Mob Rule
In 2016, the Republican primaries were a joke not just because so many who ran were ridiculous, but because so many ran. For the Democrats, 2020 looks even worse, with by one account nearly 50 infected with the presidential bug.
But what if all the Democratic senators were to get together in pre-primary caucuses to pick one from their ranks to run? (Sen. Gillibrand estimates, perhaps over-optimistically, only eight senators will finally do so.)
And what if all the independent senators (there are currently two, both affiliated with the Democrats); all the members of the House (like Seth Moulton, John Delaney and Sean Patrick Maloney); all the governors (like John Hickenlooper, Steve Bullock and Terry McAuliffe); all the mayors (like Bill de Blasio and Pete Buttigieg); all the former office-holders (like Julián Castro, Martin O’Malley, Al Franken, Eric Holder and Mitch Landrieu); all the former losing presidential candidates (you know who they are); all the celebrities (like Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry, Alec Baldwin, Chris Rock and The Rock); and all the gazillionaires (like Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Howard Schultz and Tom Steyer); what if each of these factions gathers in caucus to pick one each to represent them?
Thus, instead of being absurdly overcrowded, the debates will be manageable and informative. We might reasonably expect to end up with something on the order of this: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Ind. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Gov. Jay Inslee, Mayor Eric Garcetti, former Gov. Deval Patrick, former senator and presidential candidate John Kerry, celebrity Will Smith and billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
Nine candidates on the debate stage. That'd work.
Better than 50, anyway.
And what if all the independent senators (there are currently two, both affiliated with the Democrats); all the members of the House (like Seth Moulton, John Delaney and Sean Patrick Maloney); all the governors (like John Hickenlooper, Steve Bullock and Terry McAuliffe); all the mayors (like Bill de Blasio and Pete Buttigieg); all the former office-holders (like Julián Castro, Martin O’Malley, Al Franken, Eric Holder and Mitch Landrieu); all the former losing presidential candidates (you know who they are); all the celebrities (like Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry, Alec Baldwin, Chris Rock and The Rock); and all the gazillionaires (like Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Howard Schultz and Tom Steyer); what if each of these factions gathers in caucus to pick one each to represent them?
Thus, instead of being absurdly overcrowded, the debates will be manageable and informative. We might reasonably expect to end up with something on the order of this: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Ind. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Gov. Jay Inslee, Mayor Eric Garcetti, former Gov. Deval Patrick, former senator and presidential candidate John Kerry, celebrity Will Smith and billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
Nine candidates on the debate stage. That'd work.
Better than 50, anyway.
Hit Parade
Saudi Arabia now admits that Jamal Khashoggi died accidentally during fisticuffs with the 15 assassins and clean-up crew sent to Turkey by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to kill him. "During the incident," according to Business Insider, "a forensic specialist suspected to have played a role in the alleged incident recommended that people nearby should listen to music as they dismembered Khashoggi's body."
That playlist has now been released:
Bill Haley & the Comets: Mack the Knife (instrumental -- to set the mood)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Sword of Damocles ("I'm at the start of a pretty big downer")
Rage Against the Machine: Killing In The Name Of! ("Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
AC-DC: Night Of The Long Knives ("Stab him in the back")
Pink Floyd: One Of These Days ("I'm going to cut you in little pieces")
Talking Heads: Psycho Killer ("Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh....")
Velvet Acid Christ: Fun with Knives ("Blood, guts, fun with knives, die, die, die, die for me")
The Cure: Killing An Arab ('I'm alive, I'm dead, I'm the stranger killing an Arab")
Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody ("Too late, my time has come, sends shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time, goodbye, everybody")
Radio Head: Knives Out ("I want you to know...I'm not coming back")
G.G. Allin: 99 Stab Wounds ("Decapitation, decapitation, decapitation, decapitation")
Bobby Darin: Mack the Knife ("There's a tugboat, huh, huh, down by the river don'tcha know, where a cement bag's just a'droppin' on down, oh, that cement is just, it's there for the weight, dear")
Police: Murder By Numbers ("But you can reach the top of your profession, if you become the leader of the land, for murder is the sport of the elected and you don't need to lift a finger of your hand")
Michael Jackson: Smooth Criminal ("Okay, I want everybody to clear the area right now!")
Nine Inch Nails: Another Version of the Truth (instrumental close)
That playlist has now been released:
Bill Haley & the Comets: Mack the Knife (instrumental -- to set the mood)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Sword of Damocles ("I'm at the start of a pretty big downer")
Rage Against the Machine: Killing In The Name Of! ("Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
AC-DC: Night Of The Long Knives ("Stab him in the back")
Pink Floyd: One Of These Days ("I'm going to cut you in little pieces")
Talking Heads: Psycho Killer ("Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh....")
Velvet Acid Christ: Fun with Knives ("Blood, guts, fun with knives, die, die, die, die for me")
The Cure: Killing An Arab ('I'm alive, I'm dead, I'm the stranger killing an Arab")
Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody ("Too late, my time has come, sends shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time, goodbye, everybody")
Radio Head: Knives Out ("I want you to know...I'm not coming back")
G.G. Allin: 99 Stab Wounds ("Decapitation, decapitation, decapitation, decapitation")
Bobby Darin: Mack the Knife ("There's a tugboat, huh, huh, down by the river don'tcha know, where a cement bag's just a'droppin' on down, oh, that cement is just, it's there for the weight, dear")
Police: Murder By Numbers ("But you can reach the top of your profession, if you become the leader of the land, for murder is the sport of the elected and you don't need to lift a finger of your hand")
Michael Jackson: Smooth Criminal ("Okay, I want everybody to clear the area right now!")
Nine Inch Nails: Another Version of the Truth (instrumental close)
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Donald Trump should be referred to hereafter by his childhood nickname, Tiny.
Or, with all due respect, President Tiny.
Heading for the Lifeboats:
“According to recently released data from the Office of Personnel Management, the number of federal employees who filed for retirement increased 24 percent in fiscal 2018 over the previous year.” (Government Executive)
From the Elders of Zion desk:
Tough time for anti-semites with a political bent. Not possible to hate Sheldon Adelson, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros at the same time. One of them is your man.
From the Political Sideshows Desk:
Donald Trump’s racism, corruption, kleptocracy, endless war, poverty, homelessness -- these, not Elizabeth Warren’s DNA, are the real issues. Another sideshow in our political carnival.
quote unquote: James Joyce
"The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts." -- James Joyce's version of "Watch the feet not the mouth."
Hey, San Diego, what up?:
"In California, Republican Duncan Hunter -- the second congressman to endorse Trump for president –-- claims in television ads and speeches that his Democratic challenger, Ammar Campa-Najjar, is named after Yasser Arafat, and is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood in an attempt by ‘Islamists’ ‘to infiltrate Congress’. Campa-Najjar is of Mexican and Palestinian descent and is a practicing Christian. (Hunter has been indicted and is awaiting trial for spending at least $250,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses, including trips to Italy and Hawaii, his family’s dental work, his children’s tuition, movie tickets, video games, groceries, international travel for nearly a dozen relatives, and a $600 plane ticket for the family’s pet rabbit. He also purchased golf equipment for himself which he declared on finance forms was for wounded veterans. He first tried to blame his wife for these expenses, but after an outcry took responsibility. He is currently leading in the polls.) " -- Eliot Weinberger, London Review of Books
The rest of the story:
Ten Typical Days in Trump’s America by Eliot Weinberger, London Review of Books
Vote!
The Brett Kavanaugh thing isn't going away. A majority of Americans wants the investigation to continue, despite his confirmation. A lot is going to depend on the outcome of the November election. The Democrats may gain the House, but control of the Senate is crucial, too. Consider this: in 2013, the six senior Republican members of the Judiciary Committee all voted against the reauthorisation of the Clinton-era Violence against Women Act. It ultimately passed the Senate 78-22, but the upper body has continued its rightward drift since then. Who wins matters. Vote.
From the Keeping Outrage Alive desk:
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, some 1600 jobs at the EPA have been eliminated.
"Vote for Yetta and watch things get betta" (slogan, Yetta Bronstein presidential campaign, 1964)
Both major parties follow scripts leading up to elections. The GOP pitches prayer in the schools, criminalizing abortion and what amounts to racial cleansing. Never happens. The Democrats hawk social and economic justice (this year in the form of free education, Medicare for All and criminal justice reform). Never happens. Whatever is promised turns out to be "too hard," we can't afford it, the other side just won't compromise.
Whichever party wins, though, what does happen is this: endless war, corporate welfare, and unimpeded transfer of public wealth into private hands.
Vote. Vote locally. Vote strategically. But, wherever possible, don't vote for corporate shills and the war machine. Change is a long, slow process. It's not going to happen in one election. Or two. Or probably ten. But it's not going to happen at all if we keep falling for false narratives.
There are plenty of Democrats to vote for, especially at the local level. But we need to be selective. The Democratic establishment
If you don't favor kleptocracy and militarism, then in races where the outcome will be the same, don't vote. Or vote Green or Peace & Freedom or Working Families or whatever other off-brand choice you have. Or write in yourself or Lebron James or Kshama Sawant or Jimmy Dore or Helen Keller or Stormy Daniels or Noam Chomsky or the progressive who got outspent in the primary or anyone else you think will get across the point that you're not accepting business as usual or the lesser evil anymore.
Otherwise, change? Never happens.
Resource: Worker Writers
Worker Writers, an institute founded and directed by poet Mark Nowak, organizes and facilitates poetry workshops with global trade unions, workers’ centers, and other progressive labor organizations. These workshops create a space for participants to re-imagine their working lives, nurture new literary voices directly from the global working class, and produce new tactics and imagine new futures for working class social change.
Worker Writers has run workshops with organizations as varied as Domestic Workers United in New York City, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa in Port Elizabeth and Pretoria, Justice for Domestic Workers in London, and the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union in Amsterdam and The Hague. For the past four years, Worker Writers has facilitated annual workshops for the PEN World Voices Festival.
Other links:
PEN American Center
Organization for Undocumented Workers
The Working-Class Studies Association supports scholarship, teaching and activism related to working-class life and cultures.
Haley Bails
No surprise or consternation over the news that Nikki Haley is stepping down as United States ambassador to the United Nations. It must be wearisome to take Donald Trump's crap as a regular diet. Besides, it's well-known that she has higher aspirations. She wants to be the first female President of the United States.
Yeah. Well. Of course. But for Nikki Haley to be their nominee will require the Republicans to be rational enough to allow it. In the event, probably too few GOP leaders will be able to overcome their misogyny, but neither that nor the assumption that she'd make a terrible president should obscure the fact that it would be a clever move for the Republicans to nominate her. Good presidential candidates and good presidents are not necessarily cut from the same cloth. As a candidate, she'd be hard to beat.
Haley's articulate enough, and she cleans up good, as we used to say of someone making themselves presentable. She has a more solid record than any of the Senate blowhards who will offer themselves: she has business experience, including as a CFO; she was treasurer and then president of the National Association of Women Business Owners; she
served in the state legislature, in her first term beating a long-sitting GOP incumbent, in her last winning re-election by 83 - 17% over the Democrat; she served nearly two terms as governor before resigning to go to the UN: added together, business experience, a national network of contacts, both legislative and executive government service, and extensive foreign policy exposure make her CV hard to top.
In addition, because she agreed to serve Trump, the party whackos will give her a pass: the moneybags never had a problem with her. She demonstrated just enough independence from Trump at the UN to be plausible as an alternative. Now she's jumping ship just as a sea of troubles is washing over the president's gunwales (one way or another Trump himself is likely headed for the lifeboat: impeachment in the remote event the Democrats control the Senate and, even more remotely, man up; evidence of criminal activity -- from Mueller's or other investigations -- so incontestable the president will resign in exchange for immunity or pardon; a stroke; or retirement to his dacha in Mar-A-Lago so to gaze at leisure into gilded mirrors at the greatest president ever).
Finally, as both female and off-white, Haley cuts into two electoral assets the Democrats tend to fetishize (these advantages, if that's what they really are -- it's still the economy, stupid..., these advantages will evaporate if the Dems nominate an elderly white male). If it happened, her presidency would be about as good for women as Obama's was for African-Americans, but inevitably she would get a measurable amount of campaign support because of her gender and the Democrats would lose their "party of women" props in the process.
Nikki Haley's politics are terrible -- the best that can be said is that she evolved on the confederate flag issue under political pressure and she demonstrated a degree of independence on women's issues, but on other matters her policy positions are hard right: she was the Tea Party candidate for governor with a rousing endorsement from Sarah Palin, she is hostile to unions, she opposed the Affordable Care Act, she is against gun control, she has consistently voted for bills that restrict abortion, as governor she slashed the state budget at the expense of social programs, and she resigned her UN job one-day after being accused of accepting while in office a series of free private luxury plane flights from three South Carolina businessmen and GOP donors. She can't be held directly responsible for promoting Trump's anti-human rights agenda at the UN, because she was just doing her job, but she can be blamed for taking the job. Still, having shown a willingness to work across the aisle as legislator and governor, she will be hard to demonize. She'd be a formidable candidate for the Democrats to run against.
The next president will be a woman. Elizabeth Warren or Nikki Haley: Your choice.
The rest of the story:
Nikki Haley to Resign as Trump’s Ambassador to the U.N. by Maggie Haberman (New York Times)
Yeah. Well. Of course. But for Nikki Haley to be their nominee will require the Republicans to be rational enough to allow it. In the event, probably too few GOP leaders will be able to overcome their misogyny, but neither that nor the assumption that she'd make a terrible president should obscure the fact that it would be a clever move for the Republicans to nominate her. Good presidential candidates and good presidents are not necessarily cut from the same cloth. As a candidate, she'd be hard to beat.
Haley's articulate enough, and she cleans up good, as we used to say of someone making themselves presentable. She has a more solid record than any of the Senate blowhards who will offer themselves: she has business experience, including as a CFO; she was treasurer and then president of the National Association of Women Business Owners; she
 |
| Her Master's Voice |
In addition, because she agreed to serve Trump, the party whackos will give her a pass: the moneybags never had a problem with her. She demonstrated just enough independence from Trump at the UN to be plausible as an alternative. Now she's jumping ship just as a sea of troubles is washing over the president's gunwales (one way or another Trump himself is likely headed for the lifeboat: impeachment in the remote event the Democrats control the Senate and, even more remotely, man up; evidence of criminal activity -- from Mueller's or other investigations -- so incontestable the president will resign in exchange for immunity or pardon; a stroke; or retirement to his dacha in Mar-A-Lago so to gaze at leisure into gilded mirrors at the greatest president ever).
Finally, as both female and off-white, Haley cuts into two electoral assets the Democrats tend to fetishize (these advantages, if that's what they really are -- it's still the economy, stupid..., these advantages will evaporate if the Dems nominate an elderly white male). If it happened, her presidency would be about as good for women as Obama's was for African-Americans, but inevitably she would get a measurable amount of campaign support because of her gender and the Democrats would lose their "party of women" props in the process.
Nikki Haley's politics are terrible -- the best that can be said is that she evolved on the confederate flag issue under political pressure and she demonstrated a degree of independence on women's issues, but on other matters her policy positions are hard right: she was the Tea Party candidate for governor with a rousing endorsement from Sarah Palin, she is hostile to unions, she opposed the Affordable Care Act, she is against gun control, she has consistently voted for bills that restrict abortion, as governor she slashed the state budget at the expense of social programs, and she resigned her UN job one-day after being accused of accepting while in office a series of free private luxury plane flights from three South Carolina businessmen and GOP donors. She can't be held directly responsible for promoting Trump's anti-human rights agenda at the UN, because she was just doing her job, but she can be blamed for taking the job. Still, having shown a willingness to work across the aisle as legislator and governor, she will be hard to demonize. She'd be a formidable candidate for the Democrats to run against.
The next president will be a woman. Elizabeth Warren or Nikki Haley: Your choice.
The rest of the story:
Nikki Haley to Resign as Trump’s Ambassador to the U.N. by Maggie Haberman (New York Times)
Organize!
Today is the birthday of Joe Hill (Oct. 7, 1879 – Nov. 19, 1915), a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
One Person, One Vote
We will never have a genuine democracy until the upper house is reformed. In 1787, political compromise dictated that the Senate represent the States. In 2020, political justice demands that it represent the People.
Roots of Trumpism - a series
I think it was Nebraska Sen. Roman Hruska who memorably told the Senate, during the aborted* attempt to appoint Harold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court, that "It has been held against this nominee that he is a lying sack of shit. Even if he is a lying sack of shit, there are a lot of judges and people and lawyers who are lying sacks of shit. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they? And a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises, Cardozos and Frankfurters and stuff like that there." Or words to that effect.
*If you'll pardon the expression.
*If you'll pardon the expression.
Be afraid
Think of the Presidential Alert as a kind of Amber Alert. It warns that a sexual predator is on the loose in the West Wing.
Until this moment, Senators, I think we never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness.
So let's see if we have this straight.
The National Council of Churches opposes Brett Kavanagh. Countless Jewish and Roman Catholic leaders and organizations (not associated with fundamentalism) oppose Brett Kavanagh. The Human Rights Campaign opposes Brett Kavanaugh. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes Brett Kavanaugh. The American Bar Association opposes Brett Kavanagh. The American Civil Liberties Union opposes Brett Kavanagh. The National Women’s Law Center opposes Brett Kavanaugh. Over 1000 law school professors oppose Brett Kavanagh. Hundreds of psychiatrists and psychologists oppose Brett Kavanagh. Every women's group in the country (not associated with fundamentalism) opposes Brett Kavanagh. A majority of Americans opposes Brett Kavanaugh.
Even so, the Senate Republicans think it's a fine idea to install him on the Supreme Court, there to remain until well after most of those who put him there are dead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
