PMC Commentary

An Easter moment with the Donald, man of deep faith and Christian piety

He did remember the "Amen" part. And that's good enough for Mike Johnson God's vicar and his fellow lawmakers who don't know the U.S. Constitution from the Bible and all the little Johnsons out there, millions of them, who can't seem to grasp that a court-designated rapist, tax fraudster, book cooker, insurrection inciter and all-round mobster probably isn't the ideal prophet to make Christianity a central part of American governance. I guess he comes close enough.    

Trump attempts to say The Lord’s Prayer without a teleprompter. pic.twitter.com/6M7YsfnoaO

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 31, 2024

Putin's grand strategy, one step at a time

Last Thursday's attention-grabbing news of Vladimir Putin's Wednesday speech — in which he casually previewed WW III's triggering event: Russian bombers targeting NATO airfields — overshadowed the news of what his Ribbentrop ambassador to the United Nations was doing The Day After the Russian despot unveiled his apocalyptic vision.

Though largely overlooked or merely mentioned in press reports as subtext to the larger story, what Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia did last week was, in its own way, momentous. He attended a Security Council meeting to deliver a message to the West; a message stripped entirely of any diplomatic sugar coating, just to make sure there'd be no misunderstanding.

Mr. Nebenzia accused the Western world of attempting to "strangle" North Korea. The West's asphyxiating efforts have been manifested in sanctions whose "relevance" is fast fading, said Nebenzia, and in trying to halt the world's proliferation of nuclear weapons, the imposition of sanctions is "detached from reality," he added.

All this Russian disgruntlement and characteristic lecturing was leading somewhere. And its end point was this. For 14 years the U.N. has employed a panel of experts to oversee North Korean sanctions and, more critically, monitor the lunatic-led nation's nuclear weapons program. The Security Council met on Thursday to pass a resolution extending the panel's work another year. Ambassador Nebenzia vetoed it. As of next month, it's dead.

While killing the panel he denounced it as a body "increasingly being reduced to playing into the hands of Western approaches." Boom. Here was one more step taken by Putin not only rhetorically but materially to severe Russia from the stabilizing postwar order and replace it with the gangsterism of authoritarian chaos. Joining the USSRF (nationalists' term) are China, Iran, and North Korea.

The ambassador's blasting of "Western approaches" (which strikes me as a poor translation) was an articulation of Putin's paranoid mythology about Western hegemony. He will never admit that Russia is second banana to China's global power, but he can suppress that humiliating image by being the West's foremost antagonist. He'll decapitate U.S. leadership of the misguided free world — which is not free at all as long as it's "playing into the hands" of America's interests.   

Which is what the U.N. panel monitoring North Korea's activities was doing, groused the Russian ambassador, which was typical Putinesque piffle.

Calling it out was the U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N., who noted that Russia was shutting down the panel's work only because it "began reporting ... on Russia’s blatant violations" of Security Council resolutions; also Britain’s U.N. Ambassador, who noted the curious coincidence of Russia's veto following its arms deal with North Korea, including ballistic missiles it's using in Ukraine.

The West's outspoken anger at Putin's diplomatic deception was a standard byproduct of dealing with Russia, although the object of its anger was but a minor element in the Russian dictator's grand strategy.

It's obvious Putin wanted the U.N. investigative group shut down because of its future reporting on Russia's illicit arms trade with North Korea. The ruckus over that group, however, ultimately pointed to Putin's unyielding determination to disrupt and more so unravel the liberal world order which has kept the peace and fostered prosperity for almost 80 years.

If he lives long enough, privately the Russian autocrat might someday come to terms with his Chinese lapdog status. But if the West continues losing heart and resolve — that being the only path for Russia to continue winning — on his deathbed, Putin, with enormous satisfaction, can look back and see that he, more than anyone, was the driving, instrumental force in converting the world's liberal order into authoritarian gangsterism.

A top Trumper trumpets totalitarian training

My response to Trump-MAGA cheerleader Charlie Kirk's post on religious indoctrination applies to political indoctrination as well, which is likely obvious to you but an odd sort of blind spot to the Trump-MAGA-Kirk crowd. Many Trumpers seem to have been primed for Trumpism via their youthful brainwashing in Christian evangelical homes; that is, any innate tendency or God forbid striving to think for themselves was pounded out of them at an early age — and since then they've had not one independent or original thought. As my reply notes, a person's willingness to reject independent and certainly critical thinking is a sine qua non of totalitarian regimes. (The reply's final line, "And the tradition goes on," self-evidently points to Trump. Kirk's readers will fail to grasp that, too — but I tried.) Persons who refuse to tow the regime's party line — always subject to radical and even overnight change; see, for instance, the Soviet Union's pendulum-like positions on Hitler's Germany of the 1930s — become occupants of "reeducation" camps or prison (concentration) camps, or they find themselves gaping at a firing squad some doubleplusungood morning. No I'm not saying that's what awaits a Trumpian America in 2025. But extremism has an unstoppable way of intensifying and then ramifying in poisonous effects, and so the unthinkably unAmerican could evolve into the most extreme forms of ugliness by 2035.          

Right. Indoctrinate them early according to how you were indoctrinated. Never let them think for themselves. Independent thinking is dangerous. All the great leaders of the modern era — Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Kim Il Sung — understood this. And the tradition goes on.

— P.M. Carpenter (@CarpenterPM) March 30, 2024

Kirk's post is truncated here, but its original asserts that "if only the mother in a two-parent household took her children to church, those children had just a two percent chance of continuing to practice as adults"; "if both parents went, 33% of the kids stuck around"; and "if ONLY the father attended, it was 44%." Translated: fortunate children attend church with the mother.

In Kirk's post he claims the statistics come from a 1994 "Swiss study," which he neither names nor links to. Just know that Kirk cites or invents only source material that reinforces his beliefs, prejudices or propaganda. This methodology is an essential part of the far-right's and fanatical religion's jackhammering indoctrination, and whose application extends, necessarily, throughout true believers' entire lives. Otherwise they might wander from the reservation.        

The question arises — Is the far left as dedicated to relentless brainwashing as the Trump-Kirk Church of Fascistic Psyop? I wish I knew the answer. I'd say it was in the 1930s, and again in the '60s, yet at that time it began facing real competition from the far right, beginning with Goldwaterism and prolonging until today. Contemporarily, the far left seems to be poor competition with MAGA automatons: seems, as in, I'm guessing. (MAGA might simply have better press agents.)   

I should add that I chose Charlie Kirk to pick on from time to time for only one reason. He has three-million Twitter followers. What bewilders me is that I've left maybe 20 or 25 comments on this threads — and not one of his three-million idolizers has ever pushed back. Weird, huh?

Now he's promoting kidnapping

The image is taken from a 20-second video posted by a man campaigning for the U.S. presidency. In national polling, the video-poster is tied with the incumbent president, shown here in the rear of a pickup truck with his hands and feet bound, after being shanghaied by a supporter of his opponent, the video-poster. 

This is what passes for "humor" among about three-quarters of one of America's two major political parties. The, ahem, levity presented — which in "comedy" circles would rank several notches below a "Three Stooges" film — also appeals to the major party's presidential nominee, who, almost unbelievably, happens to be a former U.S. president.

Ordinarily I as a lay psychiatrist would try to analyze and interpret the many disturbing nuances of the severe antisocial personality disorder that lie behind the "humor" of the image above. But the deeply concerning afflictions revealed here require the expertise of an analyst far more advanced than I.  

I can say, because this is the easiest of softball pitches for non-psychiatrists, that much more involuntary institutionalization is called for, beginning with the psychotic jackass who posted the video on his "presidential" site.

Trump would surely scream, but this would also shut him up

Submitted for your consideration: A modest proposal of modified jurisprudence, which in its exquisite justice lies somewhat outside the traditional legal system.

The background: It's now blindingly apparent that Trump bullies his way through trials by dispensing with centuries-old judicial proprieties. The courts should be allowed to chuck some proprieties as well; after all, they're still owed the due process and equal protection of the ineradicable 14th Amendment. With that out of the way ...

The proposal: It's a genuinely modest one, I think, entailing permission granted to state and federal judges' family members to kick Trump in his shriveled and probably syphilitic balls each time he whisperingly belittles, assaults, sabotages or otherwise harasses and imperils said family members.

The fairness: Traditional law is concerned less with pursuing justice than confirming that those with the money to hire an army of lawyers can outspend, outwangle and therefore outlast those who haven't the cash. This rather modest proposal would serve to reverse the traditionally entrenched and perhaps even achieve some level of actual and, shall we say, audibly verified justice. 

A case study: Some of this optimized legal fairness is owed to Loren Merchan, daughter of New York Judge Juan Merchan, who's presiding over Trump's 34 sleazy crimes on trial — i.e., classically, criminally raunchy Trumpian behavior. Twice now the lowlife book-cooking adulterer has assaulted, belittled etc. the magistrate's offspring on his multibillion site, realistically worth maybe a couple hundred dollars. I'll be merciful and quote only the Loren-specific segment of his bile:

[The judge's] daughter represents Crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, and other Radical Liberals [and] has just posted a picture of me behind bars, her obvious goal, and makes it completely impossible for me to get a fair trial.

Also classically Trumpian is that subsequent news reporting declared that Loren's post was, in fact, not hers at all. She's not had a Twitter account for nearly a year. Next day, the two-bit racketeer and first-rate conman posted (again, in part):   

[Merchan's] daughter, Loren, is a Rabid Trump Hater, who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me. She works for Crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Adam "Shifty" Schiff, and other Radical Leftists who Campaign on "Getting Trump."

The Gotten One will pay no legal price for this ambushing of an innocent third party who's irrelevant to his trial and for subjecting her to the psychotic whims of his fanatically psychotic base. He won't because Judge Merchan excluded himself and his family members from the gag order he imposed on Trump.

The judge's exclusion was likely due to his failure in trying to think like the venomous guttersnipe. Deliberately expose a blameless young woman to physical harm? No — no one would do that, not even that narcissistic, sociopathic, psychotic presidential nominee.    

A case study, 2: We must keep in mind that had Judge Merchan included his daughter in the gag order, neither would that have had a restraining effect on Trump's emotional disorders. Last year, in a civil trial presided over by Arthur Engoron he made the judge's principal law clerk a target of his violent worshippers.

Trump did this by claiming — this was false, of course — that the law clerk was the girlfriend of the MAGA-much-hated Chuck Schumer. Engoron did include her in a gag order, which Trump violated twice. (He had to paid chump-change fines of $15,000.)

A subsection: Thus I further suggest that this proposal of eminent modesty contain an ex post facto provision for the kicking of Trump's syphilitic balls. The absolute apex of injustice would be Ms. Merchan having a high-heeled whack at them while Judge Engoron's clerk is made to sit by inactively. 

The conclusion: This modest proposal is fair, empirically supported and remarkably justified. Because of Trump, American politics will suffer many more Trumps over the next couple decades, and that will produce many more suffering, now-defenseless and now-unreciprocating victims. The administration of jurisprudence must keep up with these wretched Trumpian times. Herein lies one hopalonging proposal, though modest it be.

A pretty good poll for Biden

(Quinnipiac polls are rated 3 out of 3 stars by 538.) 

From its 31 January poll, (nationwide, registered voters): Biden held a lead over Trump, 50% to 44%. (In December the race was statistically tied.) In January he also led Trump by 22 points among women, 58-36.

Biden has sustained if not strengthened his lead among women voters, now at 25 points. 

If any one group of voters is to Make America America Again, it'll be women. 

Also from Quinnipiac's 27 March poll, Biden's lead among registered voters is narrow but is a lead.

"In a head-to-head presidential election matchup, 48 percent of voters support President Joe Biden and 45 percent support former President Donald Trump."

Complicating what should be a straightforward choice between democracy and authoritarianism are third-party and independent candidates, a small segment of the electorate who nevertheless might determine the election's outcome on behalf of the vast majority — and not in a good way. When they're included in Quinnipiac's polling,

"Trump receives 39 percent support, Biden receives 38 percent support, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. receives 13 percent support, Green Party candidate Jill Stein receives 4 percent support, and independent candidate Cornel West receives 3 percent support."

Of special interest:

"Voters 52 - 43 percent support the United States sending more military aid to Ukraine for their efforts in the war with Russia.... Voters 52 - 39 percent oppose the United States sending more military aid to Israel for their efforts in the war with Hamas."

Also, nearly one-quarter (22%) of Republicans don't recognize Vladimir Putin as a "bad thing" for the world. These were the 1930s America Firsters who believed Hitler wouldn't be much of a problem for the Untied States. Yet 63% of Trump's clan do think Vlad is a bad guy. Hence on some issues, there still lives some reasonable quantity of rationality among Republican voters. 

Question: It seems these voters know Trump is an idiot when it comes to Putin, so why can't they see that his cretinism extends to virtually every other issue? How can they believe that a pol so ethically corrupt and judgmentally twisted is again the right man to poise his finger over the nuclear button, make independent decisions on trade, oversee the world's largest economy and represent the U.S. across the globe? 

Vladimir Putin's rules of war. (If you want to fight one, his rules are the way to do it.)

If you're a student of history, you know that in 1939 Adolf Hitler informed the Allied powers about the rules of the coming war: which nations could do what diplomatically, who could fight Nazi Germany and who must not, what aid could be shipped to the Wehrmacht's national victims, that sort of thing. The Allied powers agreed, which pleased Hitler immensely. The stipulations provided him much better odds of winning the war he was launching.

Similar international rules of engagement have been established by aggressor nations throughout history, which, as a student of such, you also know.

From the First and Great World War — in which the gentlemen of Krautland faced off against Tommies and Russkies and les Grenouilles and Yanks and always according to the gentlemen's rules — to leastwise the Gallic Wars — in which Caesar was so cordially liberal in his warring decrees — national leaders of hostile intentions apprised their victims of what was permissible and what wasn't, before and during the conflicts they commenced. 

A caveat. Hiatorical narratives vary in accuracy and interpretations. So it could be that the above history is not what you learned. It is, however, precisely how the rules-setting aggressor Vladimir Putin and obedient Joe Biden and European leaders have interpreted the history of warfare. And that explains the manner in which they have conducted themselves in the Russia-Ukraine War.   

Do I exaggerate? Write only sarcastically? Unfairly accuse the West of enabling Putin and his "rules"? 

The NY Time reports that on Wednesday, the Russian autocrat "warned that if F-16 fighter jets supplied to Ukraine by its Western allies operated from airfields in other countries, the bases would be 'legitimate targets' for attack." After nearly two years of fearing that airpower for Ukraine might violate one of Putin's more accentuated rules of war — I can escalate; you cannot — the West finally got around to promising 42 F-16s to the barbarically invaded country. 

Questionable is Ukraine's present suitability for the fighter jets' housing and takeoff needs. Their hangars must be specially constructed to protect against airstrikes, and for takeoff the jets require at least 1.5 miles of runway. The second condition may be absent in Ukraine, and anything short of the first imperative would have Russian bombers quickly reducing Ukraine's number of F-16s to zero. 

Hence the likelihood of the jets — some, anyway — operating from Western airbases, soon subject to Russian attacks. The butcher of Ukrainian women and children and monstrous predator of an entire generation of husbands and fathers also noted that F-16s, in all their potential harm to the peace-loving people of Russia, are capable of carrying "nuclear weapons, and we will have to heed this while organizing our combat operations."

I've read several accounts of the "legitimate targets" speech. Not one included U.S. or European reactions to Putin's upgraded threats. The warmongering dictator owned the story, set the narrative and again unilaterally established how this war shall be fought. To date and in toto, he has laid down the following rules:        

I can violate international law by invading a free, sovereign, democratic country.                   

I can escalate at will. The West is barred from same.

I can publicly assign targets and militarily assault bases in NATO nations, confident of no more than a conventional weapons response — if that much. The West, on the other hand, will suffer NUCLEAR retaliation should it act militarily in even Russia's illegally annexed territories.  

I can deploy Russian boots on Ukrainian ground and fly Russian warplanes in Ukrainian airspace. The West is forbidden to do either.

I can kill Ukrainians and annihilate the country's infrastructure and residential buildings with impunity. Should the West kill any Russians in Russia proper, WW III shall ensue.  

I can suggest that Russia's first use of nuclear weapons is a reasonable military doctrine. An equivalent Western doctrine would mark its leaders as madmen.  

I can illegally import weapons from rogue nations and violate U.N. sanctions. The West's arming of Ukraine is an outrageous display of Western hegemony.  

In sum, I can do in Ukraine whatever I like, and the West must take it and like it. Such is the essence of my rules of war. The genuinely historic significance of my rules is that ... I'm getting away with it.

This may strike you as familiar

This is not a con but I've decided to mimic the world's greatest conman (and future con?) in this new fundraising plea. I'm hewing closely to his rhetorical manner by ignoring bothersome stuff like punctuation and coherent syntax while mysteriously capitalizing some words because all I know is that he the Einstein of carnival barking has always been far more successful at separating people from their money than I have. So ...

They're after us — you, me this site — the Musk-backed TWITTER TYPES We have to go out we have to fight — the commies, the fascist Trumpers the costly PAYWALLED SUBSCRIPTION SITES they won't stop they won't give up and for that you can GIVE THEM CREDIT but only for that ... they're bad people they're against us the virtuous Americans and overseas GOOD guys who read this site They don't want this site to make it there's something wrong with them But we're fighting RIGHT? you can see that here every DAY — whatever you can do to help financially would be FANTASTIC Whether its $5 or $10 OR $100 whatever you do ...    

the Make A Donation button is in the sidebar, and thank you! —PM

***

You're welcome to check my work.

A stressed out and haggard looking Trump pleads with people to send him as much money as they can so he can fight communist, fascist, lunatic prosecutors. pic.twitter.com/03TVLOseFo

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) March 27, 2024

What, exactly, is the logic behind incarcerating Bankman-Fried? (and all nonviolent crooks)

Today's top story is that "FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud tied to the collapse of his digital exchange." That, from The Wall Street Journal. 

Last year a jury found Bankman-Fried guilty of wanton avarice, exceptional stupidity and a pronounced inclination to fleece both investors and lenders, which he did to the extraordinary tune of billions of dollars. 

In executing "justice," federal Judge Lewis Kaplan fined Bankman-Fried more than $11 billion and imposed an unusually long prison sentence of 25 years. "It’s not a trivial risk at all," said the judge, that if Bankman-Fried were anywhere but behind bars, he'd soon be ripping off others.

To my mind, the incarceration aspect of this case — and thousands much like it — reflects neither justice nor even common sense.

Imprisonment should be reserved for protecting society from the physically violent. Bankman-Fried inflicted immense harm on his marks, yet the harm was financial, not bodily. In that the fraudster joined countless other white-collar criminals.

The oddity or just plain imbecility of incarcerating these crooks is that from behind bars they'll go on inflicting financial harm, though not on their individual victims. They'll do it to every member of society.

According to the 2021 Federal Register, in FY 2021 taxpayers were shelling out $43,836 every year on each of these locked-up, physically harmless malefactors. Taxpayers are housing, feeding and providing medical and dental care to white-collar wrongdoers in state prisons as well. 

Does this make any sense? Is it logical to burn taxpayers for the transgressions of nonviolent criminals? Ah but there's the deterrence factor, some say. If that were true, nonviolent criminality would have ceased in the same year that state and federal prisons were constructed.

OK but what about retribution? — the satisfaction society presumably derives from confining some jackass in a state's 9 x 12 concrete guestroom. The peculiarity there is that the very Americans who claim this is a Christian nation are also the ones most favorable to the harshest forms of revenge. 

Judge Kaplan noted that if Bankman-Fried were at liberty, he'd likely continue his financially nefarious ways. And Judge Kaplan is probably right. Well then seize his passport for heaven's sake and guarantee he can't leave the country.

What to do with the scofflaw, then, while he's stuck in the U.S., unable to wield his wily ways anywhere else? What to do with him and those thousands of other nonviolent white-collar criminals?

What they prize most is money — and lots of it. That's self-evident; it's the reason they risked everything.

So I'd say the sensible alternative to imprisonment — which fails to deter (Q.E.D.) and racks up a large social bill — is to instead confine these deplorables to minimum-wage jobs for a duration equal to whatever prison sentence would otherwise be imposed.

That naturally would be in addition to confiscating whatever assets they managed to pilfer from the rightful owners. Order Bankman-Fried to flip hamburgers for the next 25 years (or the reduced time he'll almost assuredly get after appealing).

At the end of his eight-hour shift he'll then go to the sparse, lowest-rent apartment he found rather than his $30 million Caribbean penthouse.

That's not retribution. It's justice. It's not society providing him with three squares a day, the now-standard situation in which even non-victims are harmed financially.

And alone, in his apartment, he won't need to fail at fending off five raping gorillas — an additional, wholly unwarranted and never-ordered punishment that comes with every prison sentence.     

As for deterrence, there appears to be little to none in the specter of prison. The lure of embezzled riches or plunder overcomes the fear of confinement. Thus flipping hamburgers or cleaning bathrooms for five or 10 years would be at least as effective in deterring white-collar crime.

In fact I'd argue a bit more effectiveness, in that embezzlers and fleecers like Bankman-Fried would be cleaning bathrooms in full public view. What could be more humiliating to a former billionaire?  

Is there some other reasoning — sound, irrefutable reasoning — behind society and the legal system's urge to lock up nonviolent criminals? If so, I'd sure like to know what it is.

It wasn't, but it's what I'd do

From The Hill:

"A super PAC [American Values 2024] supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential bid said it raised over $2 million following the candidate’s official announcement of his running mate."

I can think of only one entity that would have a good reason to sink $2 million of the "over $2 million" into RFK Jr.'s presidential bid.

— the Trump campaign, with a promissory note based on the insanely overvalued stock of Trump Media & Technology Group. That's what I'd do if I were Trump, because Bobby K. may be his only path back to the White House.

Most of the polling I've seen on a three-way race, Biden, Trump and Kennedy, shows the latter drawing equally from both major-party nominees. Yet some polling has shown Kennedy pulling more votes from Biden.

Those polls could be outliers. But the Biden campaign is disinclined to read them that way. And Team Trump is convinced, perhaps from internal polling, that Kennedy is more of a threat to Biden (which, to repeat, is why it would make sense for the Trump campaign to finance Kennedy).  

I've yet to discern why anyone outside of the crackpot bloc would be attracted to RFK's candidacy. That suggests he's more threatening to the one major-party crackpot. On the other hand, crackpots are difficult to second guess, precisely because they're crackpots, and crackpots are unpredictable.  

In politics, which is worse? Harebrained masculinity or preening righteousness?

Writing for Slate, lawyer, journalist and author Jill Filipovic penned a reassuring commentary on the Republican Party's really bizarre electoral strategy of aggressive misogyny — reassuring, in that the strategy is so losingly dumb.

The party's unwritten game plan is nevertheless manifested in its male voters' adoration of a sexually abusing presidential nominee, in its übermasculine disdain of feminism, in its traditional trampling on women's rights, in its embrace of yahoos like Ted Yoho, who in the presence of reporters once called representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a "fucking bitch" — and later, though sorry for the words, said he simply could not apologize "for loving my god, my family and my country." (Yes he actually said that, and yes his party approved.)

"It’s almost as if Republicans don’t want female voters," wrote Filipovic, "or as if they believe that overt misogyny will better attract male ones." Her second hypothesis overwhelms the first. But it's not as if they believe in the electoral power of misogyny; it's they're convinced misogyny can flex its muscles in at least one more election cycle. And one more election — this one — is all the party ever cares about. The years 2026 and 2028 are useless abstractions; Lord just get us through today and to blazes with tomorrow.

Filipovic was doing fine up to this point. Pretty obvious is that what she called the GOP's "harebrained Masculinity First strategy" could easily redound to Democrats' benefit. And then she blew it. In parentheses she added that Republicans' strategy could help Democrats as long as "strategists like James Carville—who recently said that there are 'too many preachy females' dominating the culture of the Democrats—don’t get in the way."

Carville did say that but he said more than that. And what he said was right. In a Louisiana Bayou interview with New Yorker Maureen Dowd he said he "suspected" (i.e., firmly believed) that the Democratic Party's "culture" is being harmed by "preachy females." In political parlance, his phrase was "inartful." Yet he meant it to be, for his complaint was aimed at the clichéd concepts of "political correctness" and "wokeness." 

Whatever the gender ratio of Democratic preachiness, the conceit does seems to be everywhere. It gushes from the party's progressive faction, which is louder than the moderate corner and therefore reaps the motherlode of news coverage: case in point, scarcely any Dem politician in 2022 endorsed "defunding the police," and yet one might have thought such foolishness was a major party plank. Broader, more expansive progressive messaging was Carville's target, what he characterized to Dowd as the "eat your peas" lectures — "the message is too feminine," he said.  

"Don’t drink beer. Don’t watch football. Don’t eat hamburgers. This is not good for you" is how Carville metaphorized what voters hear from the Democratic Party's lefty side, or rather, what they prefer not to hear. He also groaned about who's excluded in a good deal of progressive messaging. "If you listen to Democratic elites — NPR is my go-to place for that — the whole talk is about how women, and women of color, are going to decide this election. I’m like: 'Well, 48 percent of the people that vote are males. Do you mind if they have some consideration?'"

Dowd noted that he "complained that 'woke stuff is killing us,' that the left was talking in a language that ordinary Americans did not understand, using terms like 'Latinx' and 'communities of color,' and with a tone many Americans found sneering." It's an old and familiar complaint, but one Republicans have used against Democrats with considerable effectiveness. Carville's final disgruntlement was one of unexpressed irony: an idealistically idiotic feature that many progressives see in the far right but never in themselves: "There are a lot of people on the left that would rather lose and be pure because ... it makes them feel superior."

Neither could Slate's Jill Filipovic see that Carville's phrase of "preachy females" was an intentional, legitimate criticism that largely transcended females while otherwise attempting to seize and then throttle the preachy part. It turns off voters, and that's something as losingly dumb as a strategy of aggressive misogyny.

"Unbelievable patriots," and DOJ's terrible, unfair treatment of them

Bill Lueders, editor-at-large of Progressive magazine, recently spent some time with the Justice Department's database of the "unbelievable patriots" of January 6th, Americans of true "spirit" who've nevertheless been "treated terribly," "very unfairly" and "wrongfully imprisoned." Their numbers are still growing but so far, says DOJ, "more than 1,358 individuals" unbelievable patriots have been criminally charged — "more than 486" for felony assault or impeding law enforcement.

Almost unbelievably, the man who wants to pardon these patriots says nothing in his stump ramblings about the 140 policemen injured that day while protecting the lives of the vice president of the United States and hundreds of lawmakers, as Lueders reminds us. But lest you think the pardoning man conceived his plan willy-nilly or helter-skelter, just know he thoughtfully means to exclude "a couple of them" who maybe were "out of control" that day.

Let's visit three of the patriots, as introduced by Mr. Lueders in "Just Who Are Trump's January 6th Heroes?" (paywalled).

This first gentleman is the once-hunting-knife-packing Kenneth Bonawitz of Pompano Beach. On the 6th the Floridian charmer hurled himself from a stage and onto two Capitol Police officers. Somehow they seized his knife but not him. That left him free to assault four other policemen, chokeholding one of them with such force the officer left the ground. Though Boy Bonawitz is Proud, he departed the tourist scene when sprayed with chemicals. In an interview that immediately followed he grumbled about his undue rough treatment by the cops, but in another interview, rather than grumbling he displayed his high intelligence by offering his name and state of residence. That, it would seem, hastened his arrest, then his sentencing to five years in prison. 

Here we meet Kyle Fitzsimons of Lebanon, Maine. Kyle was quite the busy democracy defender that day, "hurling" and hitting one policemen among a law enforcement group with "an unstrung bow like a spear,' according to DOJ. Later, as another patriot was spraying chemicals into a police detective's face, Kyle "made forcible contact" with said detective, who had no fight in him because the aforementioned chemicals had caused him "to temporarily suffocate." Kyle was not yet done. He went on to assault a police sergeant, himself busy with trying to rescue another policeman. The patriot's attack resulted in "permanent injuries to the sergeant’s shoulder that necessitated surgery and ultimately ended the sergeant’s lengthy law enforcement career." Yet Kyle still was not done. He bulled his way into a group of policemen, "wildly swinging his fists." With that he was done, save for encouraging others to "get in there" and fight. His sentence: seven years, three months in prison.  

This last enchanting fellow the appropriately named Donald Hazard of Hurst, Texas. In intelligence he outdid even Mr. Bonawitz. Armed with knuckle gloves (containing powdered lead or steel) and pepper spray and clothed in protective gear, he told a newspaper man while soldiering his way to the Capital: "Make sure you get my face and everything on your news channel. I want the enemy to know exactly who is coming after them." When Donnie Hazard Arrived at the building he charged up the steps and plowed into a Capitol Police officer who then tumbled down the steps, cracking his head on the way, rendering him unconscious. Hazard then went for IQ bonus points. Inside the Capital Building, holding a can of his spray and posing for a selfie video, for DOJ's benefit he recorded: "We’re taking the Capitol," and "This is America, baby." It's also where he'll remain for at least another four years and nine months, courtesy the Federal Bureau of Prisons and American taxpayers. 

Progressive magazine and Bulwark's Bill Lueders features 21 literally unbelievable patriots in his personalized recap of January 6th, a far less madcap day of "political protest" than a straightforwardly demonic day of the ugliest unAmericanism since secession. That Trump has been able to repackage and successfully advertise that day as a big, beautiful few hours of unbridled allegiance to democratic virtues signals either the primacy of his extraordinary con artistry skills or the preeminence of MAGA's breathtaking stupidity.

The two stroll hand in hand, of course, though one leads by a half-step. Historians will puzzle out which is which in conference debates and varying opinions in print. My preliminary report — my contemporary draft of history: Only MAGA's starring stupidity permits Trump, slightly trailing, to succeed.

"We're conservatives not crazies," plus ...

The Lincoln Project's one-minute evocation of the Republican Party's historical splendor wouldn't survive much objective scrutiny. From Gilded Age corruption to anti-New Deal hysterics to Medicare-cum-America's socialist ruination, the party of Babbittry exasperated history more often than enriching it. Still, compared to the ninth-circle inferno the GOP is today, the old guard was first-rate splendor itself.

What continues to mystify me is related to a peppy little phrase voiced in the video. The narrator notes that we're conservatives not crazies. It's a good line, a keeper. But what I as a media consultant would add to the phrase is we're conservatives and they're not. 

Such is my mystification. The crazies are not at all "conservative" as the word is defined. And yet the old guardians who are proud of their authentic conservatism — they are out there, scattered sizably throughout the GOP base — persist in letting the crazies call themselves something they most decidedly are not. And five'll get you 10 they allow this because they've never really stopped to think about it.

Now if some fellow authentic conservatives — such as the monied Lincoln Project folks — were to cause them to think about it, many of these older-school Republicans just might resent having been taken by a whole lot of sophistic, semantic frauds.

Their resentment might then unfold in some truly splendid ways. 

A vital discussion of antisemitism: What it is, what it isn't.

In his latest online soliloquy, Peter Beinart pauses his thoughts on "the destruction of Gaza, the mass slaughter there," and takes up the topic of antisemitism. He notes its importance "partly because antisemitism is a genuine problem, but also because if we don’t talk about antisemitism in the right way, then the conversation about antisemitism becomes a way of not having to face what’s happening in Gaza," as well as the role America is playing in Gaza. He offers six ways "to think about and not to think about antisemitism." 

I have cut Beinart's remarks to the bone and done some editing for flow. If any of the six points seem unclear or you'd like to read his elaborations, the transcript is here, but I believe I preserved the basic substance of each. One other note: Point #2 is out of order. I placed it last and rescued more of its wording from my scalpel for a reason explained when you get there.    

[One] This is obvious but I think in some ways not said clearly enough: The rise in Israel-related antisemitism that we’re seeing in the United States is related to this war.... There are three academic studies showing a strong correlation between substantial Israeli military operations that kill a lot of Palestinians and a rise in reported antisemitic incidents.

[Three] Not everything bad ... that happens to Jews is antisemitism.... A Christian evangelical speaker defending Israel’s war in Gaza, I think it’s very likely that person also would be disrupted [on a college campus]. The disruption of that speech, the inability of that person to be able to speak, is wrong. It's illiberal. It's an attack on free speech. But it's not antisemitism.

[Four] The fact that there is an increase in antisemitism does not mean that Jews in America are oppressed.... There is a rise in antisemitism. What there is not is state-sponsored oppression of Jews. We don’t have politicians in either party suggesting that Jews should not be treated equally with other people. And that puts Jews in a different place than Palestinians or Muslims.... Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism are much more likely to be used by politicians to suggest that those people should not have equal rights.

[Five] When you hear an establishment Jewish organizations say, "Just like Black people get to define what anti-Black racism is, Jews should be able to define what antisemitism is," that’s a mistake. There is not a consensus among American Jews about how to define antisemitism. When the Anti-Defamation League defines antisemitism as including anti-Zionism, it’s not equivalent to the NAACP speaking on behalf of Black Americans because there’s much more of a consensus among Black Americans about what constitutes racism. A significant number of Jews themselves would fall under the definition of antisemitism if it equals anti-Zionism.

[Six] Anti-Black racism is not being used to protect a particular government. We don’t have a situation in which the government of Nigeria or Senegal or Kenya is making a push to define criticisms of those governments as anti-Black racism. We do have that in the debate about antisemitism [and Israel].

I resected Beinart's second point from the body of his discussion and transplanted it here because of its specific relevance to my frequent writings about the Israel-Palestine war, and because his second point is foremost in importance in any discussion about the war. He writes:

"If we want to fight against this Israel-related antisemitism and make it clear that it’s unacceptable to take out your anger against Israel against Jews, we need to make a distinction between the Israeli government—its actions and its character—and Jews. We need to make it clear they’re not the same thing, just as we would make it clear that Muslims are not responsible for the actions of Iran or Saudi Arabia or Hamas, and Chinese Americans are not responsible for what China does because to support a government is a political choice. A religion or an ethnicity is something very different.

"That distinction is really, really important to make.... We have the problem that many established American Jewish organizations don’t want to make that distinction. They don’t want to distinguish Jewishness or Judaism on the one hand from Israel, and Zionism on the other, because they want to suggest that being a Zionist or supporting Israel is inherent in being Jewish. It is true that a majority of American Jews—a majority of Jews around the world—would identify as supporting Israel, identify as Zionists, although they might mean different things by that. If you say it is an inherent part of what it means to be a Jew, you’re contributing to the conflation that makes Jews in the US and in other parts of the world less safe because it makes it harder to maintain the distinction between Israel and Jews."

Above, I seconded Beinart's point that the distinction he notes is really important to make. More than that, in my writings I have underscored the distinction since the first days of this unredeemable war on Gaza. My emphases have been made silently, however, and that I'm correcting.

My posts are careful to identify the transgressors as the Israeli military, the Israeli government, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Netanyahu's allies or Netanyahu's war cabinet. I've done so to avoid conflating this unforgivable war's perpetrators with the Israeli people — that is, with Jews. At times I have placed blame on the Israelis, the Jews, who so thoughtlessly put the nation's Netanyahus in high office. Democracy can have ugly consequences, and one of them we are witnessing in the state of Israel's appalling actions in Gaza. The West Bank, too. 

I have not emphasized that my posted criticisms of Israeli officials should not be construed as criticisms of Israeli Jews simply because that fact seemed so self-evident. Perhaps I should have, though on the hand, such protestations could be taken as evidence of a guilty conscience. So I left it unsaid, trusting that you the reader were already aware of the "fact." At any rate, when I read Peter Beinart's comments on this subject, I also read them as a good opportunity to take a moment and air these thoughts. Consider them aired.

Is Judge Aileen Cannon just another victim of Trump's deadly touch?

Jonathan Last speculates: "Maybe [Aileen Cannon] isn’t a MAGA judge so much as a rookie jurist who caught a tough case, stepped in it, got spooked after she was reversed, and now is caught in a downward spiral. The problem is, Cannon’s rulings are essentially the same as if she were a MAGA judge in the tank for Trump."

Who knows, we can't read her mind. But Judge Cannon gives every appearance of being the MAGA-hatched duck she very much looks and quacks like. So I'm opting for Occam's Razor.

Last's speculation arose because of a Substack piece penned by lawyer-turned-writer David Lat. On his website Original Jurisdiction, he observed in late March that in Cannon's early days on the bench she was "well-regarded" by Southern Florida lawyers and well-liked by her law clerks. Her career was going just fine. 

Then she was handed, and overwhelmed by, the hugely complex case of Trump v. United States. As a young and inexperienced judge, Cannon was out of her depth, and her clerks began resenting her anxiety-riddled micromanaging of the case. Rare defections from the highly prized position of federal law clerk became common in Cannon's office, which only amplified the internal mayhem.

In short, the pressure kept increasing and it got to Judge Cannon, fundamentally changing the inner Aileen. Such is Lat's alternative theory of her case. He offered this supporting material:   

"Sources of mine who know her personally ... describ[ed] her as fair-minded and not particularly political. So while she definitely leans too far in Trump’s direction, giving dubious arguments from his legal team more consideration than they deserve, I think it’s oversimplifying matters to dismiss all her rulings as purely the product of 'MAGA judging.'"

All is one of those linguistic absolutes, like never, that can be easily disproven when applied to some particular. So here I agree with Lat; a near certainty is that some or several of Cannon's rulings are MAGA unaffected.

Lat was also careful to cover himself — to cover his argument's backside, that is, with repetition. In his footnotes, too, he wrote, "I think the 'she’s simply a partisan hack' narrative oversimplifies matters, even though I believe she has a bias in favor of Trump."

Aye, there's the rub. To what degree is her bias? Theoretically, it should be zero; in this land of the free and rule of law, all judges, county and state and federal, are perfect models of impartiality, just as God intended when he blessed Americans as his singularly chosen people. Such is the fourth-grade version of "Introduction to Government."

In the real world, Cannon's degree of bias is ... 30%? 60%? 90? With Occam's Razor still in hand as I review in my mind her Trump-swaddling decisions from the bench, the higher the degree the more likely its accuracy.   

Lat finishes with what I find to be an inadmissible defense. "Remember the saying, 'Everything Trump touches dies'? Add Judge Aileen M. Cannon to the long list of people who have come into contact with Donald J. Trump and whose reputations—and lives—will never be the same."

Let's refute Lat's defense by taking an extreme but still-applicable example. Everything Hitler touched died, too. Hitler did not, however, "kill" Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels. They were spiritually dead before ever meeting Adolf. Or, if their souls weren't congenitally corrupt, they were certainly primed as adults for Hitlerian corruption.

Cannon may try in her memoirs to argue Lat's defense. The evil Trump touch made me do it, and from him came my fall. But federal judges are omnipotent, dictatorial gods; their power is akin to a U.S. Navy captain's. Both are the last secular Almightys on earth and ocean, their authority is absolute, and they never die because of an outsider's touch.  

This is on you, Aileen.