Republicans Archives - Page 4 of 7

The Donald v. McCain, et al.

I had this terrible thought recently: Donald Trump, whose corporations have filed for bankruptcy protection four times, could be President of the United States.

OK, I mean I don’t really believe that he could (do I?), but the skirmishes he has experienced recently have only enhanced his brand.

When he made those disparaging statements about Mexicans, the conventional wisdom was that it would hurt him politically. When his poll numbers went UP, early pundits suggested that they rose IN SPITE OF his comments. Now we’re pretty sure they went up BECAUSE OF his remarks.

He’s become a hero to those who are concerned about border security, and they don’t worry about the… lack of nuance, let’s say, in The Donald’s delivery. After Trump’s Phoenix, Arizona visit required securing a larger facility to hold the thousands of folks concerned about Mexican immigration, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) referred to them as “crazies.”

In retaliation, Trump attacked McCain’s military record, first saying that the former Vietnam War POW was not a hero, then, upon prompting, he says he is a hero, only because he was captured. On the subsequent news shows, he says that McCain IS a hero, and blames the media for distorting what he said.

(There’s a small group of Vietnam-era vets who seem to believe that McCain WAS no hero and ratted out the US to the North Vietnamese. Others believe that, as Senator, McCain buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam.)

While there were veterans’ organizations that denounced Trump, there are others who embraced him as someone speaking on behalf of the less-than-stellar treatment our returning soldiers have often endured.

McCain’s friend Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who’s running for President, called Trump a “jackass,” and in response, Trump gave out Graham’s personal cellphone number.

The Donald also took a shot at former Texas governor Rick Perry, suggesting those glasses he’s now wearing don’t actually make him any smarter. I may have made a similar observation.

Trump is even being credited by some with getting President Obama to order flags over the Capitol and the White House lowered to half-staff, in respect of the five military service members murdered in Chattanooga.

Currently, Trump holds a double-digit lead over his nearest Republican opponent. The leading paper in Iowa, who referred to him as a “feckless blowhard”, called on him to drop out of the race, which he most assuredly won’t do anytime soon, certainly not before the August 6 debates. Perhaps in January, if he’s tired of the game.

Trump’s biggest problem and this is important to Iowa Republicans, is that he doesn’t sound like a born-again Christian.

Ultimately, I think that some people are impressed with the way he will take on all comers. Most of the folks, who appreciate The Donald bringing up issues they believe in, also know in their hearts that he doesn’t have the temperament to hold the highest office in the land.

Or so I’m counting on. David Kalish wrote a humorous column about dreaming about Trump, who has a case of NTBH, or “Need to be Hated” syndrome. I quipped that NTBH is currently covered under Obamacare, but as David noted, it wouldn’t be if Trump were elected.

Your Republican Presidential debate participants (subject to change)

Jeb went from 17% to 15.4%. The Donald from 10.8% to 14.2%.

Here is the 2016 Republican Primary Debate Schedule. The first one will be on August 6, 2015, at 9 p.m. EDT in Cleveland, OH, airing on Fox News Channel.

The rules of participation: “the Top 10 candidates in an average of 5 national polls will be included.”

I looked at the graphic above from the Washington Post on July 16, and the percentages were these: Jeb Bush: 17; Donald Trump: 10.8; Scott Walker: 9.3; Marco Rubio: 7.8; Ben Carson: 7.6; Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee tied at 6.5; Ted Cruz: 5.1; Rick Perry and Chris Christie tied at 2.9.

I looked again on July 17, and the numbers changed radically: Jeb Bush: 15.4; Donald Trump: 14.2; Scott Walker: 8.9; Ben Carson: 7.6; Rand Paul: 6.5; Marco Rubio: 6.4; Mike Huckabee: 5.7; Ted Cruz: 5.1; Chris Christie: 2.7; and Rick Santorum, who had been an also-ran at 2.2. Rick Perry slipped off the podium at 2.1, along with John Kasich: 1.5; Bobby Jindal: 1.4; Carly Fiorina: 1.3; Lindsay Graham: 0.7; George Pataki: 0.5.

I don’t know what the cutoff date for selecting the candidates, but Christie, Perry, and Santorum seem to be battling for the last two slots.

(Hat tip to Arthur@AmeriNZ.)

I side with Bernie

TWICE in the past week, I’ve seen Bernie Sanders referred to as the governor of Vermont; he is not.

I took a couple of those I Side With quizzes. Nothing particularly surprising, except that my affinity with the Republican Party was worse than I thought.

I did take exception to a handful of the answer choices besides YES and NO being counted as the same as mine. For example: “Should National Parks continue to be preserved and protected by the federal government?”

Republicans: Yes, but allow limited logging, drilling, and mining. Your similar answer: Yes. Well, that’s not similar at all, to my mind. This USUALLY is not an issue, but it may skew some results.

Candidates you side with… (links are to the Weekly Sift stump speeches, a work in progress)

92% Bernie Sanders, Democrat (US Senator from VT, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats) on domestic policy, environmental, social, immigration, foreign policy, and healthcare issues. Incidentally, TWICE in the past week, I’ve seen Sanders referred to as the governor of Vermont, once on a network news program, once on the local Time Warner Cable News.

68% Hillary Clinton, Democrat (former US Senator from NY; former Secretary of State) on domestic policy, economic, and foreign policy issues.

28% John Ellis Bush, a/k/a Jeb!, Republican (former governor of FL) – no major issues.

21% Chris Christie, Republican (governor of NJ) on environmental issues. I have SERIOUS doubts that Christie said that thing about a Viagra-like pill for women.

17% Rand Paul, Republican (US Senator from Kentucky) on foreign policy issues.

15% Mike Huckabee, Republican (former governor of AR) – no major issues.

8% Ben Carson, Republican (doctor) – no major issues.

4% Scott Walker, Republican (governor of WI) – no major issues.

3% Rick Santorum, Republican (former US Senator from PA) – no major issues.

3% Marco Rubio, Republican (US Senator from FL) – no major issues.

1% Carly Fiorina, Republican (former corporate head) – no major issues.

1% Ted Cruz, Republican (US Senator from Texas) – no major issues.

I’d be curious how I would have fared vis a vis former governor George Pataki (R-NY), or the other two Democrats in the race, Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chaffee.

Parties you side with…

98% Green Party on domestic policy, economic, environmental, social, foreign policy, immigration, and healthcare issues.

95% Democrats on domestic policy, economic, environmental, foreign policy, social, immigration, healthcare, and education issues.

94% Socialist on domestic policy, economic, environmental, social, foreign policy, immigration, and healthcare issues.
And in case you wonder if I’m freaking about that designation, not especially.
From Daily Kos:
Bernie Sanders went on to express irritation with the way journalists slap the “socialist” label on him, as if his embrace of policies common in the democracies of western Europe makes him a radical outlier.
“It is not a radical agenda,” he said. “In virtually every instance, what I am saying is supported by a significant majority of the American people. Yes, it is not supported by the Business Roundtable or the Chamber of Commerce, or Wall Street. I may be old-fashioned enough to believe that Congress might want to be representing a vast majority of our people … and not just the Koch brothers and other campaign contributors.
“He suggested that if the media are going to refer to him as a socialist, journalists also should affix the label of ‘capitalist’ with every mention of his rivals.”

43% Libertarians on foreign policy issues.

37% Constitution Party on domestic policy issues.

4% Republicans – no major issues.

Oh, THAT Dennis Hastert

Why is it a crime to evade government scrutiny?

This is how much I had forgotten about Dennis Hastert: when I heard that the longest-serving Republican Speaker of the House (1999- 2007) had been indicted, I couldn’t even visualize what he looked like.

There’s been a lot of back-and-forth about the “victimization” of Hastert, that perhaps the former student he paid nearly $1 million, out of $3.7 million promised, was extorting the former Congressman.

And if Hastert had actually had sex with one of his male high school students, when he was a teacher and wrestling coach between 1965 and 1981, why is he charged with, essentially money laundering, specifically, withdrawing cash from his bank accounts in amounts and patterns designed to hide the payments to the former student?

As many have correctly pointed out, this is selective prosecution. As I’ve noticed over the years, though, a LOT of prosecution is selective.

Since he cannot be charged with a sex crime – the statute of limitation has run out, and proving a case 35 or more years old would have been nearly impossible anyway – the feds went in this direction. Moreover, a second alleged victim is deceased. It’s like getting Al Capone for tax evasion.

But I DO have some questions:

Why would Hastert take out $50,000 at a time early on? Did he not know this would trigger an investigation? Or was he of the belief that he was too important to be bothered with?

Why did he even talk to the FBI about this? He was under no obligation. Lying to the FBI, telling them that he was taking out money because he didn’t trust the banks, is the second part of the indictment.

More significantly, why is it a crime to evade government scrutiny? Yeah, yeah – we’re fighting terrorism and organized crime; I know the narrative.

From the Atlantic:

To see why that is unjust, it helps to set aside Hastert’s case and consider a more sympathetic figure. Imagine that a documentary filmmaker like Laura Poitras, whose films are critical of government surveillance, is buying a used video camera for $12,000. Vaguely knowing that a report to the federal government is generated for withdrawals of $10,000 or more, she thinks to herself, “What with my films criticizing NSA surveillance, I don’t want to invite any extra scrutiny — out of an abundance of caution, or maybe even paranoia, I’m gonna take out $9,000 today and $3,000 tomorrow. The last thing I need is to give someone a pretext to hassle me.”

That would be illegal, even though in this hypothetical she has committed no crime and is motivated, like many people, by a simple aversion to being monitored.

I’m feeling conflicted. On one hand, I’m happy to see Hastert’s apparent bad behavior being brought to light. The irony that he became Speaker because he was “clean”, especially in comparison with the previous House Speaker, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and his presumed successor, Robert L. Livingston of Louisiana, who were known to be involved in extramarital affairs.

Former Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) blasted the Republican hypocrisy of going after President Bill Clinton for his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky, even having him impeached when the leadership has these activities on their resumes.

On the other hand, the underlying monitoring policy, like many of the provisions of the recently modified USA PATRIOT Act, feels like government overreach. Of course, the irony is that it was the very Patriot Act that Hastert got passed that led to his indictment.

William Rivers Pitt- The Loved and the Lost: A Note to the Biden Family. And bad karma to those mocking Joe Biden at this painful time.

Two music greats died this week. Read about Jean Ritchie and Ronnie Gilbert.
***
Like many people, I wish Caitlyn Jenner well, but desperately wish I didn’t have to hear about the Kardashians yet again.

The Arthurian election reform article

What IS the solution to a fairer voting process?

After the 2012 Presidential election – thank every deity it is over – you may recall that only a handful of states were crucial to the decision – Ohio! Florida! Virginia! The Democratic “blue” states – New York, California – were not in play, nor were the Republican “red” states such as Texas. Candidates didn’t campaign in those because of most states’ “winner-take-all” mechanism when it came to the Electoral College. All the electoral votes of a state would go to one candidate. (The upside is that I missed the vast majority of the political ads.)

So the recent Republican plan to change states from winner-takes-all, the way every state, except Maine and Nebraska, does it, to awarding electoral votes by Congressional District, seems to be fairer. And it would be if Congressional boundary lines were drawn equitably.

But as Arthur@AmeriNZ noted a few weeks ago, “Republicans… worked hard, and spent large amounts of money, to win control of state legislatures in 2010 precisely so that they could write the congressional district maps to ensure Republican victories — they now even admit that was their plan all along. This gerrymandering by Republicans is the reason that they control the US House of Representatives even though they received fewer votes than Democrats did. Now, they want to do the same thing in presidential elections.

“Were it not for gerrymandering, the Republican plan would be closer to a proportional system for electing a president than the current winner-take-all approach allows for.” That’s why I had originally thought of such a solution, which seemed obvious at the time, years ago. “However,” and I also noted this at the time, “because of gerrymandering, it instead cynically twists that goal to ensure Republicans win the presidency even if they lose the popular vote—something that could very well happen every election under the Republican plan. So, what we’d end up with is something far less democratic than what we have now.” Which is not very democratic at all.

“If the US were to pass a Constitutional Amendment requiring all states to use truly non-partisan commissions to draw the boundaries of Congressional Districts based solely on population—and forbidding them from taking party voting history of areas into account—then it might be possible to make the Republican plan credible.” This, of course, will NEVER happen. In New York, there were lost promises of having nonpartisan boundaries drawn. “However, most state legislatures would never give up their power to draw the maps, and Republicans aren’t about to walk away from the one thing that could ensure their minority party retains power for at least the next decade…

“The best possible solution would be direct popular election of the president — abolish the Electoral College altogether.” That would be true in the abstract. But the sad fact is that in the real world, I don’t know if I want my vote in New York State, in a close national election, compromised by voter suppression in Pennsylvania, incompetence in Florida, or outright fraud in Ohio.

Arthur noted that, in the current system, “small states are overrepresented,” and of course, that is accurate, but also intentional. A state such as Wyoming has one member of the House of Representatives, so three electoral college votes for the one House seat, plus the two Senate seats. New York has 27 members of the House, so 29 electoral votes. Wyoming has in fact about 3% of the population as New York; changing it to direct vote would, in fact, make the folks THERE less likely to cast a ballot. No small state would pass a Constitutional amendment to make their voters have less impact.

What IS the solution to a fairer voting process? Failing the suggestions put forth, such as fair reapportionment, which simply won’t happen, I have no idea.