Resolution

I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair
I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair
I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair
And send him on his way

Walk him out
Dry him out
Push him out
Fly him out
And send him on his way!

Written by R. Rodgers, O. Hammerstein II

quote unquote: James Baldwin

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. -- James Baldwin

Happy Holidays

The Long War

As we live in a state of endless, undeclared war, it behooves us to remember the wise words of one the Founders:

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” – James Madison

Demockracy

Money buys elections. The media covers the horse race, not the issues, and routinely deems threats to the status quo "unelectable." There is no party discipline. Gerrymandering and voter suppression are rampant. The Electoral College devalues some votes and enhances others. A vote in one state for the U.S. Senate is worth 100 times what the same vote is worth in another. Judges sit for life. The operatives of money and power routinely rotate in and out of legislative and executive positions, enriching themselves and their cohort as they go. Huge amounts of public wealth are transferred continuously to private hands and trillions of dollars are spent in secret. Wars are conducted without following constitutional procedures.

Sometimes cynicism just can't catch a break.

How frustrated must be Kirsten Gillibrand. She throws Al Franken under the bus, the one to the high road, and the press still praises Kamala Harris as the "new face" of the party.

If it's not nailed down, privatize it.

The FCC voted in a 3-2 party-line vote to end net neutrality, despite overwhelming bipartisan and public support for it.

Net neutrality is now officially on life support. Here’s what happens next. by Aja Romano (VOX)

Trump has his "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" moment:

"USA Today published a brutal editorial Tuesday after President Donald Trump smeared Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) by saying she 'would do anything' for campaign contributions. 'A president who’d all but call a senator a whore is unfit to clean toilets in Obama’s presidential library or to shine George W. Bush’s shoes,'” USA Today’s Editorial Board wrote, adding Trump was clearly suggesting Gillibrand would trade sexual favors for campaign donations. The board added that Trump is a 'uniquely awful' person with 'sickening behavior.' His tweet was a new low for a president redefining rock bottom, they wrote. -- USA Today Calls Trump Unfit To Clean Obama's Toilets In Scathing Editorial (Yahoo News).

Will Trump's lows ever hit rock bottom? by The Editorial Board (USA Today)

????

The Democratic leadership constantly promotes the benefit of parsing evils. How come that lesser-evil thing doesn't doesn't favor Al Franken when measured against Donald Trump, Roy Moore and the other actual criminals peppered throughout the governing class?

Fair's fair

According to Axios, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer “said he was the victim of a fake news hit on Tuesday, and has turned over to Capitol Police a document that purports to detail lurid sexual harassment accusations by a former staffer.” The former staffer said she “did not author the document, that none of the charges ring true, and that her signature was forged.”

But he has been accused.

Under current Democratic Party operating procedures that means he must resign immediately.

D.J. Trump: Not Living Up to His Full Potential

If Donald Trump knew anything about history, he'd realize that he could go so much bigger than merely reversing Barack Obama's executive orders. Think how pleased his supporters and enablers would be if he revoked the Emancipation Proclamation, say, or gave Alaska back to the Russians.

This Christmas, sit him at the kids' table 'til he learns to behave

The New York Times says, “[p]eople close to him estimate that Trump spends at least four hours a day, and sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television, sometimes with the volume muted, marinating in the no-holds-barred wars of cable news and eager to fire back,” just like your crazy uncle.

The Head of Government

“Trump Loves Showing Off The White House Bathrooms” -- Newsweek headline

The Long History of the Conservative Fixation With Bathrooms by Nancy LeTourneau (Washington Monthly)

Giving cynicism a bad name

The Republicans' embrace of Roy Moore is no more cynical than the Democrats' lynching of Al Franken. If Moore wins, the GOP Senators can righteously refuse to seat him, confident the Republican governor will replace him with another member of the tribe. If they let Democrat Doug Jones win, on the other hand, they're stuck with him for at least six years. Does anyone really think Al Franken would have been shoved out the door if the governor of Minnesota was other than a Democrat? (Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand may have made a tactical in trying to jumpstart her presidential campaign by shoving out the popular Franken. Political activists have long memories).

Unfinished business

"American exceptionalism" and "American greatness" are propaganda slogans deployed to discourage thinking. We have our good qualities and our bad. We need to concentrate on making the United States a better country, however great it is or isn't already.

We are a loose cannon in world politics. We waste resources on military adventures. Too many of our people have no place to sleep and not enough to eat. That we don't have universally affordable health care is tragic. Our education system was, should be, and no longer is the best in the world. Our infrastructure 50 years ago was second to none and hasn't been maintained since.

We have a lot of work to do.

Does being a Democrat mean anything?

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) is reportedly under consideration for Energy and Interior secretary, as is Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVa). Whether the Democrats allow their numbers in the Senate to be reduced so carelessly will provide another measure of how serious they are about thwarting GOP ambitions.

Evidence so far: Not serious.

quote unquote: James Madison

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, a well-armed and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.” -- James Madison, first draft of the Second Amendment, before it was mangled in committee.

From your mouth to...um, that's all I've got.

In a headline, evidence of just how deluded the left is:

"Al Franken resigns, setting precedent for Donald Trump and Roy Moore."

You're welcome to trot this out the next time the topic of the electoral college comes up

Who we are now

From the Logo File:

There is no adjectival form of the word integrity. One is needed. I propose integrous (as opposed to integritous or integrious, both less euphonious). You may not find need of it often, but on the rare occasions you stumble upon someone behaving integrously, by all means use it. Intregrous behavior should extolled wherever it turns up.

You're Not Thinking Big Enough

If Donald Trump knew anything about history he'd be aiming so much higher than merely reversing Barack Obama's executive orders. Think how he'd please his supporters and enablers if he revoked the Emancipation Proclamation, say, or gave Alaska back to the Russians.

On Us

The problems we face as a nation are much bigger than, as most Democrats see it, "this horrible Republican President and Congress."

Distorted spending decisions, selective application of free market economic policies and militarized foreign policy pursued by both parties over the last 30+ years are what fueled the anger that permitted "this horrible Republican President" to ascend, but it is the permanent conservative majority in Congress, made up of both Republicans and Democrats, that has sent this country into its long, slow decline.

The one positive of the Donald Trump presidency is that it has ripped the happy face off the deadly fiction of American exceptionalism.

Electing in 2020 another personable and integrous but unimpassioned abettor of the best and the brightest, such as Barack Obama, won't be nearly up to the job of bringing about the fundamental changes needed (we mustn't allow ourselves to forget that the number of poor and the number of wars increased under the last president). It will require a radicalized congress and an aggressively pro-change executive to fix what ails us, to get us back on the difficult path toward economic and social justice. We must either accomplish a radical course correction or resign ourselves to further decline.

“Well, Doctor," Ben Franklin was asked outside Independence Hall on the final day of deliberations, "what have we got -- a Republic or a Monarchy?”

“A Republic," he replied, "if you can keep it.”

It's on us to keep it.

Extra credit:
>>Thirty years ago, the old deal that held US society together started to unwind, with social cohesion sacrificed to greed. Was it an inevitable process – or was it engineered by self-interested elites?: Decline and fall: how American society unravelled by George Packer (The Guardian)
>>Domestic and global trends suggest that in 2025, now just 8 years from now, the American century could all be over except for the shouting: The Decline and Fall of the American Empire by Alfred W. McCoy (Tom Dispatch)
>>Austerity is riskier than stimulus. The Big Question on the Economy: Is This Really Full Employment? by J.W. Mason (Roosevelt Institute)
>>What went wrong and what comes next?: Capitalism in Crisis by Mark Blyth (Foreign Affairs) >>Putting community needs at the center of society rather than those of the individual: An Economic Alternative to Exploitative Free Market Capitalism by Thomas Hedges (Truthdig)

Climate change

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
                           –Robert Frost

The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged

Thanksgiving's over.

Now we're in for a month of Christmas.

Don't feel bad, CNN. Izzy Stone never got invited to the White House Christmas Party, either

"Sarah Sanders Gleeful That CNN Won’t Be A Guest At White House Christmas Party" (HuffPost headline).

I ♥ NY

quote unquote: Teddy Roosevelt

As conservatives and neoliberals continue their subversion of progressive taxation, it's worth remembering words on the subject

by the well-known socialist, Teddy Roosevelt:

"We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community.... The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and … a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate." -- Theodore Roosevelt, the "New Nationalism" speech, delivered 1910/08/31 at the dedication of the John Brown Memorial Park in Osawatomie, Kansas.

Better late than never

Wouldn't this seem like a swell time for the U.S. Senate to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, and often described as an international bill of rights for women? Consisting of a preamble and 30 articles, it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination.

Blue State Blues

Looking toward 2018, here are the top scorers in the California Republican delegation on "How often a member votes in line with Trump's position":

David Valadao (CA-21) 98.1%; Stephen Knight (CA-25) 98.1%; Mimi Walters (CA-45) 98.1%; Jeff Denham (CA-10) 98.1%; Ken Calvert (CA-42) 98.1%; Paul Cook (CA-8) 98.1%; Kevin McCarthy (CA-23) 98.1%; Doug LaMalfa (CA-1), 98.1%; Devin Nunes (CA-22) 98%; Ed Royce (CA-39) 96.2%; Darrell Issa (CA-49) 96.2%; Dana Rohrabacker (CA-48) 92.5%; and Tom McClintock 88.7%.

By comparison, of the six members of the House that vote least with Trump (at 9.4% of the time) -- a list that includes Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison (the Progressive Caucus chairs), Bonnie Watson Coleman and Adriano Espaillat -- two, Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee, are from California (source: Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight).

The neologist

There is no adjectival form of the word integrity. One is needed.

I propose integrous (as opposed to integritous or integrious, neither of which is as euphonious).

You may not find need of it often, but on the rare occasions you stumble upon someone behaving integrously, by all means use it.

Intregrous behavior should be extolled wherever it crops up.

Now more than ever!

California workers are not sharing in the wealth they are creating.

How far would you get on $13.63 an hour?

In California, defining a low-wage worker as one earning less than $13.63 hour in 2014, this is how the state's employment profile looked:

From the "Sure. Why Not?" Desk:

The Norfolk, Va., city council is due to decide on granting easements for a natural gas pipeline that would run under the city's drinking water reservoir, the Virginian-Pilot reports. No room for Murphy's Law there.

Mut-See TV

Maria Bamford's "Lady Dynamite" is back for a second season on Netflix. In the half-hour semi-biographical comedy she plays a stand-up who, after a breakdown and institutionalization, is readjusting in an ever-changing mental state to an ever-changing world. Brilliant, touching, hilarious, irresistable.

Lima Beano

If I lived in Lima, Ohio, I'd quit my job, sell my house, pull my kids out of school and move to the Denali Wilderness before I'd admit that Jim Jordan is my congressman.

 

Dialogue

"Bernie Sanders supporters are divisive." "Berniecrats aren't Democrats." "Bernieacs would rather destroy the Democratic party than compromise." "Berniebros hate Hillary Clinton so much they can't think straight." "Bernieistas are still fighting the last election."

"My job, our job is to go forward, is do everything we can to defeat this right-wing agenda of the Republican Party and the Trump administration, not to look backwards." -- Sen. Bernie Sanders

"Oh, shut up."

quote unquote: Wilfred Owen

Strange Meeting

It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .” Read: Wilfred Owen: Poems Selected by Jon Stallworthy

Weekend reading:

Red Century: A series of essays published by the New York Times exploring the history and legacy of Communism, 100 years after the Russian Revolution.

 

That's enough. No Moore!

'Mary was a Teenager.' -- Alabama Republican using Jesus' mom to defend Roy Moore. These guys are ruining cynicism for the rest of us.

The Long War

A new 'Costs of War' report published by Brown University's Watson Institute shows the actual costs incurred by the U.S. as part of its global 'war on terror' that widely contradicts the cost of war figures put together by the Pentagon in its report.

Some of the Costs of War Project’s main findings include:

370,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers.

It is likely that many times more than 370,000 people have died indirectly in these wars, due to malnutrition, damaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation.

200,000 civilians have been killed in direct violence by all parties to these conflicts.

Over 6,800 US soldiers have died in the wars.

We do not know the full extent of how many US service members returning from these wars became injured or ill while deployed.

Many deaths and injuries among US contractors have not been reported as required by law, but it is likely that at least 6,900 have been killed.

10.1 million million Afghan, Iraqi, and Pakistani people are living as war refugees and internally displaced persons, in grossly inadequate conditions.*

The US has made an estimated 76 drone strikes in Yemen, making the US arguably at war in that country.

The wars have been accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.

The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades with some costs, such as the financial costs of US veterans’ care, not peaking until mid-century.

US government funding of reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has totaled over $170 billion. Most of those funds have gone towards arming security forces in both countries. Much of the money allocated to humanitarian relief and rebuilding civil society has been lost to fraud, waste, and abuse.

The cost for the Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan wars totals about $4.8 trillion. This does not include future interest costs on borrowing for the wars, which will add an estimated $8 trillion through 2054.

The ripple effects on the US economy have also been significant, including job loss and interest rate increases.

Both Iraq and Afghanistan continue to rank extremely low in global studies of political freedom.

Women in Iraq and Afghanistan are excluded from political power and experience high rates of unemployment and war widowhood.

Compelling alternatives to war were scarcely considered in the aftermath of 9/11 or in the discussion about war against Iraq. Some of those alternatives are still available to the US.



* Source: The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) (2015).

It was a good night,...

...but let's not lose sight of the road ahead. To come out on top in 2018, the Democrats must still agree on a raison d'être more compelling than "Stronger Together" and "A Better Deal," suffer expensive, divisive primaries that may or may not settle their differences or produce electable candidates, be outspent by $ millions, and for many House and local legislative races overcome a decade of GOP gerrymandering. Voters can be unhappy with Trump and still not see the Democrats as the antidote.

How about an ambassador for liberty and justice for all?

“Democrats plan to force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to take extra procedural steps on” Gov. Sam Brownback’s confirmation “as ambassador for religious liberty because of his record on gay rights” (Kansas City Star), begging the question why a secular nation with a constitutional barrier between church and state has an ambassador for religious liberty.

You can have her

The L.A. Times reported House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi unsurprisingly “endorsed the reelection bid of longtime colleague Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Monday, saying her seniority is a source of strength for the state.” The party overseers apparently view Feinstein as their strongest candidate at a time when the majority of Democratic voters is clamoring for change. If Feinstein does win, I predict she will serve a year or two, then retire, enabling the governor (Gavin Newsom, presumably) to appoint a reliably corporatist replacement who will then run to fill the remainder of the term with the advantage of incumbency.

Orange is the new Blue

Will Dana Rohrabacher surf to another term in Orange County's 48th congressional district (Seal Beach to Laguna Nigel)? He won handily last time with a little over 58%, but Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in CA-48 by 1.7%. This time the libertarian Republican has several well-funded challengers. If one of the Democrats is in the election-day runoff, “Putin's favorite congressman” as he's known (google it) could be in is last race.

Prophylactic

"We have so many people that are trying to position themselves to run for president, I think it's hard to say who is the leader, and there's a lot of angst about that," said Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill yesterday on Meet the Press, the angst stemming from the establishment's worrisome inability to control the process. You wouldn't want someone like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, say, winding up as the nominee, would you?

From the Liberté-égalité-fraternité Not! desk:

"Before we send a man to prison, shouldn't we at least be positive he isn't rich?"

A rose by any other name...

I was accused today of being a Berniac, plainly a creature of uncertain pedigree and ill repute. It left me wondering:

Is one who supports reducing the work week to 30 hours and expanding paid leave; providing guaranteed jobs at a living wage to all;

providing a decent standard of living to everyone; establishing a national child care system; reestablishing the right of all workers to join unions; providing affordable universal health care and free universal public education; and restoring the infrastructure while keeping it in public hands; and opposes the national security state, militarism, empire and endless war, is such a person a Berniac or a lifelong Democrat who wants to see the Democratic Party return to basic principles?

Extra credit:
A wage floor is an effective way to fight poverty -- and it would reduce government spending and intrusion: The Conservative Case for a Guaranteed Basic Income Creating by Noah Gordon (The Atlantic)
Giving everyone a job is the best way to democratize the economy and give workers leverage in the workplace: Why We Need a Federal Job Guarantee by Mark Paul, William Darity Jr and Darrick Hamilton (The Jacobin)
Working moms can have it all -- in France: Trapped by European-style Socialism -- And I Love It! by Claire Lundberg (Slate)
In 1971, a national day-care bill almost became law. Therein lies a story: Why America Never Had Universal Child Care by Nancy L. Cohen (New Republic)
The weakness of labor hurts all employees in every sector: The Decline of Unions Is Your Problem Too by Eric Liu (TIME)
A growing number of Americans support Medicare for All: A Canadian Doctor Explains How Her Country's Single-Payer Health Care System Works by Michel Martin and Denise Guerra (All Things Considered/NPR)
The US earns a D+. It is, in a word, a mess. It's Time to Fix America's Infrastructure. Here's Where to Start by Jordan Golson (Wired)
“Infrastructure is such a dull word. But it’s really an issue that touches almost everything.”: System Overload by James Surowiecki (The New Yorker)
A lack of transparency and oversight has led to abuses time and again, in every era: Why Does Anyone Trust the National-Security State? by Conor Friedersdorf (The Atlantic)
The military's evolving role in U.S. foreign policy decision-making: The Politics of American Militarism by Joshua Foust (The Atlantic)
Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual war: American Imperium by Andrew J. Bacevich (Harper's Magazine)
Imagining the World in 2025: Empire of Madness by Tom Engelhardt (Truthdig)

After five decades, change for California

"Rather than a harbinger of a purge, Feinstein is a special case because her politics have become so out of step with her constituents and even Democrats nationally. 'I support Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris, and I don’t support Dianne Feinstein,' said Congressman Ro Khanna, a fellow California Democrat who has been advocating for a Feinstein challenge. 'I think there are very specific reasons that a primary challenge to Diane Feinstein in California is called for.'”

The rest of the story:
Kevin de León, the California Senate president, is taking on the U.S. senator in next year's Democratic primary. The reward is much greater than the risk.: The Win-or-Lose Case for Challenging Dianne Feinstein by Graham Vyse (New Republic).
Many Calif. Dems silent on backing Feinstein by Mike Lillis (The Hill)
Kevin de León announces run against Dianne Feinstein, setting up Democratic clash in Senate race by Casey Tolan (Bay Area News Group)

Common Sense

Vijay Prashad talks to the poet Mark Nowak, founder of the Worker Writers School in New York City, about the political valence of socialist writing in a time of rampant populism, racism, and xenophobia. Their conversation, The Essentials in Socialist Writing, was published in Jacobin.

Anyone who didn't vote for George McGovern is to blame for every rotten terrible thing that has happened since 1972.

Song

Fill your heart with love today

Don’t play the game of time Things that happened in the past Just happened in your Mind Only in your Mind-Forget your Mind Then you’ll be free

The writing’s on the wall Free-yea’. And you can know it all If you choose. Lovers never lose ‘Cause they are Free of thoughts unpure And of thoughts unkind Gentleness clears the soul Love cleans the mind Makes it Free.

Happiness is happening The dragons have been bled loveliness everywhere Fear’s just in your Head The feels in your Head Only in your Head The feels in your Head So Forget your Head Then you’ll be free

The writing’s on the wall Free-yea’. And you can know it all Baby know it all If you choose. Just remember Lovers never lose ‘Cause they are free of thoughts unpure And of thoughts unkind Gentleness can clear the soul Love cleans the mind Then makes it Free!!

copyright 1968 Biff Rose & Paul Williams

(Please. Shut up. Please, please, please. Just shut up.)

Crazy is as crazy does

EPA's Scott Pruitt may have his high-tech sound-proof phone booth, but Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has his own flag.

“A security staffer takes the elevator to the seventh floor, climbs the stairs to the roof and hoists a special secretarial flag whenever [Zinke] enters the building," according to WaPo. "When the secretary goes home for the day or travels, the flag” is lowered (this is the same guy who said in a speech to oil and gas executives that 30 percent of Interior's 70,000 workers are “not loyal to the flag”; maybe this is the flag he meant).

Are cabinet officers just as nuts as their boss?

I don't get the kneeling controversy. How is it disrespectful to expect your country to live up to its ideals?

Cornel West on the necessity of a spiritual/moral framework for successful democratic revolution. Inspiring. Fun. Enjoy.

Repeal & replace

The Star-Spangled Banner:

Too martial.

And "This Land Is Your Land" and "America the Beautiful" are more uplifting and far easier to sing.

 

Register, train, license, insure

The trouble with the decline of civilization is that it makes everybody so uncivilized.

Blue Dogs, what are they good for? (huh) Absolutely nothing (say it again)

These are the Democrats who joined the Republicans to save the legislative foundation for the Iraq, Afghan, Syrian and other wars of the Bush, Obama and Trump regimes:
Carper (DE)
Casey (PA)
Cortez Masto (NV)
Donnelly (IN)
Hassan (NH)
Manchin (WV)
McCaskill (MO)
Reed (RI)
Schatz (HI)
Shaheen (NH)
Stabenow (MN)
Warner (VA)
Whitehouse (RI)

Bye, Bye Miss American Spy

I'd like to take the opportunity offered by the apparent determination of the Trump treasury department not to elevate the heroic abolitionist Harriet Tubman to our currency (I don't suppose it would make any difference to our military-loving president were he to be informed that Tubman provided invaluable intelligence to the United States Army fighting the rebellion -- if John le Carré were to write her story he might call it "Slave, Nurse, Scout, Spy") to renew my appeal on behalf of Helen Keller who -- struck totally deaf and blind by childhood illness at 19 months, before she'd learned to speak -- overcame the adversity of being unable hear or see to become one of the 20th century's leading humanitarians, an international champion for the disabled, a feminist, a Socialist, a co-founder of the ACLU, a teacher and lecturer, a journalist, and the first deaf-blind person to earn a BA.

On the twenty dollar specie, though, not the ten. Thanks to Broadway, Alexander Hamilton now has a lobby. It is Andrew Jackson, the populist president and, alas, slave holder and genocidist, who needs to go.

Here's the original post: Helen Keller on the $10 by John Gabree (Impractical Proposals).

It is not that the estimable Harriet Tubman doesn't deserve to be honored for her courageous activism, it's just that being, you know, black, she may not be a favorite of this administration.

Urban progress and reaction

“You desire the end but close your eyes to the means. You want the garden to be beautiful, provided that the smell of manure is kept well away from your fastidious nose.” ― P.D. James, The Children of Men

Nimbyism is a reactionary impulse that ignores the history of urbanism and strikes at the city's reason for being. Nimbys seek to impose a romantic fantasy of an orderly and edenic past on an urban history that in fact is a tangled tale of struggle, ambition, imagination, innovation and criminality. Indeed, it is the chaotic nature of the city

that gives it its magnetic pull, that makes it such fertile ground for creativity.

To bind a city to imaginary specifications is to strangle its spirit, to rob it of its dreams, to steal its soul. Were you to abandon a city, eventually nature would return it to the jungle or desert, the forest or prairie hidden beneath its tar and concrete; but nowhere has an urbanized locale merely devolved to an earlier stage of development. It has to be murdered, deliberately killed by greed, selfishness and myopia.

A flourishing city is an antidote to mediocrity, monotony, intolerance, rigidity, stasis, just as it is the engine of invention, adaptability, resourcefulness, enterprise, growth. We forget that the modern city developed originally as a refuge from the impliability and oppressiveness of feudalism, that within its communal

walls, and fueled by commerce, artists, rebels, scholars, free thinkers and tradesmen of every stripe were free to prosper.

It is from the concentration of talents and energies, born of the city's wealth, that the qualities of life we value most, that we count among the benefits of civilization, are afforded; cut off the city's ability to change and grow, and you condemn it, and ultimately urban culture, to death.

The city springs from hope, from the desire for a different and better future; thus, though it can be done badly or to excess, development is, at its heart, progressive.

Why the Democrats won't win back Congress in 2018 -- #67233

"John , we’ve never been this mad -- and we're asking you to sign your name and condemn Trump for pardoning Joe Arpaio." -- Email solicitation from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

Really?

They've never been this mad?

Not at the Long War? Not at the massacre of the middle class? Not at institutionalized racism? Not at the collapsing infrastructure? Not at the privatizing of the public schools? Not at Wall Street predators? Not at the destruction of the labor movement? Not at two minority presidents out of three? Not at the growing ranks of the poor? Not at pharmaceutical price-gouging? Not at mass incarceration?...

What he did.

It shouldn't be hard to head off Trump tonight before he escalates the war in Afghanistan.

Somebody tell him.

Obama already did it.

Does anybody know where the alt-left meets?

I want to join.

Crossed fingers # 6,010,043

Harper's says that, of the $16,000,000 Carrier promised Donald Trump it would spend on its Indiana plant to save American jobs, 100% of the money will be used for automation.

"It's like I don't recognize the country I'm living in."

It's more like we're getting to know the country we're living in.

We can't lose sight of the millions deported by the Obama administration. We can't deny decades of lynchings and Jim Crow. We must not forget "No dogs or Irish." We fought a brutal civil war over the holding of human beings as property. We still live in the shadow of slavery. We have never atoned for the near-extermination of Native Americans.

Fake news? We live a fake history.

Are the Democratic Socialists of America For Real?

In the last year, the biggest American socialist organization has experienced a surge in membership. "As it builds on this momentum, there are several big questions facing DSA. What is its relationship to the Democratic Party? Should central leadership serve as administrators or ideological tone-setters? And how can its membership -- which skews white and male -- come to represent an increasingly diverse country?" In other words, can it can transform enthusiasm into real and effective political power?

Are the Democratic Socialists of America For Real? by Kate Aronoff (The New Republic, 2017-08-07)

What a laugh

The Security State has always included an ample admixture of self-parody. The CIA’s arsenal of weapons against Fidel Castro, for example, included a fungus-infected scuba suit, a poison-filled hypodermic needle hidden in a pen and, no kidding, an exploding cigar.

RIP

"I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. … The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning." -- Sam Shepard.

Big problems require big solutions

A confused and befuddled Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, grasping at straws, have a formulated a nearly perfect compression of their tired lesser-of-two-evils rhetoric -- "A Better Deal," promoting the new slogan under the misapprehension that it's bad marketing instead of bad politics that's the cause of their electoral headaches.

The road to capitalism triumphant is pocked by financial crises: 1819, 1837, 1857, 1884, 1901, 1907, 1929, 1937, 1974, 1987, 2008... 

But what accounts for that long break after WWII, 30 years of widespread prosperity and economic growth? 

One key factor, besides sizable opportunities in the construction industry afforded by worldwide devastation, is that during these decades banks were severely regulated, capital movement was constricted, exchange rates were limited.

In judging the seriousness of the Democrats in the months ahead, their willingness to rein in the financial giants will be key. Other vital issues -- infrastructure, empire, jobs, climate change, affordable universal education and health care -- cannot be addressed by a party still afraid to pursue any policy that might inconvenience rich people.

We need a new era of big government to address big problems. More than a Better Deal, we need a Big Deal.

quote unquote: James Baldwin

"I have met only a very few people - and most of these were not Americans - who had any real desire to be free. Freedom is hard to bear. It can be objected that I am speaking of political freedom in spiritual terms, but the political institutions of any nation are always menaced and are ultimately controlled by the spiritual state of that nation. We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know, and the

American dream has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare, on the private, domestic, and international levels. Privately, we cannot stand our lives and dare not examine them; domestically, we take no responsibility for (and no pride in) what goes on in our country; and, internationally, for many millions of people, we are an unmitigated disaster. Whoever doubts this last statement has only to open his ears, his heart, his mind, to the testimony of - for example - any Cuban peasant or any Spanish poet, and ask himself what he would feel about us if he were the victim of our performance in pre-Castro Cuba or in Spain. We defend our curious role in Spain by referring to the Russian menace and the necessity of protecting the free world. It has not occurred to us that we have simply been mesmerized by Russia, and that the only real advantage Russia has in what we think of as a struggle between the East and the West is the moral history of the Western world. Russia's secret weapon is the bewilderment and despair and hunger of millions of people of whose existence we are scarcely aware. The Russian Communists are not in the least concerned about these people. But our ignorance and indecision have had the effect, if not of delivering them into Russian hands, of plunging them very deeply in the Russian shadow, for which effect - and it is hard to blame them - the most articulate among them, and the most oppressed as well, distrust us all the more... We are capable of bearing a great burden, once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is. Anyway, the point here is that we are living in an age of revolution, whether we will or no, and that America is the only Western nation with both the power, and, as I hope to suggest, the experience that may help to make these revolutions real and minimize the human damage." -- James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

When you hear the word bipartisan, reach for your gun.

There is a conservative majority in Congress that persists no matter which party controls the big corner offices. When you hear the word bipartisan, remember that it is most often used to describe something like Bob Corker and Mark Warner, just say, getting together to craft a deal to advance corporate interests at your expense.

This is the affection won by Democrats who fight for the people.

Donald Trump takes the fun out of dysfunctional.

Heh Heh

Gavin Newsom posted this on Twitter. The illustration is from an Australian news outlet.

Quadruple bogey.

MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this morning aired a pop quiz:

"The capital city of your closest ally is attacked. Do you…:"

A) Retweet Drudge before being briefed.
B) Use the attack to lobby the Supreme Court overturn lower court rulings that said your travel ban is unconstitutional.
C) Openly attack the mayor of the city under assault and quote him out of context.
D) Go golfing for the 22nd time in your 19-week tenure.
E) All of the above.

(By the way, the answer is E.)

The political horse race

Democrats for Ohio governor in the news today: Schiavoni, Pillich, Whaley, Sutton, Cordray, Springer... The only question: Who will Win, Place and Show?

The mainstream media never -- never! -- tells us what candidates stand for. We knew far more about Always Dreaming on Derby morning than we'll know about our next governor when we get up on election day.

Body slamming the electorate

Absentee balloting, as it was originally conceived, is a good and necessary thing. There is no reason that people away from home, disabled or living in nursing facilities should be denied their franchise. But the abuse of absentee voting by both parties has reached a point where in many districts the outcome of elections are determined by party loyalists who have not bothered to consider and compare the actual candidates.

A dramatic example of this is happening this week in Montana's special congressional election, where the local sheriff’s office cited GOP candidate Greg Gianforte on a charge of misdemeanor assault for “body slamming” journalist Ben Jacobs after he asked the Republican about the GOP's recently passed health-care bill. It is more than likely that at least some voters undecided or leaning toward Gianforte will reconsider their vote in light of his seeming inability to control himself under pressure. How likely do you think it is that the outcome of the race will be changed, however, when you consider that election analysts estimate that roughly two-thirds of early votes had already been cast before one of the candidates faced an assault charge?

One possible way of fixing early voting abuse would be to permit absentee ballots to be mailed no sooner than three days before election day; ballots with earlier postmarks would be disqualified. To keep party operatives from rounding up ballots weeks in advance and bulk mailing them within the deadline, absentee ballots would also be required under penalty of law to be signed on the day they were mailed. Such a deadline would not seriously inconvenience any of the intended users of absentee voting, those actually absent from their precincts, while allowing campaigns to play out to the fullest extent possible.

For the Record:

"This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!" -- Pres. Donald Trump

"As the Representative of Salem, MA, I can confirm that this is false." -- Rep. Seth Moulton

A new New Deal

In another ridiculous discussion of Bernie Sanders' undermining of the grand old Democratic Party, this: "We are the only party in the last 100 years to successfully push this country toward real progress."

This is absolutely true. It also ended about 45 years ago. The history of the country since the early 1970s is a record of decline. And since the 70s, the Democrats have held the reins of power more often than the Republicans. In that time, we have suffered militarization of foreign policy and, domestically, of the police; incarceration of vast numbers of citizens; severe decline of infrastructure; neglect of public services; huge transfers of public wealth into private hands; decimation of the middle class; a housing crisis; increased poverty...

It is true that more Democrats than Republicans resisted these developments, but not a majority and not the leadership; that is an argument for electing Democrats with those principles and policy goals; it is not an argument favoring continuing control of the party by neoliberals. Most Democrats agree on social issues (abortion excepted), but that's not why we're Democrats; you can be a liberal on social issues and still favor right-wing and libertarian economic policies. The reason to make progressive economic policies primary is that they are the area of broadest agreement among Democrats (neo-liberals excepted), and the guarantee of a decent life -- basic income, a roof over one's head, the ability to be properly educated and trained, protection from impoverishment by medical catastrophe, job loss or old age -- has the broadest appeal to the electorate.

History will look back at the last 40 years as the Reagan-Clinton era. It is time to turn in a different direction, back toward the road to economic and social justice that was the promise of Democrats like Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. We need a new New Deal. The goal should be a great society, not an okay one.

From the Say Wha? Desk

From the Your-Mouth-To-God's-Ear Desk:

“I’m not a candidate for FBI director.” -- Rudy Giuliani, at the Trump hotel bar in D.C. after midnight early Wednesday morning.

Who's on first?

It's revealing that the establishment media in the U.S., having taken repeated notice of the number of French voters who abstained or cast blank ballots in the French presidential election to raise questions about Emmanuel Macron's legitimacy ("blank invalid ballots account for 9% of all registered voters; abstention rate at 24.52%"), is not similarly troubled about the U.S. government's legitimacy given that about 40% of adult Americans routinely abstain from voting.

"French election results: The case for saying Marine Le Pen actually came third," as one headline put it. Applying this analysis to November's results, Donald Trump came in third, Hillary Clinton second, and -- to the relief of most Americans -- None of the Above is president of United States.

From the Money-Talks-Bullshit-Walks Desk:

“No district is off the table." -- Rep. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the House Democratic campaign chairman.

Except, so far, for Kansas and Montana. In other words, except for two out of three.

Fight!

Republican Tommy Pope is favored over Democrat Archie Parnell in SC's 5th District next month. That contest is unlikely to see the same magnitude of investment from national parties and superpacs currently flooding the special elections in Georgia and Montana. Apparently, it will be more like the Kansas race that was narrowly lost because of the national Democrats' disinterest.

So much for the "50 States" strategy.

If the Democrats are serious about winning in 2018 and 2020, they will need to treat every contest seriously, not least because a losing race can lay the foundation for a win later and can influence outcomes in neighboring districts and in contests further up the political food chain, such as governor and senator. The Working Families Party, Greens, independents, et al might want to look at whether the Democrats' strategy of giving up various congressional districts and senate seats without a fight is an opportunity.

Yelling at buildings is not enough

The resistance is gratifying and fun and maybe consciousness-raising, but real change will come from an aggressive and eventually victorious opposition.

In the fight over the omnibus spending bill, the Democrats didn't do too badly: no funding for the border wall; no penalty for sanctuary cities; no rollback of environmental programs; no gutting of consumer financial protections; plus funding for ACA subsidies, Planned Parenthood, miners’ health benefits, and Medicaid payments for Puerto Rico.

But both the reactionaries now in power and the neoliberals they replaced must be overcome in 2018 and 2020 if the republic is to be set back on the road toward economic and social justice from which it was deflected 40 years or so ago. It will do us no good to go back to the politics and policies that made the reactionaries' victory possible -- inevitable -- in the first place.

Comprehensive Government Funding Bill Released (U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations).

At the gym

Amazon Prime streaming just delivered, in sequence, R. Stevie Moore, Delbert McClinton, Ben Webster, Eden Atwood, the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet, Jim Hall, Bessie Smith, Johnny Hodges, Horace Tapscott, Tommy Dorsey, Alan Holdsworth, Hoagy Carmichael, the MGs, Glenn Miller, Don Byas, Bach's Mein Herze, Casey Bill Weldon, Billy Eckstein, Anita O'Day, Ida Cox with Papa Charlie Jackson, and Isaac Hayes.

Newspeak

"War is Peace" has been the watchword of U.S. foreign policy for decades. Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama: each liked to wave his gun around. Dropping bombs on people is a presidential pastime, because it is as easy as ordering dessert and, for the commander in chief, politically risk free, American voters valuing as they do looking tough over being tough. Joining the Democrats in rechristening the various military adventures he inherited as "Trump's wars" will not end militarism. To succeed, the peace movement, should it remobilize, will need to take on both parties. Both are drenched in blood.

quote unquote: Woody Allen

"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." -- Woody Allen

A Poster Is Worth A Thousand Words Dept.

How many people are locked up in the United States?

DINO Mite

Sen. Joe Manchin ("D"-WV) attended Donald Trump’s signing Tuesday of his executive order on energy, designed to unwind former President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Manchin said in a statement that "the Clean Power Plan failed to balance economic and environmental interests.”

Beto v. Ted: Anglo with Mexican name to challenge Cuban-American with Anglo name

Former punk rocker and moderate Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso will announce on Friday that he’ll challenge Senator from Hell Ted Cruz in 2018, according to the Houston Chronicle. Democratic establishment favorite Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio is among other Texas Democrats mulling a run (if you're keeping score at home, Castro was 123rd in the liberal rankings in 2013; O'Rourke ranked 54th).

About that referendum?

We were just kidding.

In November, citizens around the U.S. said they wanted minimum-wage hikes, higher taxes, and criminal-justice reform. Now their elected officials are trying to roll those changes back. “This isn’t how democracy works,” said Justine Sarver, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a nonprofit that works with progressive ballot campaigns. “You don’t get to pick and choose when you like a process and when you don't.”

The rest of the story:
The Legislators Working to Thwart the Will of Voters by David A. Graham (The Atlantic)

I care, you care, we all care for Obamacare

Except for two Democratic members of the House.

The House Budget Committee yesterday approved 19-17 a motion to send GOP legislation to repeal and replace the 2010 health care law to the full House w/o the support of three Republicans: Reps. Mark Sanford, Dave Brat and Gary Palmer, all Freedom Caucus members. Two Democrats, NY Rep. John Faso and MN Rep. Jason Lewis, voted to move the bill out of committee. Without the Democratic votes, the bill would have failed in committee.

Democratic voters in the NY-19 and MN-02 congressional districts may want to start looking at primary challengers.

quote unquote: Jimmy Breslin

"Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers” -- Jimmy Breslin

The People Polled

From FOX poll released yesterday:

"I'm going to read you the names of several individuals, groups, and items. Please tell me whether you have a generally favorable or unfavorable opinion of each one."

Favorable:
Bernie Sanders 61%
Planned Parenthood 57%
The 2010 health care law, also known as Obamacare 50%
Mike Pence 47%
Donald Trump 44%
Elizabeth Warren 39%
Paul Ryan 37%
Nancy Pelosi 33%
Sanctuary cities 33%
WikiLeaks 31%
Chuck Schumer 26%
Mitch McConnell 20%
The Freedom Caucus 19%

Trump does not represent America.

"Americans disagree with President Donald Trump's immigration priorities, according to a new CNN/ORC poll, with nearly two-thirds of Americans saying they'd like to see a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants rather than deportations.

"Trump has made tough border security and strict enforcement of US immigration laws a focal point of his campaign and presidency -- using some of his first executive orders to pave the way for far more deportations and detentions as well as ordering the construction of a Southern border wall.

"But a CNN/ORC poll released Friday finds that the public is actually moving in the opposite direction since Trump has won election." -- CNN 2017-03-17

Raising a brown boy in the time of Donald J. Trump

Sikh-American civil rights advocate Valarie Kaur's plea to her country.

Least Shocking Headline of the Day:

As Rebels Move Out of Colombia Drug Trade,
Corporations Look to Move In -- NewYork Times 2017-03-10

Liberation: The Real "Long War"

Nina Vatolina: Fascism – The most evil enemy of women, 1941.

"No," he explained.

"Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he's never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency." -- Carson adviser Armstrong Williams, The Hill, 11/15/16.

"Ben Carson Is Confirmed as HUD Secretary" -- New York Times, 3/2/17.

Priorities

"The City Council feels a need for speed when it comes to substantially shortening the runway at Santa Monica Airport." -- Today's paper.

This is the same city council that, in 30 years and counting, has not been able to deliver a commissioned stop sign to Main Street between Hill and Ashland.

And where are those promised parklets, by the way?

What did Donald Trump know, and when did he know it?

General Michael Flynn's traitorous actions are part of a GOP tradition stretching back at least as far as the Nixon-Kissinger "signals" to North Vietnam and Reagan's Iran-Contra-temps, itself organized by the National Security Council.

Reading List:
Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, resigns over Russia lies by Yochi Dreazen (Vox) The fall of Michael Flynn: A timeline 8y Glenn Kessler (Washington Post). Michael Flynn Is Out - Will Trump Be Next? by Mike Ludwig (Truthout)
The Missing Pieces of the Flynn Story (New York Times editorial).
Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence by Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo (New York Times).
Michael Flynn's White House Tenure: It's Funny 'Cause It's Treason by Stephen Colbert (YouTube).

Not The Onion: AZ introduces DIY executions.

As states have faced challenges to carrying out executions by lethal injection, various work-arounds and alternatives have been proposed, including the return of electric chairs and firing squads. Arizona may have come up with the most original concept yet: an invitation for lawyers to help kill their own clients.

The rest of the story:
Arizona's execution protocol invites death row inmates'lawyers to provide drugs to kill their own clients – a suggestion attorneys describe as ludicrous: Arizona unveils new death penalty plan - bring your own lethal injection drugs by Tom Dart (The Guardian)