The Carpentariat

An absolutely bonkers trade-off

Roll Call:

"Senate Republicans are looking to pay for President Donald Trump’s border wall in part by putting about $5 billion less in" — Michael Scott's drum roll — health and education.

"Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard C. Shelby, an Alabama Republican, wrote an allocation for the fiscal 2020 Labor-HHS-Education spending bill that is about $5 billion lower than it would have been to provide funding for the wall."

A wall, mind you. If there's a "crisis" on the southern border, it has to do with the stinking, overcrowded, underfunded, disease-inducing prisons for immigrant children and their separated parents — not the lack of a wall. But Trump and Senate Republicans want to reduce $5 billion in spending on your health and your children's education so that a worthless hunk of concrete can be mounted by anyone with a ladder.

Unhinged can't begin to describe these people.

The plight, and Trumpian blight, of the American farmer

How effortlessly can pro-Trump American farmers be suckered by the globe's preeminent con man?

The latter's trade war with China has vastly contributed to record highs in recent years in farm delinquencies and bankruptcies. Earlier this week China declared it would cease buying all U.S. agricultural goods. Farmers' only alleviation has been Trump's dumping of your tax dollars — $25 billion worth — into farm relief; an emergency measure spawned by Trump's trade incompetence and Bushlike determination to stay the course ... of tariffs.

So far he has devilishly bamboozled our farmers three times. In the early months of America's oncoming agricultural devastation, Trump tweeted that "China has agreed to buy massive amounts of ADDITIONAL Farm/Agricultural Products—would be one of the best things to happen to our farmers in many years!" That was a no-go. Months later, he again tweeted that "Farmers will be a very BIG and FAST beneficiary of our deal with China. They intend to start purchasing agricultural product immediately."

Again, this year:

If a deal is made with China, our great American Farmers will be treated better than they have ever been treated before!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2019

Also so far, there is no hint — not even from Trump1 — that MS-13 caravans or Mexican invasions have caused these farmers their economic pain. But that sort of propaganda b.s.on a nationwide basis is, largely, why they've stood by him. So they deserve to be suckered.

The Bulwark, a NeverTrump publication, makes this major, concluding point, however: For post-Trump Republicans "we already know the arguments they’re reserving for the moment this is all over—the moment this miserable presidency whimpers to a close, with no grand triumph over China having ever arrived, no promised resurrection of the Rust Belt having been carried out, nothing to show for the trade war except higher prices for American consumers and shuttered American farms. They will rant and rage about how the president would have carried the day, would have brought China to its knees—were it only not for those wretched leftists and establishment Republicans who opposed him at every turn."

We can hope the Bulwark is wrong, but should doubt they are.

McConnell will screw the public once again

“I think the urgency of this is not lost on any of us, because we’ve seen too many of these horrendous acts,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell today.

"But Mr. McConnell said … he wanted Senate staff members to work on gun safety legislation so the chamber could take something up when it returns in September" (italics mine).

It'll never happen. McConnell delayed consideration and debate until September, knowing that national outrage and demands for new gun-control measures will have dissipated by then.

This is the sort of behavior that made McConnell the magnificently malignant politician he is. He knows precisely how to shaft any national necessity he particularly dislikes.

He's Trump with a brain. And every bit as duplicitous and mean-spirited. 

Even a C-, disbarred lawyer could win this one for McCabe

Remember the Old West, Issac Parker days of summary judgments? Does this really need to be litigated?

"Andrew McCabe, the acting FBI director who authorized an investigation into President Trump for ties to Russia and possible obstruction of justice, filed a lawsuit against the bureau and the Justice Department on Wednesday, alleging he was illegally demoted and fired as part of a plot by Trump to remove those who were not politically loyal to him," the Washington Post reports.

He outdoes even Dan Quayle

George Carlin died well before the most bountiful embodiment of all three human "merits" was elected in 2016.

Quite aside from Trump, I once had a friend who worked in Congress when Dan Quayle was a senator. Really stupid senators were known among congressional staffers as "lightweights," but my buddy said Quayle was so fucking stupid they had to come up with the new term,"featherweight."

Trump? He would have been known as altogether weightless. 

The QAnon phenom

Don't know much about history / Don't know much biology / Don't know much about a science book / Don't know much about the french you took / But you do — do you not — want to know about QAnon, the online, pro-Trump conspiracy theory outfit whose adherents should be straitjacketed and industrially dosed with Thorazine?

WaPo's "cultural columnist" (gosh I'd love to be one of those), Alyssa Rosenberg, presents a useful encapsulation of its believers' beliefs:

"Trump and his allies, including former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, are waging a covert campaign to root out an elite child-sex-trafficking ring. Mass arrests are imminent. John F. Kennedy Jr. is about to reveal that he has been alive all along so he can take Vice President Pence’s place on the 2020 Republican presidential ticket. And a mysterious government official using the handle 'Q Clearance Patriot' is recruiting soldiers to the cause."

Q-researcher Travis View explains to Rosenberg that "Q offers something a hell of a lot more [than voting]. You can sit at your computer and search for information and then post about what you find, and Q basically promises that through this process, you are going to radically change the country, institute this incredible, almost bloodless revolution, and then be part of this historical movement that will be written about for generations."

Almost bloodless does, evidently, apply to QAnon. However unaffiliated Q-like extremists have murdered dozens of members of synagogues and mosques — "And on the message boards where racists lionize the killers, they often speak of these events in the competitive language of body counts."

But hey, the real Q-wackos aren't all bad. "Earlier this year," writes Rosenberg, "a man allegedly killed reputed [Gambino] mafia boss Frank Cali while attempting to perform what he apparently described as a QAnon-inspired citizens arrest." Stupid, yes, but as Bugsy Siegel once noted with some semblance of humanity, "We only kill each other."

Trump's three advantages - plus one

The Times' Frank Bruni makes a point this morning that marks, for Democrats, either quadrennial incredulity or quadrennial fury. For me it's both; you also, most likely.

He first notes that Trump's electoral advantages in 2020 are perhaps greater than commonly believed; the president possesses the power of incumbency, an Electoral College map in which the emotional issues of immigration and race may in fact increase white-voter turnout, and the near certainty of (Bruni calls it merely the "possibility of") Russia's — or others' — insidious interference on Trump's behalf.

Three advantages, then, for the Oval Office ogre. But there's also a fourth, significant advantage for Trump, which actually has nothing to do with the incumbent: the media's frequent obsession with the most insignificant of Democratic flubs, errors and bloopers.

Bruni honorably takes some personal blame. In the most recent round of Democratic debates, "dozens if not scores of journalists, including me, picked apart Joe Biden’s closing statement, in which he badly bungled what were supposed to be instructions to send a text message of his name to a certain phone number. Some also noted that he rued the possibility of 'eight more years' of Trump rather than 'eight years,' which was obviously what he meant."

Some, many, journalists also chastised Biden for his possibly hyperbolic claim about his involvement in withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, and Bruni laments that he wrote in his post-debate "analysis" about Biden's "way in which he trails off at the end of a sentence or an argument." So did President Eisenhower; Tom Jefferson had a squeaky voice; and FDR would say in his patrician manner: "agane and agane," rather than "again and again." BFD, as Biden would say.

How many times must we suffer these picayune nothings when it comes to clearly wiser and more experienced Democratic candidates and nominees? With Al Gore we heard endlessly about his bodily stiffness; with John Kerry, his windsurfing; with Barack Obama, his fist-bumping; and you-know-what with, and about, Hillary Clinton.

As Bruni notes, Trump's "three advantages may matter less than [this] fourth one."

The media unfairly make clowns and misfits of our more prominent and distinguished Democratic pols. And to put it in many voters' vernacular: That really sucks.

Seven Democratic heroes and a harpy from hell

 

 

 

(Also Klobuchar and Sanders.)

***

As for the harpy?

***

I was unable to find an Elizabeth Warren video on the mass shootings, which suggests a poor communications staff. 

"EXPERIENCE"

Some men break your heart in two,
  Some men fawn and flatter,
Some men never look at you;
  And that cleans up the matter.

— Dorothy Parker (d. 1967)

***

Notwithstanding Alexander Pope, could brevity ever be so soulfully witty?

(I'm too laid up to bear much serious news or gag-worthy attention to Trump, so I have sunk to borrowed humor. Sorry.)

A surrealistic "presidency"

"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government" — Will Rogers

From the Times:

Bundespräsident Trump "began a day set aside for healing by delivering a series of political grievances against liberals and the media … exhibit[ing] the divisive language that has prompted some in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, to protest his visits."

"Around midnight, he attacked Beto O’Rourke..., mocking him for having a 'phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage'…. He lashed out at the mayor of Dayton, calling her a supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders and of antifa, a radical leftist group."

"Trump [also] quoted a conservative television news outlet’s reporting that 'the Dayton, Ohio, shooter had a history of supporting political figures like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and ANTIFA.'"

"Before he departed on Wednesday … he dismissed criticism about his use of divisive language. 'I think my rhetoric brings people together.'"

"On Monday, Mr. Trump delivered a short speech from a teleprompter in which he condemned 'racism, bigotry, and white supremacy'" — in other words, himself.

A Tuesday away from Trump's hell

I am not much better physically today, so here's my advice for making your Tuesday a capital day. If you're allowed headphones at work. then spend the day listening to ...

and Pyotr Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. I bawl like a baby at both of these concertos, altough I wouldn't recommend doing that at a paying job.

Just a heads-up

I'm a bit under the weather tonight, but that doesn't mean I shan't return later tomorrow. I don't intend to ruin your dinner, or morning by causing you to heave your breakfast, but I've had chronic diarrhea for 24 hours (24.31 hours to be precise); I've also pissed or dumped more fluid than a rented mule gulping by a river; I've eaten virtually nothing in the last three days; and I stumbled on the way to the kitchen at 3 a.m. two nights ago, broke a rib, and split open my left eye so that it looks like Jake LaMotta's after a really brutal fight. 

In case you're wondering, I identify with LaMotta but I've mellowed over the years. Says Wikipedia: Raging Bull "stars Robert de Niro as Jake LaMotta, an Italian-American middleweight boxer whose self-destructive and obsessive rage, sexual jealousy, and animalistic appetite destroyed his relationship with his wife and family…. LaMotta's well-intentioned brother … tries to help Jake battle his inner demons" — whom, thank God, I have as well (that is to say, a well-intentioned brother.) The demons never leave.

 

This guy was FBI director?

Some FBI directors should stay in law enforcement and avoid the hell out of writing. I give you, with great regret, James Comey.

"America has long had a radioactive racist soup in the center of our national life. Donald Trump thinks he is stirring it for political benefit. He’s actually doing something more dangerous."

What in hell could be more lethal than Donald Trump or racist soup?

Let us go on: "Yet something good happened over the last 50 years. America started to get control over the dangerous radiation" --that would be the racist radioactive Campbell soup. But then we really get the into the metaphorical gruel:

"Radioactivity lasts for centuries and it can still blow the lid off the building; true safety lies in control rods, pushed down into the soup to calm it, to cool it. Those control rods in America were cultural… We amended the Constitution after slaves were freed to make clear that black citizens were entitled to equal rights and equal treatment."

And get THEN this bit of historical insight: "Our problem was what laid [sic] underneath all that: the way things really were, despite what we taught in civics class."[We did? What civics class?] Then, more of Comey's culinary metaphors: "Racism didn’t go away, of course; the soup still bubbled.'

"We erected a containment building made up of laws; we passed statutes making the abuse and mistreatment of people by virtue of their race a crime…. It was long a statutory crime to kill another human being; it just wasn’t against the law in practice to kill a black person in many places." [Such as the entire South, most of the West, and much of the North.}

But then we really get into the metaphorical gruel:"Mr. President, because of what you have done, you owe us more than condolences sent via Twitter. You must stop trying to unleash and exploit the radioactive energy of racism."

Mr. Comey, you may have been a magnificent FBI director. But don't ever go into history or writing.

And get this bit of historical insight: "Our problem was what laid [sic] underneath all that: the way things really were, despite what we taught in civics class."[We did? What civics class?] Then, more of Comey's culinary metaphorics: "Racism didn’t go away, of course; the soup still bubbled."

"Mr. President, because of what you have done, you owe us more than condolences sent via Twitter. You must stop trying to unleash and exploit the radioactive energy of racism."

"Underneath all that: the way things really were, despite what we taught in civics classes" We did?

Then, more of Comey's culinary metaphors: "Racism didn’t go away, of course; the soup still bubbled."

"Mr. President, because of what you have done, you owe us more than condolences sent via Twitter. You must stop trying to unleash and exploit the radioactive energy of racism." How this? Try hanging yourself, but you'd probably fuck that up too.

 

Some FBI directors should stay in law enforcement and avoid the hell out of writing. I give you, with great regret, James Comey.

"America has long had a radioactive racist soup in the center of our national life. Donald Trump thinks he is stirring it for political benefit. He’s actually doing something more dangerous."

What in hell could be more lethal than Donald Trump or racist soup?

Let us go on: "Yet something good happened over the last 50 years. America started to get control over the dangerous radiation" --that would be the racist radioactive Campbell soup. But then we really get the into the metaphorical gruel:

"Radioactivity lasts for centuries and it can still blow the lid off the building; true safety lies in control rods, pushed down into the soup to calm it, to cool it. Those control rods in America were cultural… We amended the Constitution after slaves were freed to make clear that black citizens were entitled to equal rights and equal treatment."

And get THEN this bit of historical insight: "Our problem was what laid [sic] underneath all that: the way things really were, despite what we taught in civics class."[We did? What civics class?] Then, more of Comey's culinary metaphors: "Racism didn’t go away, of course; the soup still bubbled.'

"We erected a containment building made up of laws; we passed statutes making the abuse and mistreatment of people by virtue of their race a crime…. It was long a statutory crime to kill another human being; it just wasn’t against the law in practice to kill a black person in many places." [Such as the entire South, most of the West, and much of the North.}

But then we really get into the metaphorical gruel:"Mr. President, because of what you have done, you owe us more than condolences sent via Twitter. You must stop trying to unleash and exploit the radioactive energy of racism."

Mr. Comey, you may have been a magnificent FBI director. But don't ever go into history or writing.

And get this bit of historical insight: "Our problem was what laid [sic] underneath all that: the way things really were, despite what we taught in civics class."[We did? What civics class?] Then, more of Comey's culinary metaphorics: "Racism didn’t go away, of course; the soup still bubbled."

"Mr. President, because of what you have done, you owe us more than condolences sent via Twitter. You must stop trying to unleash and exploit the radioactive energy of racism."

"Underneath all that: the way things really were, despite what we taught in civics classes" We did?

Then, more of Comey's culinary metaphors: "Racism didn’t go away, of course; the soup still bubbled."

Some FBI directors should stay in law enforcement and avoid the hell out of writing. I give you, with great regret, James Comey.

"America has long had a radioactive racist soup in the center of our national life. Donald Trump thinks he is stirring it for political benefit. He’s actually doing something more dangerous."

What in hell could be more lethal than Donald Trump or racist soup?

Let us go on: "Yet something good happened over the last 50 years. America started to get control over the dangerous radiation" --that would be the racist radioactive Campbell soup. But then we really get the into the metaphorical gruel:

"Radioactivity lasts for centuries and it can still blow the lid off the building; true safety lies in control rods, pushed down into the soup to calm it, to cool it. Those control rods in America were cultural… We amended the Constitution after slaves were freed to make clear that black citizens were entitled to equal rights and equal treatment."

And get THEN this bit of historical insight: "Our problem was what laid [sic] underneath all that: the way things really were, despite what we taught in civics class."[We did? What civics class?] Then, more of Comey's culinary metaphors: "Racism didn’t go away, of course; the soup still bubbled.'

"We erected a containment building made up of laws; we passed statutes making the abuse and mistreatment of people by virtue of their race a crime…. It was long a statutory crime to kill another human being; it just wasn’t against the law in practice to kill a black person in many places." [Such as the entire South, most of the West, and much of the North.}

But then we really get into the metaphorical gruel:"Mr. President, because of what you have done, you owe us more than condolences sent via Twitter. You must stop trying to unleash and exploit the radioactive energy of racism."

Mr. Comey, you may have been a magnificent FBI director. But don't ever go into history or writing.

And get this bit of historical insight: "Our problem was what laid [sic] underneath all that: the way things really were, despite what we taught in civics class."[We did? What civics class?] Then, more of Comey's culinary metaphorics: "Racism didn’t go away, of course; the soup still bubbled."

"Mr. President, because of what you have done, you owe us more than condolences sent via Twitter. You must stop trying to unleash and exploit the radioactive energy of racism."

"Underneath all that: the way things really were, despite what we taught in civics classes" We did?

Then, more of Comey's culinary metaphors: "Racism didn’t go away, of course; the soup still bubbled."

Which shitholes are shitholes?

I looked it up. Evidently I have nearly as many readers from "backward" nations  ("shitholes," as Bundespräsident Trump would — did — put it) as I do from the dumbass states that put this jackass in office. They include, in somewhat descending order,

The United Kingdom ( who we fought for our "freedom")
Australia
Austria (bithplace of you-know-who)
South Africa
Japan (an absolute marvelous ally, 1941 notwithstanding)
Ireland
France
Italy
Korea, Republic of
Greece
Israel (where my daughter's cat, Frannie, will be buried; she's Jewish — her cat, not my daughter)
Germany (our traditional ally)
Mexico
New Zealand
Fiji
India
Cyprus
Philippines
Netherlands
Nigeria
Argentina
China (Red China)

(Beautifully white) Norway

Sweden (also white, beautifully white) 

Belgium (almost all white, thank God)

Spain (pretty much beautifully white)

Portugal
Pakistan
Russian Federation
Malaysia
Northern Mariana Islands
Kenya
Guam
Denmark (beautifully socialist)
Montenegro
Jordan

Jamaica
Hong Kong
Uganda
Ukraine
Romania
Guatemala
Finland
Switzerland
Taiwan
Qatar
Poland
Panama
Latvia
Indonesia
Hungary
Eheopia
Botswana
Bulgaria
Trinidad and Tobago
Moldova, Republic (or some semblance thereof)
Luxembourg
Lebanon
Croatia
Somolia
Saudi Arabia
Nepal
Islamic Republic of Iran
Isle of Man (and miscellaneous Women, otherwise there'd be no men)
Honduras (which we're swiftly imitating) 
Guyana
Ecuador Republic
Colombia.

… and the United Arab Emirates.

 I don't recall any these countries saying the United States is a shithole country, which, under Trump, it has indisputably become.

Mayor Pete's biggest liabilty

Moving on from mass carnage, as we always do, because we must, because of  the incurable dunderheads and hard-ons in Congess who've never personally encountered a deadly situation , the Time's Timothy Egan delivers a progressive-bashing analysis that should make every excessively tendered-hearted leftist exchange his ideological commitment card to a certified statement of realism. 

"With 66 weeks to go until the election", writes Egan," the Democrats tasked with saving a sinking ship of state have shown that they would rather drown in a sea of self-righteousness than steer the Donald Trump-rotted hulk to a fresh shore….

"Beating Trump is: make it about him, and his horrid, racist, anti-worker, anti-woman, anti-environment, anti-science, anti-truth, anti-progress, anti-city, anti-American policies. He has no discernible governing philosophy but to rant and rage, to divide and belittle….

"Pogressive Democrats have replaced that winning message with a losing message of their own: eliminating the private health insurance of more than 150 million Americans… Warren may be the best debate athlete, but she {and Bernie Sander are] promoting unwinnable positions on health care, open borders and how to pay for all the trillion-dollar things she wants to make free."

Not since 1972 — when nominating convention rules were radically changed — have I witnessed a more lugubrious Democratic campaign. The candidates are tearing each other apart because of personal ambition rather than for the good of the nation's welfare. It's a sad sight, and one that could have been averted if party professionals — superdelegates — were in charge of choosing the Democratic candidate.

Egan, (whom I greatly admire), then tragically throws himself into a virginal pit:

"That leaves room for Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The youngest candidate in the field shows the most wisdom of the ages. He’s bright, articulate and forceful and projects a toughened American optimism."

Buttigieg is indeed bright and articulate and tough. But he's committed one insurmountable error, which would eviscerate him in the general election. "Pete Buttigieg … has talked about his plan to overhaul the high court since his first days as a candidate. In short, it calls for expanding the number of justices from nine to 15, with five affiliated with Democrats, five affiliated with Republicans, and five apolitical justices chosen by the first 10.

The greatest or second greatest president, depending on one's historical point of view, FDR, proposed packing the Court in 1937 because of its antiquated opposition to his New Deal programs — and it just about destroyed his pesidency. The Court soon changed its mossback rulings when it realized just how detested it had become by the American electorate. For Buttigieg to repeat this political error in judgment is a signal of stark historical ignorance.