The Carpentariat

"We the Emotionally Disturbed People"

Because the state "takes a strict view" of federal election law, an unknown number of "average citizens of Arizona, from all walks of life … have discovered that our past [state] elections in 2018 thru 2020 are out of compliance per the U.S. Election Assistance Commission," says a press release by said average citizens of Arizona, a group a.k.a. "We the People."

Hence be it known: They are asking the state's Supreme Court to unseat "all state … officials" elected in those years — "inadvertent usurpers" all, because of what We the People say were uncertified "machines and devices" used to record votes. The plaintiffs contend that the court can nullify the officials' terms "and install themselves as appropriate replacements," reports Vice.com. Pretty nifty, eh?

Among the 2018 to-be-nullified and usurping ones, it so happens, are Democratic U.S. Senator Krysten Sinema and Arizona's heretical Republican governor, Doug Ducey. And, of course, 2020's President Biden, or rather his Arizona EVs.

Meanwhile We the People, along with looking for bamboo fibers in Maricopa County's presidential ballots, were for a while using UV lights on those ballots in search of watermarks — put there by that very stable genius — to later confirm rampant election fraud. These two actions alone, past and present, should be enough to impel Arizona's Supreme Court take the group very seriously.

More comedy from House Republicans

Politico's Playbook hears this from a House Republican, one "long seen as an ally of leadership":

"Kevin McCarthy has pissed off enough members of his own conference that he’s going to have … to figure out where his votes are" — should midterm misfortunes befall America and McCarthy, undoubtedly, seeks the speakership.

"I’d be worried if I was him," continued, in dreadful English, the one-time ally. "You have people like me who are ... disgusted with the internal squabbling that results from having weak leadership. And it is weak leadership. Straight up."

This member and others are unhappy with the minority leader, writes Politico, "because of all the recent drama" — which includes McCarthy being for Liz Cheney and against Liz Cheney, bemoaning her independence "while allowing members like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz to run wild," criticizing Trump and then reversing his criticism of Trump.

Here, though, is the best part of Politico's reporting: "[The above-quoted House member] accused McCarthy of having no moral compass as he moves to punish Cheney."

That pecksniffian view of McCarthy's "moral compass" is brought to us by a member whom Politico describes as no "moderate." Hence our confidence needle pegs at the highest degree in believing that this member's own moral compass — plus that of most House Republicans — mandated that Trump's insurrectionist acts be overlooked and that democracy be cancelled.

What a lovely bunch of coconuts.

GOP pols furiously crack down on GOP voters

Has it occurred to Republicans pols that they're calling many of their own supporters sponges, shirkers and contemptible lazy asses?

A bloody shame it is that President Biden resisted uncorking those very words during his televised speech yesterday, in which he addressed the latest, devastating jobs numbers, which they weren't. To hear Republicans tell it, though, they were indeed just that, a telegraphing of America's End Times.

The sinister cause of this partisan, run-amok calamity? The Democratic president's queenish and kingish welfare dole, also known in sentimentally liberal and pointy eggheaded circles as extended unemployment benefits. What a frightful web Mr. Biden has woven, growl Republicans, and only because their pandemic-neglecting president heaved America into a genuinely devastated economy.

Thus are millions of America's GOP-voting, working-class slackers and shirkers — the very same Americans the GOP has always saluted as this nation's noblest and finest feature — slopping up weekly swill at Joe Biden's trough, with a brazen contempt for industriousness. Why, one might even get the idea they're as shameless as small-government, taxpayer-bankrolled, earmark-greedy Republican politicians.

But, back to that bloody shame. Mr. Biden just had to go all quaintly presidential-like on us again yesterday, speaking with calm and intelligence. This manner of yearslong unpresidential behavior has been a traumatic shock to the American public. The least he could do is plant some incremental steps on the restoration path to presidential dignity.

By which I mean, yesterday he still had residual license to somewhat bombastically tell Republicans pols that they are calling many of their own supporters sponges, shirkers and contemptible lazy asses.  

A needed change, please

If you're accessing this site via a bookmarked "pmcarpenter.blogs.com," please delete the "blogs" part, and re-bookmark. The "blogs.com" URL is an old one, and Google, with all its high-tech knowledge, is incapable of counting those clicks under the proper UR, which is, simply, "pmcarpenter.com." No bloggy stuff there. I solicit your help in this correction because by not applying the old URL to my actual URL, Google under-ranks "pmcarpenter.com" in readers' searches, thereby reducing readership and reader support. I thank you. —PM

Newsmax really, really doesn't want to talk about Newsmax

This less-than-two-minute clip is priceless. The "news" network's guest, David Litt, a speechwriter for President Obama, preferred to talk not about the triviality of an "SNL" host, but about something important — imagine that — something rather pressing, and in a "Have you stopped beating your wife?" way. (Jan Wolfe is a Reuters legal-affairs reporter.)

Brilliant: he was invited on air to talk about Elon Musk and instead called out Newsmax for its election lies.

“Newsmax lied to its own viewers and had to settle that lawsuit...Are you still telling that lie or are you telling new lies?”
pic.twitter.com/dIE3uOttrD

— Jan Wolfe (@JanNWolfe) May 10, 2021

America's Right and England's Right - much difference?

Last week, apart from their Scotland and Wales troubles, Boris Johnson's Conservatives continued their 2019 "blowout" in northern England's "once-[Labour]-loyal industrial communities," notes E.J. Dionne. There, we are seeing a phenomenon similar to American politics: A split "between socially liberal … wealthy metropolitan areas where [Labour] remains strong … and its older base in struggling, pro-Brexit, working-class towns," where Tories are now kicking ass.

Dionne's argument is this: "A Trumpist Republican Party that had taken the coronavirus pandemic more seriously and had delivered tangible benefits to its working-class supporters [as Tories have] might not be in such a hole today." That could be. Yet I wonder about Dionne's musing, and by a University of Kent politics professor's remarks to the BBC: The Tories' blowout was propelled by "voters who have been left behind by the economic transformation of the country."

My questioning of both men's seemingly self-evident logic is prompted by my post of yesterday, in which an American politics professor noted that the "media narrative [that] attributed Trump’s political rise to widespread economic dissatisfaction and anxiety" was, in brief, mostly humbug. More factually, he observed, "several studies [have shown that] economic distress was a weak predictor of support for Trump in the 2016 general election." Cultural, status anxieties born of racism and xenophobia played stronger roles in his 2016 win, of sorts. (In Trump's case, also hyperpartisanship.)

Which then takes us back to England's Labour-Tory split "between socially liberal … wealthy metropolitan areas" and "struggling, pro-Brexit, working-class towns." Again, sound familiar? And could it be that English media and even some of the country's political scientists are still hung up on the economic-grievances argument, rather than perceiving, quite possibly, the greater likelihood of cultural grievances? I suspect we're not alone.

Netanyahu & Co. vs. Palestinians and the world

After today's Israeli police force entry into East Jerusalem's Aqsa mosque — injuring 330 Palestinians and hospitalizing "at least 250," reports the NY Times — Benjamin Netanyahu said "a struggle is now being waged for the heart of Jerusalem. It is not a new struggle. It is the struggle between intolerance and tolerance, between lawless violence and law and order." That from a prime minister on trial for corruption.

"Tensions were expected to rise further as the day progressed, with thousands of far-right Israelis scheduled to march provocatively through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City on Monday afternoon." Again, about that law-and-order business as hailed by Netanyahu: Israel has occupied East Jerusalem (including the Old City) since 1967, and effectively, illegally annexed it in 1980.

Today's understated "tensions" have escalated because of Israel having tightened Palestinians' Old City access during Ramadan, because of far-right Israeli marches through the city, and because of Israeli settlers' anticipated removal of about 70 Palestinians from their East Jerusalem homes.

Once more let's hear it for Netanyahu's law and order — this, again from the Times: "Witnesses at the mosque reacted with shock at the Israeli police tactics at one of the world’s holiest sites."

Another notch in the bottomless shaft of GOP lying

Astonishing.

It's common knowledge that the GOP — nearly all of its officeholders, its media propaganda arms, its strategists — lies to the public about everything. The expansiveness of its lies is so commonly known, even a brief review would be needlessly tiresome. Circling back to this post's first word, however: Sheer astonishment is what emerged when I read this Washington Post story about some recent activities by the party's House campaign organ, the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Retaking the chamber in 2022 is the NRCC's sole raison d'être for the next 17 months, and a large part of its purpose is to provide objective, internal polling to Republican officeholders. Turns out, their very own campaign organ has been lying to them.

At House members' April retreat, reveals the Post (from leaky sources), NRCC staffers presented polling data from "core battleground districts." Some of it, that is. In their talks, the staffers just happened to omit perhaps the most essential discovery: "a key finding about Trump’s weakness" in these districts — his "unfavorable ratings were 15 points higher than his favorable ones," and "nearly twice as many voters had a strongly unfavorable view of the former president as had a strongly favorable one." (By contrast, President Biden's "perilous"-to-Republicans favorability was at 54 percent.)

Addressing ranking committee chairs at a March retreat, the NRCC pulled the selfsame stunt.

Astonishing — and joyous. If they listen to only the NRCC,  Republican House candidates will go traipsing around these battleground districts praising His Majesty, utterly blinkered to the self-defeating facts of His Peril.

There is of course something of a catch-22 to all this: Even if they're aware of Trump's reigning unpopularity, swing-district incumbents will still need to publicly worship him, given the justified fear of being primaried. Later, while seeking the center during the general election season, their worshipful, base-pleasing paeans will haunt, trapping them in the far right. Democratic candidates, the DNCC and other organizations will make sure of that. 

As for the NRCC, can it go any lower? Stay tuned. GOP campaign organs always find a way.

Partisan views of the economy: almost comical from the right

A prime exhibit of what excessive partisanship does to the brain:

Writing for FiveThirtyEight, political scientist Michael Tesler observes:

"Even after a prolonged period of growth in GDP, household income, employment and the stock market during Barack Obama’s presidency, about 70 percent of Republicans consistently thought the economy was getting worse in 2016 — nearly the same share who are now pessimistic about the economy’s trajectory under Biden. (By contrast, fewer than half of Republicans said the economy was getting worse at the height of the coronavirus recession, when the U.S. economy was in its worst shape since the Great Depression.)"

As for any both-sides clamor, I totally understand Democrats' "partisan" gloom during the recent monarchy. Trump hadn't a clue about macroeconomic policy — or governing in general. And sure enough, the pandemic hit, His Majesty fouled up the national response in every way conceivable, and thus the economy blew up. Not to be too Marxist about this, but history dictated that something would strangle Trump's boasting about President Obama's markedly improving economy. Dems rightly anticipated just that. 

Tesler's even larger point is that "a media narrative … attributed Trump’s political rise to widespread economic dissatisfaction and anxiety." Yet that wasn't the case; Trump's rise came from a one-two punch by extreme partisanship and racism, the politics of resentment. "That’s confirmed by several studies showing economic distress was a weak predictor of support for Trump in the 2016 general election," notes Tesler. Nevertheless, the media persisted "with stories about his voters’ apparent economic grievances."

Given that Republicans will again persist in their grim and ghoulish tales of President Biden's economy, Tesler wraps with this: "Will we, as a nation, fall for the same trick once again?"

Well, the right's excessively partisan and racist voters sure will. The real trick lies in simply outnumbering them at the polling booth. 

About those jobs numbers

​​​​​Speaking of the economy, yesterday's jobs report — it seems I'm always playing catch-up — "confound[ed] rosy forecasts of the pace of the recovery," wrote the Times. Disturbing to some was that economists had foretold "an addition of about a million jobs."

But take heart, as I always have in the wisdom of Diane Swonk, chief economist at the business-advisory firm of Grant Thornton. Said Swonk to the Times:

“It turns out it’s easier to put an economy into a coma than wake it up. It’s understandable, it’s going to take some time, you’re not just going to snap your fingers and get everyone back to work…. I don’t view this as terribly troubling or distressing."

She's not alone. Added another economist at a financial services company: "A single report with unexpected weakness in job gains is not a cause for concern."

Right on time, though, the exceedingly despondent Nikki Haley tweeted: "What a disappointing job report." John Hawley chimed in — "Disastrous jobs numbers today" — as I'm sure all the other Republican pants-wetters did.

This, indeed, is the kind of thing that makes "U.S. politics truly awful," as a WSJ editorialist rightly — yet, weirdly, mistakenly — put it.  

***

Is it odd that until this week's end, Republicans were saying the economy was humming along so beautifully, there was no need for most of Biden's jobs plan? And just like that, on a dime, they then say the economy is just horrible (but naturally they still won't support Biden's jobs plan). Is it odd? Not at all. It's just the way these boys and girls run.

"Simply Irresistible" — simply extraordinary

Put against the feel-good, sentimentally exploitative, television "Madmen" hustling of Coke — which, in reality, I do not question as non-fiction — this ad topped all the "soda pop" commercials of yore. Unquestionably.

Hip coolness, sexiness everywhere, beautiful women displaying their desire to "drink" Pepsi, an uproarious "squirt" plus a "down-dribble," an ass-rhythmic, musical pounding to suit the '80s era — this ad had it all. 

The splendid vocalist, Robert Palmer, died at the early age of 54, from a heart attack. It's a goddamn shame that life itself isn't just "Simply Fair."

Here's his single-released, 4.5 minute version:

 

Because you want to know: The origin of parallel parking.

My daughter Ellie and I were on the phone this afternoon when she said, "OK, here's a completely random question" — but not that random, since she's now contending daily with Seattle's street parking — "What is the historical origin of parallel parking?" This question intrigued me deeply, and I had to admit that this immensely noteworthy topic was never covered in my formal studies. Hence I asked her, as a university-qualified historian herself, to check out this very important subject. She did. And within minutes of our call's termination, Ellie sent these two insights" the first, from one Jason Lancaster of "AccurateAutoAdvice.com," submitted to a Quora forum she ran across:

In the OLD days - long before the car existed - loading and unloading wagons was the genesis of parallel parking (at least that's my opinion).

"To unload a wagon, you would back up to the dock. However, you couldn't leave your team of horses sitting out in the street, as other wagons had to get by. SO, you would teach your horses to sidestep without moving the wagon away from the dock...it's a tricky maneuver, but the net result is that you park your team of horses along the side of the street.

Of special delight, Ellie also unearthed this bit of video tchotchke from 1951:

Can American history get any better?

A MAGA insurrectionist appears in Zoom court. Hilarity ensues.

Now here's a clever chap. During his court appearance yesterday — on Zoom, to which he had invited his smitten comrades in flakiness to "troll" — on several charges of assaulting Capitol cops on Jan. 6, one Landon Copeland shrieked at the judge, reports the Daily Beast.

You people fucked this up. You’re going to give me a psych eval. I don’t like 70 percent of my income going to the government. Fuck all of you! I don’t like you people … you can’t come get me if I don’t want you to … Fuck all of you … Fuck all of you. I wanna talk in open court you motherfuckers!

Landon, we appreciate the f-variation and display of a wider vocabulary. Yet he seems to lack even a bit of layman legal knowledge, having earlier blasted a court clerk: "You are evil! At what point am I a free individual versus a pre-trial confinement individual? Is any of this negotiable? I used to be a free man ... until you locked me up."

It also seems that Landon is very much in need of at least two things: a freshman college course in jurisprudence, and that psych eval.

I assure you — had the psych thing already been conducted, with a team of psychiatrists having found that Mr. Copeland is a paranoid schizophrenic, I would not ridicule him. That's some serious shit, a physical ailment, as all "mental illness" is. But did his many fellow insurrectionists suffer from the same? The mathematical odds of that phenomenon are astronomical. Hence until Landon's diagnosis comes in, I'm guessing that he's just another MAGA idiot.

Either the WSJ editorial board can't make up its mind, or ...

Perhaps its editorialists are merely trying to cover all the bases.

Writes Deputy Editor Daniel Henninger in "Democrats Are Killing the American Dream":

"The Democratic Party has given up on the American dream … [by displacing] the country’s originating idea of individual opportunity with a broad birth-to-death entitlement state."

Then: "This isn’t about the culture wars" (my emphasis).

Yet alongside Henninger's opinion-page tease is that of editorial board member Joseph C. Sternberg's "Biden’s $6 Trillion Plan for Permanent Culture War":

"It’s time to talk about the single worst thing Mr. Biden’s plans will do to America…. To whom go the spoils?" Coyly, Sternberg answers in question form: "Immigrants and their children? Members of an allegedly privileged racial or ethnic group?" This, he avers, "will make U.S. politics truly awful, forever."

And we can count on Republican politicians and the right's always malcontented, always hyperaggressive media to make sure it is.

All hail Rep. Stefanik, a new national voice of Trumpian zaniness

It appears upstate New York's Rep. Elise Stefanik will soon be swiping Rep. Liz Cheney's ruby-red shoes as the fresh No. 3 House Republican. Well, Liz, "There's no place like home," murmured Dorothy, though yours ain't Kansas.

Also like Dorothy, Elise has always possessed the power to make her dream come true. She was just a trifle slow on the uptake. She was once a rather moderate Republican, but in the nick of time she grasped that moderation was out, insanity was in — and proceeded to make a national joke and jackass of herself, racing to reaffirm Trump's unmistakable integrity and honor.

Says GOP strategist Michael Steel, "[Republicans] are going to find a very smart, charming and confident younger member of Congress." Such as in her smart, "error-riddled statement published on Jan. 6," notes the Times, defending her decision to kiss Trump's ass and overthrow democracy. A kind of murder she wrote: "My [election-annihilating] vote is about restoring the faith of the American people in our elections."

Of particular charm was her endorsement yesterday of Arizona's unofficial "audit" of its 2020 presidential ballots, funded in part by the state's Republican Senate, where citizen Trumpers are searching for bamboo particles in said ballots — China was in on The Steal, you know.    

We're not there quite yet, but I so hope that someday we can find all this buffoonery simply instructive, rather than, in turns, comically burlesque and perfectly stomach-churning.