties into a bit of what I got into here.)

I saw this item from Hillary Clinton, and I thought I needed to respond.

Yes, Hillary Clinton is right to say that the despicable actions of FBI Director James Comey contributed to her loss to Donald Trump (ugh) in the presidential election. But I think the following needs to be pointed out also.

I previously decried low-information voters who don’t pay attention to this stuff like they should, and I said they were partly to blame. I stand by that, with some caveats particular to Hillary Clinton that I’ll try to discuss, for what it’s worth. I also said that it’s pointless to engage in a circular firing squad on this stuff, but I’m going to break my own rule on that a bit.

With everything having settled in a bit, here is my number one reason why Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election:

She didn’t close the deal with the voters of this country on how she would manage the economy on their behalf.

The irony of this, to me, is utterly stupefying, because that is pretty much how her husband won election, particularly in 1992. And when it comes to voting psychology in this country, voters ALWAYS vote first and foremost on the economy.

Memorize this and burn it into your collective brains once and for all, Democrats – voters vote first and foremost based on the economy. Every time (I would put a bit of an asterisk on that next to 2004, though, since the Repugs beat 9/11 to death for political purposes and the economy hadn’t tanked yet).

The economy was teed up as THE political issue for Obama in 2008 since it was going all to hell, and the McCain/Palin team kept missing the proverbial boat on that issue over and over, particularly concerning the auto industry. So Obama almost couldn’t help but wrap his campaign around that. And in 2012, he had a record of success with the stimulus to run on (versus Willard Mitt Romney, who the Obama campaign had painted as a thoroughly out-of-touch elitist, which to me was an accurate portrayal). That year, Obama also had the power of incumbency on his side, and it’s hard to overestimate how important that is.

The Clinton team had none of these advantages. And they didn’t campaign as if they realized that. And that created the tiniest bit of an opening for that moron Gary Johnson and that nothing Jill Stein to jump in and claim that mantle instead (even Trump himself, laughably trying to act like he actually gives a damn about workers’ wages and that he actually knows something about creating jobs when he had experienced multiple business bankruptcies; of all of the corporate media stupidity during the campaign, the failure to point that out over and over was probably their biggest blunder).

Returning to the prior presidency of Bill Clinton (and why in God’s name didn’t Hillary remind voters of that era of economic success??), Hillary could have brought back the 1993 Bill Clinton budget that did a lot towards kick-starting a pretty solid era of job and wage growth. More than that, she could have reminded voters that it passed without a single Republican vote, and she could have tied that into a message about electing down-ballot Democrats to Congress!

(For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why Democrats seem to run away from their past record of success, but Hillary and her campaign did that. She did a really good job of portraying Donald Trump as the utterly narcissistic, intellectually lazy sexual predator that we all knew he was, but again, as her supporters, we knew that. She definitely didn’t appear to understand what it took to win over independents, who are the people that, for better or worse, decide our elections…something particularly galling given the fact that she probably had an army of people in her campaign who were supposed to know that in their sleep! Of course, the “Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party” knows better, I firmly believe – I’m sure that theory will be put to the test before too much longer.)

Or how about this – after defeating Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, she could have said “I’m Bernie Now,” and brought EVERYONE from the Sanders campaign on board and thrown out this band of DNC Beltway sycophants who seem to do absolutely NOTHING but lose elections! And she could have run her campaign accordingly (“go to the left,” as Kyle Kulinksi, among others, pointed out).

OK, enough of this exercise. We are where we are. Let’s take some down time for ourselves to try and regain our sanity and our strength. Because we’re going to need it.

Starting next January 21st, it’s probably going to be Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride every day. We just have to hang on for dear life and keep fighting in hope of a better future, eventually.

Update 11/13/16: I respect Joan Walsh a lot, and she’s right in a lot of what she has to say here about how our corporate media favored President Big Orange Cheetoh over HRC (and I suppose it’s just part of the cycle that the Dems have to try to make nice with this monstrosity who is now president – though I definitely would offer this in response).

However, I believe the Clinton team should have foreseen that they would get this kind of treatment from the news networks with initials for names. Was it fair? Of course not. But it was good for ratings, which is all they cared about, and EVER WILL care about.

But when faced with that, the Clinton team should have made THEIR OWN media. There were some very well done videos that they produced, but I couldn’t find anything approximating an “elevator pitch” on the economy. And yes, I looked.

There’s no shortage whatsoever of social media at our disposal – in addition to videos, there’s also Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter of course, other blogs sympathetic to the cause, etc. If you don’t like what the corporate media is doing, you make your own damn media! God knows the wingnuts don’t have any trouble propagating their garbage (always angers me that they have no problem getting out their lousy messages across scores of simpatico blogs and other sites and we have so much of a damn issue with getting out our good ones).

Besides, you generate enough of your own buzz, then the “news” networks WILL BE FORCED TO PAY ATTENTION TO YOU, if for no other reason that they’ll have potentially a ripe new audience for their advertisers.

Also, Walsh is sadly correct about those who purport to be on our side who demonized HRC regardless of what she did, and that was no help either of course (you reading this, Jimmy Dore?).

Update 11/14/16: I know I’m beating this to death and I swore I wouldn’t do that, and I apologize, but here is another observation from last Tuesday’s electoral hellscape, and it is this:

Hillary Clinton spent way, WAAAY too much time beating up on “Donald Drumpf.” The irony is that that fired up the Democratic base, but again, it did absolutely nothing for independents.

Yes, Trump deserved all of that invective and more. But here’s the thing: the person at the top of the ticket is supposed to leave it up to his or her surrogates to do that while the nominee for prez articulates the “vision thing,” as it was once called (I wish I has a nickel for every time I saw Bill Burton go at it with “Maniac Megyn” Kelly when Obama ran in ‘08, but that was his job).

Yes, our corporate media blocked out anything Clinton did on that time and time again. And yes, it was a scummy and lowdown thing to do. But you know what? That would have happened for ANY Democratic presidential nominee.

The media has been pulling this garbage for years. Back when we had Comcast Cable, I can recall an otherwise pretty solid news guy named Arthur Fennell who used to give us campaign updates on Bush and Kerry, and EVERY SINGLE TIME John Kerry gave a speech, Fennell would talk over what Kerry was saying to give his “spin” on what was going on and we never heard Kerry say a word. Now I think Fennell was just following orders, as it were, but it was still a dirty trick.

There are a bunch of solid presidential candidates I can recall who didn’t win because they were lousy campaigners. Is that fair? Of course not, especially considering the consequences. But I believe HRC thought the power of her personal narrative, as it were, would be good enough to win. It wasn’t.

Update 11/15/16: There aren’t too many people out there as far as I’m concerned who I would call studious observers of exactly what kind of electoral devastation took place a week ago, but I would say that Kurt Eichenwald is definitely one of those people, and I think he administers a dose of reality here (I had a feeling the Repugs had some “oppo” stuff on Sanders they would use if they had to, and believe me when I tell you that the stuff Eichenwald tells us is eye-opening…not saying it should have turned the election or how much of it is actually true, but to say it would have been a shot of hate-filled adrenaline to the wingnutosphere is a huge understatement).

The Repugs’ Deadly Game Of “Hidin’ Zika” (Updates)

Huffpo tells us the following from here…

WASHINGTON ― Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell delivered a letter to key lawmakers on Wednesday that explained exactly how their underfunded response to the Zika virus is screwing Americans over.

President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.9 billion in February to deal with the impending outbreak of Zika in the United States. Congress finally began working on the request in May, with the Senate passing a bipartisan compromise that was about $800 million short.

The bill got tanked in a partisan squabble last month after Republicans decided to add in contraception restrictions, a pro-Confederate flag provision, extra cuts to Obamacare, and a measure to exempt pesticides from the Clean Water Act, even though those pesticides don’t target Zika-carrying mosquitoes.

They then departed for a seven-week break while sending a sternly worded letter to Obama, saying he should take aggressive action to battle Zika using the $589 million the administration transferred from other programs, taken primarily from the ongoing Ebola response. GOP lawmakers have also complained recently that the money is not being spent quickly enough, with nearly two-thirds still available.

Wednesday, Burwell detailed how that money is being spent, and how key programs actually will run dry this month if Congress does not act.

“Now that the United States is in the height of mosquito season and with the progress in developing a Zika vaccine, the need for additional resources is critical,” she wrote to the top members of the appropriations committees in the House and Senate. “Without additional funding as requested in the President’s request for an emergency supplemental, our nation’s ability to effectively respond to Zika will be impaired.”

Yeah, I think that about says it. And because of political nonsense from the “party of Lincoln” (here)…

Another apparently locally grown Zika virus case has been added to the list in Florida, state health officials said Tuesday, raising the number to 15 — all of them in the Miami area.

“Active transmission” of the mosquito-borne virus, which causes microcephaly and other birth defects, is still going on in a 1-square-mile area of the Wynwood arts neighborhood north of downtown Miami, said health officials, who advised pregnant women to stay away.

Overall, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed 351 Zika cases in Florida, 336 of them involving people who traveled to the state from elsewhere, the state Health Department said.

…

“We’re not seeing the number of mosquitoes come down as rapidly as we would have liked,” Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, told The Associated Press.

The difficulty controlling the mosquitoes is “a reflection of the fact that, in this country, we really dismantled the mosquito monitoring and control infrastructure over the past few decades,” Frieden said.

“We have blind spots where we don’t know where the mosquito populations are and what the susceptibility is to different insecticides,” he said.

And how exactly did we get to this point? I think this post from the American Mosquito Control Association (yes, there actually is such a group, luckily for us) from some years ago clarifies things a bit…

A recent (2013) AMCA nationwide survey found for 22 out of 25 (88%) state public health departments that responded that the current level of (Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity (ELC) grants from the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Division of Vector-Borne Diseases (DVBD)) funding compared to peak funding several years ago is no longer adequate to support their state’s non-human arbovirus testing efforts in the lab, significantly jeopardizing their state’s ability to cope with arbovirus diseases. Furthermore, this funding shortfall cannot support arbovirus surveillance-and-monitoring activities in the field, where 100% of all respondents felt such information was critical for conducting mosquito control operations.

Any economic savings provided by eliminating this funding will be insignificant compared to the potential healthcare costs to be incurred and, more importantly, the loss of life – both human and animal – if populations of mosquitoes that spread WNV and other exotic diseases are not monitored and suppressed in a timely manner.

I would tend to agree (by the way, the post was written in response to the outbreak of West Nile Virus, though you can just as easily apply it to Zika also – basically, we’ve been behind the proverbial curve on this for a little while as far as I’m concerned).

This is part and parcel of underfunding the CDC by congressional Republicans, as noted here; their cheapskate approach to funding for disease prevention helped give rise to an Ebola crisis in West Africa, as well as “the serious emerging viral infections in the US like Enterovirus-D68, chikungunya and dengue, as well as overseas MERS and bird flus, and natural disasters,” as documented in the 2014 post.

To return to Zika, though, for a minute, I just want to emphasize that, for the sake of trying to rob money for women’s contraception through (wait for it…) Planned Parenthood, ignore a bipartisan resolution banning Confederate flrags at U.S. cemeteries, and exempt pesticides from the Clean Water Act, we are currently in a position where at least one area of this country has to be quarantined from a Zika outbreak, and more are likely to follow.

And by the way, I’ve wondered how all of the “pro-lifers” out there are reacting to Zika. With that in mind, Dana Milbank of the WaPo penned this recent column in which he told us the following (Florida Repug U.S. House Rep Vern Buchanan stands out as a commendable exception, though)…

..there’s quiet from the antiabortion lobby. Groups I checked with haven’t taken a position on the Zika response, other than a few that have said laws against abortion should not be loosened in Latin American countries because of the virus.

National Right to Life published an argument in March questioning whether Zika causes birth defects and citing a study that said only 1 percent of babies born to mothers with the infection have the brain condition called microcephaly. “Abortion advocates would have had us believe the risk of microcephaly was much higher,” it said.

Typical for those disgusting hypocrites (of course, as noted here, all the evidence they would need about that already existed “south of the border”)…

But Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a Post editorial board meeting Tuesday that “I can almost guarantee you” that the rate of birth defects is higher than 1 percent; another study puts it as high as 29 percent.

You know what? I think it’s time for a little “shock therapy” for those NRL cretins; get a load of this (here)…

At least 12 babies in the United States have already been born with the heartbreaking brain damage caused by the Zika virus. And with that number expected to multiply, public health and pediatric specialists are scrambling as they have rarely done to prepare for the lifelong implications of each case.

For children born with the worst of the brain defects caused by Zika, there will never be any miracle stories. No “the doctors said she would never walk, but … ” scenarios. These children will never walk. Never talk. Never laugh. Never play with a toy. Never feed themselves. Never even know that they are loved. They will only cry, and never be comforted.

They heard ophthalmologist Camila Ventura of Brazil, the epicenter of Zika in the Americas, describe how extremely irritable, even inconsolable, the newborns with microcephaly are.

“The babies cannot stop crying,” she said.

The parents of these children face not only day after day after day of bleak despair, but also crushing financial burdens.

Many of Zika’s littlest victims, diagnosed with microcephaly and other serious birth defects that might not immediately be apparent, could require care estimated at more than $10 million through adulthood.

“National Right to Life,” huh? Whose “life,” I wonder?

At least one voice of sanity on this is here (kudos to Dem VP Nominee Tim Kaine).

And by the way, if this isn’t a reason to vote out the Republicans in Congress responsible for this funding mess, among others (and elect Democrats like this guy), then I don’t know what is.

Update: Do you think this is “yuge”? I do.

Update 1 8/5/16: This amplifies some of what I’ve pointed out, but it definitely bears repeating.

Update 2 8/5/16: And of course, Heaven forbid that Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao would pull his thumb out and do something (here).

Update 8/6/16: And I had a feeling that this wasn’t helping one bit either.

Update 8/7/16: This garbage must play well in “the Sunshine State” because, last I checked, Rubio was still leading in the polls (more here).

Update 8/9/16: And I would say that this is the loudest voice yet.

Update 8/11/12: At least that “Kenyan Muslim Socialist” gets it (here – h/t Daily Kos).

Friday Mashup (10/17/14)

By the time you read this, the sickening little demonstration noted here will be over (due to take place around midday today) – more follows…

The video opens with the black-and-white footage of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s stirring clarion call for equal rights at the 1963 March on Washington.

It quickly goes full color, and cuts to gruesome close-ups of the bloody remnants of abortions. It is fair to say that what is shown is disturbing.

On Friday, the images will be displayed on a 10- by 12-foot screen set high on Independence Mall, the heart of Philadelphia’s tourism zone, as the antiabortion group Created Equal brings its high-tech assault on the practice to Philadelphia.

The video, on a continuous loop, will be played from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., according to Mark Harrington, Created Equal’s national director.

“It seems fitting to me that we are launching this campaign in the very place where our nation’s founders penned those words, created equal,” Harrington said. “We are still battling for equal rights. In this case, it is the pre-born who are being discriminated against.”

I know there are individuals out there who profess to be “pro-life” and who indeed “walk the walk” as opposed to just “talking the talk,” and who have adopted babies, taken in single mothers in desperate situations, staged prayer vigils away from clinics and not interfered with the medically-related activity taking place (and of course not shouted epithets at anyone, thrown blood, tried to wreck cars, or any of that other stupidity, to say nothing of not writing ridiculous garbage in newspapers or calling into talk radio demonizing mothers seeking medical help). To me, those people deserve respect.

However, most of these individuals in my experience (such as it is) are cut from the same disgusting cloth as Mark Harrington (pictured). And I think it’s particularly vile for Harrington and his ilk to even imagine that his escapades have anything whatsoever to do with the struggle for civil rights in this country.

There is no good reason whatsoever for Harrington to engage in an activity like this (showing fetuses in the most grotesque situations imaginable, and probably some situations we can’t imagine), trying to force these images down the metaphorical throats of anyone visiting Independence Mall (including very young children, I’m sure), once of the more scenic places in the city (and the weather is nice today, so it should be busy), other than self-promotion.

And yes, I have a particular axe to grind here because I can still vividly remember the seemingly never-ending pictures of fetuses in jars in the Catholic Standard and Times newspaper after the Supreme Court handed down Roe v. Wade in 1973, a time when I was still quite young and impressionable. As I’ve said, the images had an impact, but probably not the one the Church intended.

Harrington has pulled this stunt before, by the way, including Turlington Plaza at the University of Florida (generating this response, including the following)…

This has nothing to do with being pro-choice, pro-life or pro-anything. Regardless of anyone’s beliefs about abortion — and we all have an opinion there — does anyone feel it is acceptable to make students with abortion experiences feel uncomfortable on their own campus? No matter what the message, presentation is everything. In my opinion, a less-hostile open dialogue would be a more productive model of outreach. There must be another viable medium that doesn’t feel like an ambush. If I were considering abortion, or simply on the fence about my beliefs, these seemingly extremist people are not the ones I would consult.

Created Equal executive director Mark Harrington says his platform targets “the mushy middle,” people who have no strong stance at either end of the abortion debate spectrum.

I don’t believe such an audience exists on a university campus. If you do exist, on-the-fence folks, here’s my message to you: engage in civil, fact-based conversations with multiple people from both sides of the issue. Sharing beliefs and creating an open dialogue about social issues is a fundamental aspect of university life. One beauty of our campus is that it fosters constant exposure to new belief systems. No one here is naïve enough to want protection from opposing views. I imagine we all value them greatly. But this sideshow? It’s all a sensational stunt, an exhibition of the outlandish that serves only to needle young women into feeling guilty.

To the members of Created Equal, thank you for voicing your beliefs and exercising your right to free speech. However, is it too much to ask that women with abortion history or those considering it presently have a peaceful walk across their campus without being confronted by grisly photos of fetuses on coins? Is there not enough humanity in your movement to recognize the benefits of a different approach? Judging from the pamphlets that were available at the exhibit, I know you have other media at your disposal.

Regardless of my abortion views — which have probably become apparent anyway — it’s important to note these images are not from the typical procedure. Traveling pro-life groups are notorious for using photos of late-term abortions carried out for emergency reasons. Those interested should visit http://www.thisismyabortion.com/ for a glimpse of reality.

Uh, yep.

Next, I don’t want to spend too much time on the waste of protoplasm that is Erick (“Son of Erick”) Erickson, but he concocted the following nonsense here (in a column trying to equate ISIS with the cases of Ebola in this country)…

The Syrian rebels were too rag-tag and weak to take on ISIS, according to President Obama. But within a week of saying that, he announced to the world that his plan in Syria was to arm those rag-tag rebels and have them do our bidding against ISIS.

Um…regardless of what you may think of the strategy of arming Syrian rebels against ISIS (not a good option as far as I’m concerned, but preferable to U.S. “boots on the ground”), doesn’t what Erickson describe above seem like a logical course of events? Where is the “there” there?

It gets better…

The president also told the American public that Ebola would never come to the United States.

Not according to factcheck.org, which tells us the following (here)…

Sen. John McCain claimed on a Sunday talk show that “we were told there would never be a case of Ebola in the United States.” Not exactly. U.S. health officials, early in the outbreak, said it was highly unlikely, but we could not find any instances of them saying it would never happen.

This item from Fix Noise shill Jeanine Pirro doesn’t have anything to do with the Erickson column, but it does have something to do with ISIS, so allow me to add it here; namely, Pirro’s claim that Obama released Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, supposed head of this bunch of murderers, in 2009, which is categorically false. And as for Ebola, I guess what you would call of “clearing house” of debunked Ebola-related BS is here. And in conclusion on ISIS, I think this is definitely food for thought also.

Further (and sticking with Number 44), it looks like “liberal” Richard Cohen is at it again (here)…

Tell me something: What do you think would happen if the United States concludes that Iran has been cheating and delaying and is about to pop a fully functional nuclear weapons program? Would President Obama respond by joining Israel to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities to smithereens, or would he stall and equivocate? My bet is the latter and also, just to double down, what I bet the Iranians are betting. They have taken the measure of Obama. He lacks menace.

Menace is essential in a world leader if he (or she) is going to be feared as well as admired. Obama falls into the admired category — the leader who won the Nobel Peace Prize with mere good intentions, a guy who had a new attitude toward Russia (a reset) and Iran (an approach) and China (a pivot) and, of course, to the Muslim world — an appreciation from a president who had broken the mold. We know him now as someone miscast: a rational man in an irrational world.

I must tell you that I read over this a few times and thought “do I really want to say something about this idiot” (Cohen, I mean)? Isn’t life already too short?

And then I thought to myself, sure, why not?

For one thing, comments like this betray more of Cohen’s mindset than that of the world he supposedly knows something about. Because he apparently craves the “certainty” of a leader who, though perhaps catastrophically wrong, would act as if his thought processes are populated by fevered dreams of something called American Exceptionalism (I know you know who I’m talking about). And if this leader takes us into yet another catastrophic misadventure in the Middle East for no good reason…well, that means that Israel won’t be fighting alone now, will it?

Call me just a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger, but maybe the reason we have an irrational world (I agree with Cohen on that much) is because we have too many irrational people in charge! And wouldn’t it be nice if we did a better job of recognizing people who actually have their scruples and act like intelligent adults in the face of onslaughts from all over the world (not saying to never question them, but just to try and support them when we believe it is necessary)?

Given that, then surely Cohen would have noted long ago that Obama is “a rational man in an irrational world” and tried to make sure that his criticisms had at least some basis in reality, right?

Well…

Here, he condemned the White House visit by the parents of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier held captive in Afghanistan for five years, as “utterly repellent,” even though Cohen acknowledged that the circumstances surrounding Bergdahl’s capture are unclear.

Here, he embraced the “leading from behind” smear of President Obama (straight out of Drudge, Breitbart, and the like).

Here (as he does in his most current column), he makes a misguided push for a strike on Iran.

Here, he criticized Obama’s body language and supposed inability to “emote.”

Here, he wrote that Europe’s supposed view of Obama is that he’s an “accidental” president, among other nonsense.

(By the way, lots of other Cohen-related idiocy can be read from here.)

Yes, I realize this is part of the whole pundit game about finding ways to be talked about. However, I honestly believe that Cohen thinks he’s right that our president should act in the manner and style deployed here (and no, I haven’t forgotten what led up to that). All to display “menace,” no doubt.

How pitiably sad for Cohen not to realize that, were Obama to do such a thing, the rest of the world would surely laugh in his face.

Continuing (and speaking of pitiably sad), I give you former Ken Blackwell here on the matter of “biosimilar” drugs (more here…and this gives us a refresher on why Blackwell is such a miscreant – hard to believe that it’s been nearly 10 years)…

Now, it is up to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to implement the biosimilar approval process. But millions of dollars have been spent on a lobbying effort from Obama’s crony capitalist friends on K Street to protect the interests of biologic drug markers. Initially, they were given a 12-year data exclusivity clause in the Obamacare law. But now, they are fighting through a questionable grassroots campaign, with the goal of distracting the FDA.

These special interests are demanding unnecessary distinct naming rules for the ingredients in generic drugs, even though Obamacare does not allow for it. Americans with life- threatening diseases do not deserve to suffer thanks to these complicated and underhanded tricks by those in the pockets of Big Pharma.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

I hate to break the news to Blackwell, but both parties are in the hands of “Big Pharma,” as noted here.

More to the point, this tells us that the 12-to-14-year window Blackwell criticizes “drew applause from CVS Caremark, whose EVP specialty pharmacy services, Dave Golding, participated in an FTC roundtable event on the issue” (the Generic Pharmaceutical Association agreed with Number 44 on this also).

Not surprisingly, though, naming conventions for generics provoked this letter from 28 members of Congress who opposed the move; I believe the FDA recommendation on that was voluntary, by the way – hard to sift through some of the bureaucratic-ese (and the 28 who signed the letter are the same motley crew of usual conservative suspects, by the way). However, for anyone criticizing naming conventions for generics (which would bring them to parity with name brands, by the way) I have two words; Accutane and Sulindac (read from this link about the misery suffered by those who took these poisons).

And from here…

“Regulation of these formularies is going to be a huge thing moving forward,” said Paul A. Calvo, a director in the biotechnology group at Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox. “I think as soon as the public heard there is very limited oversight in these areas, they went nuts.”

Understandable as far as I’m concerned; background on formularies (basically, lists of prescribed medications for particular illnesses for insurance purposes) can be accessed from here.

Oh, and speaking of “nuts” (and having to do with bioresearch a bit), I give you this.

Finally, I give you this from the Kevin Strouse campaign…

Contact: Will Block, will@kevinstrouse.com, 610-400-3163
For Immediate Release: Monday, October 13th, 2014

Takeaway from Mike Fitzpatrick’s New TV Ad: Veterans Are Tired of Fitzpatrick’s Failures and Deception

Fitzpatrick Voted Against Reducing the Veterans Disability Claims Backlog

Bristol, PA – Last week, Fitzpatrick for Congress released its first ad of the general election. Unfortunately, the ad misleads voters about Fitzpatrick’s failed record on veterans’ issues. The facts show that Congressman Fitzpatrick has stood in the way of reducing the veterans disability claims backlog, and has voted against veterans’ interests on multiple occasions.

The ad shows a doctor walking alongside a disabled veteran in a wheelchair. The exact footage used in the ad is available for purchase on http://www.istockphoto.com as “Man in wheelchair walking with doctor – Stock Video.”

Strouse campaign spokesman Will Block commented, “This year, we saw Congressman Fitzpatrick jump onto a bandwagon with his colleagues to put a bandaid on a problem that he helped create in the first place. Disabled veterans are real heroes with real stories who deserve a Congressman that will fight for the care that they deserve — not some stock footage that can be purchased online. The fact that Fitzpatrick suddenly cares about the disability backlog, especially when he’s running against a combat veteran, is exactly what’s wrong with politics.”

Fitzpatrick’s ad claims that he worked with a whistleblower this year to uncover the claims backlog at the Philadelphia Veterans Benefits Administration office. Well, the backlog is nothing new, and the Congressman knows it. In fact, in 2013 he voted against a motion which would have provided funding to hire more adjudicators to cut through the disability claims backlog.

Block continued, “Fitzpatrick’s anti-veteran record speaks for itself. It’s especially egregious for Fitzpatrick to claim to be working to end the disability claims backlog after voting in 2013 against a measure to do exactly that. These issues at the VA are nothing new — unfortunately, they only seem to matter to Congressman Fitzpatrick in an election year.”

BACKGROUND:

Stock Footage Used in Fitzpatrick’s TV Ad: [www.istockphoto.com, Man in wheelchair walking with doctor – Stock Video]

Fitzpatrick’s TV Ad…aired on 10/8/14:

Fitzpatrick voted against quicker disability claims processing:

In 2013, Fitzpatrick voted against a motion to recommit with instructions that would help reduce the backlog of disability claims for veterans. The amendment would add $9.2 million in funding (double the funds in the underlying appropriations bill) to hire an additional 94 claims processors to help reduce the veterans disability claims backlog. The amendment failed 198-227. [MTR on H.R. 2216, Vote #192, 6/04/13]

Fitzpatrick voted to block the “Veterans Backlog Reduction Act”, which would
direct the secretary to pay provisional benefits for claims that are still processing: [New York Times, 5/30/14; Vote #180, 5/23/13]

“From The New York Times: Republican House candidates could also find themselves under pressure to explain their past votes against proposals for more money for veterans programs. Democrats were pointing to a procedural vote in May 2013, when House Republicans opposed a Democratic measure called the Veterans Backlog Reduction Act.”

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Kevin Strouse is a former Army Ranger, CIA counterterrorism analyst, and veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who lives in Middletown, Pa., with his wife, Amy, and two young children, Walter and Charlotte. He is currently Program Director of Teach2Serve, a non-profit that teaches social entrepreneurship to regional high school students. He earned his BA from Columbia University and a Masters in Security Studies from Georgetown University, graduating with honors.

To help with the Kevin Strouse campaign in the closing days, please click here.