Response to Extraordinary Loyalty to a Malicious Man

(See: Just Above Sunset: Extraordinary Loyalty to a Malicious Man)

Really, why does Donald Trump act like such a jerk?

He apparently does it on purpose. There's actually a whole philosophy about this, that the bigger an asshole you are, the more successful you’ll be, and Trump has openly hinted at believing in it. He may be the first card-carrying proponent of “assholeism" to ever be elected president of the United States, but he’s not the first human being ever to think that pissing people off is the most effective way to make them do what you want.

For example, maybe Mexico would, without any prompting at all from anybody, work a little harder at keeping refugees from coming to the United States, but why not threaten them with a possible border closure, just to make sure? Just think of the quote, “You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone”, which either originated with Al Capone or possibly Professor Irwin Corey, nobody knows for sure.

But an even better question is, why do all these Republicans, with all their piety and talk of morality, allow Trump to get away with being such a jerk?

I think the answer is, mostly, they’re afraid of the dark. And when I say “the dark”, I mean they’re afraid of the unknown. Trump may be a big arrogant brat — very sure of himself, although near-totally clueless — but these Republicans, although equally clueless, are all stumbling around, while somewhere in the dark, they seem to have lost possession of their moral compasses.

Although they may have learned as kids, maybe in Sunday school or even from Hollywood movies, that "you should always do the right thing”, once they grew up and found that doing the right thing was rarely a winning strategy, they learned to improvise — which, often as not, meant not being a goddam “goody-goody”. Nobody likes good people. Nobody wants to admit it, but good people are weak, and nobody is afraid of them, because they’re too nice. As famous tough guy Niccolo Machiavelli once said, "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” And you can’t.

When it comes to political discourse, I think of it as having two levels:

The best known of these is what some call “the horserace”, but what I prefer to call “the game”, since the object of the game is to win, and when it comes to elections, everybody seems to think that winning is all that matters.

That’s one of the reasons you pretty much only hear “the game” being discussed on TV, rather than serious seminars on history or civics, or even science. After all, it’s safer to form an opinion about who will win an election, and what it takes to do it, than to opine about, say, whether we should raise the minimum wage, based on whether it would be good for the economy or not.

Which brings us to that other level, which is, “The way things ought to be”. (I need to find a pithy one- or two-word description for this level, but for the time being, this is all I got.)

And the most important thing to remember is something sort of surprising, and this is that the second level — “the way things should be” — is the top level, and "the game" discussion belongs below it.

An example?

What would happen if, say, in an NFL game, one player took out a gun and just shot to death the opposing quarterback?

First of all, is there anything in the NFL rulebook that says he can’t do that? Maybe “unnecessary roughness”? I’ve seen the rules on this ("Penalty: For unnecessary roughness: Loss of 15 yards. The player may be disqualified if the action is judged by the official(s) to be flagrant”), and take my word for it, there’s nothing there about not being allowed to shoot another player to death.

But, of course, it doesn’t really matter. The refs don’t need to get in a huddle to discuss what to do about this, since the cops will eventually come in and arrest the guy. And this is as it should be. You can't get away with saying that all that matters is the game, and that “the way things ought to be” doesn’t figure into it at all.

So if you believe in morality, or maybe even in some God that determines right from wrong and how humans should behave, then doesn’t that take priority over the rules of some stupid game?

We need to give conservatives something to think about. But still, what if they still don’t come around and help us do something about America’s only (to date) asshole president?

Well, then screw it! In that case, we just crush ‘em!

Response to A Constitutional Reality Show

(See: Just Above Sunset: A Constitutional Reality Show)

I think the secret password that Chief Justice John Roberts is asking the administration to figure out before he’ll let them include the citizenship question on the census form is, “Open, Sesame!!!”

But to make sure it works, they’ll need to say it really, REALLY LOUD!!!

(Or was it “ Rumplestiltskin”? I forget.)

My problem with this SCOTUS decision is that Roberts has turned a court case into some sort of children’s fairy tale.

Instead of giving the White House another chance at coming up with a more believable rationale, he should just be saying “No!”, followed by, “You have failed to explain why this thing should be done — and by the way, there is at least one obvious reason it should not be done. End of story. Go away.”

Their argument needed, from the get-go, to include both (a) an explanation of the problem that they seek to solve, and (b) an explanation of their proposed solution to the problem.

Furthermore, these two things need to be presented concurrently! — not making the solution independent of some non-existent, random, last-minute, thunk-up-out-of-thin-air problem — or maybe some possible unconnected explanation that some parallel White House might have accidentally concocted in an alternative universe. The Chief Justice shouldn’t be hinting that he might be open to changing his mind, depending on whether Trump's team can come back in a few days after having captured some wicked witch’s broom.

Another meme for what Roberts is doing — as if one is needed — might be that of the headmaster of the local university, in a quiet room, reluctantly retesting the star football player on his botany final, hoping, along with the whole student body, that this clueless thug, who happens to have bean-dip where his brains ought to be, can finally pass the course, thus allowing him to play in, and indeed win, the state championship game this coming Saturday, and by so doing, also saving the institution from the wrecking ball.

As engaging as all of this is, I’m tired of living in a drawn out Hollywood fantasy. Can’t we just go back to the boring old days of not having to pay so much attention to all this crap?

Response to The Enterprises of Ambition

(See Just Above Sunset: The Enterprises of Ambition)

I guess most people, including Donald Trump, never wondered why there has been so little previous celebration of American military might in our observances of July 4th, 1776, a day when leaders of the American colonies (most, if not all of them unarmed!) finally met in a room somewhere to jointly declare those colonies no longer colonies of Britain.

Except for sometimes having a few old war veterans march down Main Street of our hometown, this holiday has traditionally skipped over all the military stuff and correctly focused on the independence stuff. In fact, Washington’s army probably had less to do with winning independence than our militia, who, unlike the regular army, rarely seemed to lose their battles.

Although I doubt that’s why we don’t do all the tanks and flyover stuff on the 4th. It may have more to do with such hardware display reminding people of such dog-and-pony shows as Moscow’s Red Square on May Day, with its huge ICBMs on wheels and giant portraits of the current top mucky-muck of the party, the kind of foolishness that most of us tend to giggle at when we see it on the news, but with which Trump is apparently infatuated — which is sort of ironic because of that whole bone-spurs thing.

But if Trump says one goddam thing in his speech that’s partisan, we need to send a bill for the whole shebang to the RNC. I always wonder, come to think of it, if we are charging him for his use of Air Force One, et al, every time he flies off to a rally in some gymnasium where he mocks everyone who disagrees with him, which he seems to do often. We should.

And maybe for next year's Independence Day, America could collect dimes and pennies to rent a secret venue somewhere to celebrate the 4th the old fashioned way — with music and fireworks, but no Sherman tanks and no military flyovers — and best of all, we don't invite Donald Trump.

Response to Trusting the Truth

(See Just Above Sunset: Trusting the Truth)

Contrary to popular opinion, I think Bob Mueller did, in his vague and taciturn way and through logical deduction, clarify what at least Trump opponents needed clarified. In fact, unless Congress decides there is more it needs him to say about certain classified matters behind closed doors, I no longer see the necessity of subpoenaing him.

What Mueller clarified:

(1) First, something I wish Mueller had stated out loud, for everybody to hear, back before his investigation got started — that, because of DOJ policy prohibiting an indictment of a sitting president, we should not anticipate that this probe will end up charging Trump with any crimes, even in a sealed indictment that would be unsealed after he leaves office. Had Mueller made that clear from the beginning, he would have made it impossible for Trump to claim the report vindicated him.

(2) And second, if they thought they had evidence that definitely cleared him, they would have said so, and since they didn’t do that, it’s just possible Trump is guilty of something that they can’t charge him with.

(3) And yes, the ”legal" authorities don't have jurisdiction over whatever wrongdoing Trump did, if anything, (and this runs counter to so-called White House thinking, such as it is) but the “political" authorities in Congress, under the Constitution, do have jurisdiction!

And as for the “legal” matters, this all leaves open the question of what might happen to Trump after he leaves office. For that, we’ll just have to wait and see.

As for some saying Mueller’s statement is a "referral to impeach”?

Yes, it is, but that doesn’t mean Congress has an obligation to do it if they don’t think they have the votes in the Senate to convict.

Too often, we tend to confuse the “political horse race” with “political principles”, usually by our yielding priority to the horse race, but this is one of those rare cases where many are arguing that we should stand by our principles, whether or not that does damage to whatever cause it is we’re fighting for.

In this case, maybe Congress should consider making the point that the president is playing loosey-goosey with America’s values by censuring him, but only if they think they can get the votes in the Senate. Maybe later, if he hasn't gotten the message (and assuming we have the votes), we can always impeach.

I do sort of favor the idea of just launching “inquiries” into impeachment, if that would help enforce subpoenas, but in any event, it's Congress's call if they think it would do more harm than good, and on this, I trust Nancy Pelosi’s judgment more than that of those who would rush to impeach, such as the Trump campaign, Charles Blow, and dare I say it, even my wife. (Please don’t tell her I said that.)

But there’s one more thing we have learned from all of these recent events, possibly without yet realizing it:

You know that phrase we often hear, that “In America, nobody is above the law, even the president”?

It's just not true. The president of the United States, at least when he’s in office, is untouchable by the law. The law can’t charge him with a crime, can’t arrest him, apparently can’t stop him from doing anything he feels like doing, and the law can’t remove him from office.

Someday, when we get around to it, we’ll have to find the time to do something about that.

Rick

Response to Punishing Times

(See: Just Above Sunset: Punishing Times)

"Just a few more weeks of this and the nation may regret” electing Trump, you say?

I suspect that those who will, already do. But if history is a guide, those who don’t regret it will continue not regretting it.

Ask any Iowa farmer who voted for Trump and they’ll admit that the Trade War, if continued much longer, will probably kill their careers, but do they absolutely still stand behind Trump? Absolutely!

Yes, there will be news stories reported about it, but will most people feel it? No. Most Americans don’t really seem to look to the news media for information they need to live their daily lives. And if I’m wrong, Trump will just change his mind and somehow claim victory, and those who don’t like him won’t believe him, and those who do, will continue to believe him.

The more news there is out there, the less we take seriously. Write that down. That actually happens.

Oh, and one more thing:

Do you think there’s a chance that Trump, by nicknaming Adam Schiff “pencil-neck”, may finally be guilty of overreach?

First of all, maybe he’s mistaking Schiff for someone else, since Schiff’s neck is not shaped like a pencil. Also, go to the following link, look at the guy on your right, and than ask yourself if someone shaped like that should be insulting anyone else’s physical features:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_and_golf#/media/File:Shinzō_Abe_and_Donald_Trump_in_Palm_Beach_(3).jpeg

And this view of him isn’t even as unflattering as the view from his other side! Every time I see that, it occurs to me that God may be punishing this hypocrite by letting him be born with a name that rhymes with “Rump”.

Response to To Deepen the Pain and Antagonism

(See: Just Above Sunset: To Deepen the Pain and Antagonism)

If you think about it, the fact that Donald Trump, in claiming "It was a complete and total exoneration!”, directly stole the word from Robert Mueller’s phrase that specifically says his report “does not exonerate him”, might in normal times be a source of world-wide hilarity that could have had us mocking the president for a good week or so, but I guess it’s the exposure to two or three years of relentless Trumpyisms that has finally eroded our appreciation of the man’s incidental ironies.

In other words, the next two years — or, God help us, six — will be even less fun than we had previously anticipated.

Okay, so now the war begins, the war between, on one side, Trump’s TV “sock puppet army”, and on the other, anyone of either party (or neither), disturbed enough by all those things on David Frum’s wonderful list of Trumpian offenses against the nation, to seek out measures to take against a president that they see as “Enemy of America”.

Do I accept Barr’s findings?

As for punting on obstruction of Justice, it does seem strange that they all didn't see his firing of Comey, and then telling everyone he did it with the Russia probe on his mind, as pretty much a slam dunk on obstruction, not to mention his constantly complaining that Jeff Sessions never told him ahead of time that he would recuse himself. (I wish some reporter had asked Trump, "Okay, well, what would you have done if he had not recused himself? Would you order him to close down the so-called 'witch-hunt'?") I have a feeling this obstruction question isn't gone for good.

How about "Collusion"?

Technically? Yes, I accept that, assuming Barr's accurately reflecting Mueller’s report, specifically that, after many attempts, they found no actual evidence of coordination between Trump and the Russian attackers. And I trust Mueller did his job.

Still, it should be noted that, while “price-fixing”, for example, is an illegal form of collusion, to be found guilty of it does not always require being caught actually colluding with anyone. See this legal advice from the Art Publisher’s Association to its membership (“Be Careful About Antitrust Law!”) back in February of 2000:

"To be unlawful, the agreement does not have to be in writing or even expressed verbally. Countless courts have found that unspoken agreements to fix prices exist, based on the parties' conduct. An example would be where an industry leader announces its prices, and all the rest of the industry then adopts identical pricing.”

And so maybe the battle-cry of our side in the coming war should be, “EXONERATION? NO WAY! BUT COLLUSION? ACTUALLY, PROBABLY YES!” (Okay, this bumper sticker obviously needs some work.)

I suppose it might have been too much to ask the Special Counsel’s team to look for this “de-facto” type of collusion, but if they had, they would have found several examples of it — Trump and Putin saying all those nice things about each other; Trump refusing to agree with our intelligence services that Russia and not some 400-pound kid in New Jersey was behind the election meddling; and probably even Trump’s “jokingly” asking Russia in a live news conference to try to find Hillary’s missing emails, something the Russians apparently tried to do the first thing the next morning.

And yes, there may also be evidence in his taking positions that Putin would like, and that Americans and our allies would not — Trump’s attacks on our European and Canadian allies; Trump’s attempts to weaken NATO; Trump’s attempts to weaken the EU; Trump’s seeming praise and admiration of authoritarian leaders; Trump’s having America step down from its role of world leadership; Trump's blatant diminution of free media (if you believe in Democracy, you don't disrespect the free press); and Trump's weakening of the world economy with his declaration of a world-wide trade war, raising tariffs on Chinese purchasers of American soy beans and on the Iowa farmers that sell them to them, on everyone on the planet with the possible exception of Antartica.

And then there’s that goofy Trumpian narrow-minded ignorance that can’t be expected to ever do anything good for his country, but can only turn out well for its foes.

But did Russia and Trump ever really coordinate? I’m thinking probably not, but certainly not because of Trump’s moral scurples.

I think Putin originally intended to screw up our elections, as he does in lots of countries, and only later realized he might be able to scuttle his nemesis, Hillary Clinton’s campaign, at the same time helping Donald Trump, who’s political aims, he had by this time discovered, seemed to jibe with his own. Neither party really needed to coordinate with the other, since they were already naturally in synch.

Which I would think, in a normal world, wouldn’t really say much for Donald Trump, would it? But apparently, being praised by one of our nation’s foes didn’t turn out to be a problem for him after all. Go figure.

But what about Manafort’s polling data, given to that Russian oligarch? Although I think the data probably came in handy to the Russians, I never got the idea Manafort realized that he was helping Russia’s election shenanigans — I think he was just intending to help out someone he did business with — and I think his lack-of-criminal intent may help him here. But we’ll see.

And I think the same dim-wittedness was present in that Trump Jr. meeting in Trump Tower.

My feeling is, they had no idea why they all found themselves in a meeting that was supposed to be about getting dirt on Hillary, but in which the topic turned to “adoption of Russian children”, of all things. I can see them all looking at each other with puzzled looks — (“Do any of you guys know what the hell they’re talking about?”) — and when it became clear they weren’t going to be getting Clinton dirt, they all just split. I’m sure the Russians, on leaving, concluded that they had overestimated the intelligence of these Bozos.

Had anybody with the least awareness of what the Russians want been there, they would know immediately the Russians were saying to the Trump people, “Look, maybe we can help each other out here. You help us get us something we want —  like, oh, getting rid of those sanctions — and we’ll give you something you guys want — like, for example, cancelling our prohibition of Americans adopting Russian orphans" — a law Russia had enacted to punish America when it put sanctions on Russia — "and okay, perhaps we might also dig up stuff on Hillary Clinton for you!”

I’m pretty sure the Trump people hadn’t a clue what all this nonsense was about, but seeing nothing in it for them, they just bailed. And all that dirt old man Trump promised America was coming? Just another broken Trump campaign promise fades away without a trace.

And so America is, once again, accidentally rescued by our resident nit-wittery, but through no real efforts of our own!

God Bless America! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Response to Off the Deep End

(See: Just Above Sunset: Off the Deep End)

What is it with Trump’s hatred of the press? I have a theory:

Back before he ran for president, back when he was a local character in New York City, Trump used to manipulate his own news coverage — calling them up while pretending to be his own spokesperson to praise his “boss” behind his back, spilling the beans on “Mr. Trump’s” sex life, or arguing that he’s actually much richer than everyone thinks (which, of course, he wasn’t) — he was talking mostly with tabloid page-six editors and gossip columnists, all of them desperate for salacious material, the kind of “journalist” who wouldn't dig so deeply into his story in a way that might kill it, since their very livelihood depended on keeping the “billionaire playboy Trump” myth alive — not so much Woodwards and Bernsteins; more like the paparazzi bikers who chased Princess Di into that tunnel.

But once he got into dealing with national political reporters, he found himself out of his league — a different class of journalist who doesn’t really care about the comings-and-goings of the local New York village idiot, but one more likely to dig into a candidate’s background to see how much of it is total bullshit. National media have little incentive to play along with his silliness, and he doesn’t like that.

But even though he’s now playing with journalists who aren’t so likely to play into his fantasies, he still knows enough about how media works to be pretty much able to manipulate what will be the big news of any given day. Reporters and editors and producers already know the rules; they have little choice about what to report on if Trump decides, for example, to insult a famous dead American war hero or the husband of one of his closest advisers. It’s not that there aren’t more important American issues to delve into, such as why it is that so many unarmed black people seem to get killed by cops, but it’s hard to even start discussing that stuff when the president of the nation is so busy trying to trash the reputation of the late John McCain.

The fact is, however, that other presidents had to have known how to play that game, too — it doesn’t take a genius to know how to do this. But the difference is none of them chose to do it, since none of them (with the possible exception of President Richard Nixon, and probably also President Andrew Johnson) suffered from a particular type of Personality Disorder — although it may be worth noting, according to the Mayo Clinic, that "Many people with one personality disorder also have signs and symptoms of at least one additional personality disorder”, and that "It's not necessary to exhibit all the signs and symptoms listed for a disorder to be diagnosed."

Just saying.

Response to The Man Who Broke the World

(See: Just Above Sunset: The Man who Broke the World)

There are times when everything I see in the news reminds me of one of those “what-if” alternative history books that get published every few years:

"Can you imagine what might have happened to the country, and probably the world, had Donald Trump actually won the 2016 elections?”

(Oh, wait! He did win! Okay, never mind.)

Or how about an Andy Borowitz column from the New Yorker:

HITLER MEETS WITH TRUMP

DENIES INVADING POLAND

“Seriously, I asked Mr. Hitler about it, right to his face, and he swore to me he knew nothing about any invasion at the time, and in fact, he didn’t even hear about it at all until several weeks later!”, the president said in an interview with a Fox reporter. “He told me he didn’t do it, and I believe him.”

When the reporter told Trump that would be impossible, since Hitler has been dead since 1945, Trump answered, “Whatever! This guy swore to me that he was Hitler,” adding, “and I believe him.”

Response to Just Saying Things

(See: Just Above Sunset: Just Saying Things)

"'If not for me, we would now be at War with North Korea!’, Trump tweeted last summer. He seems to see his legacy in part as the great peacemaker of the Korean Peninsula and recently boasted that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Oh, for Christ’s sake! Please! Does this man seriously think all of his self-centered jibber-jabber did anybody any good?

I hate to rain on his award ceremony, but this is just another example of the rooster trying to take credit for the sunrise. Here’s the real history of Trump and North Korea, in a nutshell:

Back in 1994, according to the non-partisan Arms Control Association, President Bill Clinton made a deal with North Korea called the Agreed Framework, "calling upon Pyongyang to freeze operation and construction of nuclear reactors suspected of being part of a covert nuclear weapons program in exchange for two proliferation-resistant nuclear power reactors. The agreement also called upon the United States to supply North Korea with fuel oil pending construction of the reactors”, seemingly with the goal that North Korea might eventually integrate into the world community as a non-nuclear citizen nation. The only alternative to the Framework, for North Korea, would be to build enough nuclear weaponry that could eventually hit all of the United States.

The “Framework" worked fine until the George W Bush administration came into power, determined to undo anything Bill Clinton had done, and let the North Koreans know that things would be different around here from now on. This prompted North Korea, possibly immediately, to start secretly enriching uranium, something the Bush people found out about in late 2002.

Rather than confront the North Koreans and demand they halt their efforts to create a uranium enrichment capability, the intelligence findings gave those in the Bush administration who opposed the Agreed Framework a reason to abandon it. John Bolton, then-undersecretary of state for arms control and international security under President Bush, later wrote that “this was the hammer I had been looking for to shatter the Agreed Framework.”

Bolton may have had other plans, but all that really mattered at that point was North Korea’s Plan B — that is, to get back to building enough nuclear weapons capable of hitting all of the United States, from sea to shining sea. That’s what they did, and that's where we are now.

Anything that anybody, including the president of the United States, did during the time it took North Korea to accomplish their goal was superfluous. All of those bombastic threats, followed by all the nice-nice "love" talk from both sides? Just part of the show.

And the truth is — something only Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats seems to have the guts to allude to out loud — all the United States can do now is learn to live with a nuclear North Korea.

Forget Nobel Peace Prizes for either of those two, which indeed they both might actually get, but not because either comes close to deserving it — Trump, because he’s been nothing but a feckless bit player in a pas de deux completely choreographed by the Kims for all of these years; and Kim, because he’s now made the world a more dangerous place.

Although yes, there’s still the possibility that Trump could screw this up, pretty much by doing just about anything at all — withdrawing troops from South Korea, for example. We might just come off okay out of all this if Trump could learn to just sit on his hands, keep whatever he’s thinking inside his head, and otherwise do nothing at all.

Just leave things the way they are. They’re not going to get better, but with luck, and maybe a bit of presidential will power, they won’t get worse.

Response to The Joy of Egomaniacal Ignorance

(See: Just Above Sunset: The Joy of Egomaniacal Ignorance)

I always forget this guy’s name and just think of him as “that Starbucks guy”, which points to his problem: Other than having been successful in business, what of relevance has Howard Schultz got going for himself?

And that assumes having been successful at business really counts for much, which I think it doesn’t. And that’s exactly what was wrong with Trump: (1) Not only does having the so-called skills to be a successful businessman not transfer well to politics, (2) Donald Trump, who we’d probably never have heard of had his family not been filthy rich, wasn’t really even all that good at business anyway.

(But yes, to give Schultz his due, although not that it matters — unlike Trump, at least Howard Schultz really was a successful businessman.)

But Starbucks guy also checks the box that, for some reason, too many liberals think they need to, which is...

“I’m socially liberal, but fiscally conservative!”:

Fiscal conservatism is a political-economic philosophy regarding fiscal policy and fiscal responsibility advocating low taxes, reduced government spending and minimal government debt. Free trade, deregulation of the economy, lower taxes, and privatization are the defining qualities of fiscal conservatism.

So if being “fiscally conservative”, in principle, means being in favor of exercising "fiscal responsibility, advocating low taxes, reduced government spending and minimal government debt", doesn’t that actually, in practice, mean reducing the amount of money for any safety net for poor people? And if so, then how can one really be “fiscally conservative” and “socially liberal” at the same time?

Personally, I think we need to first philosophically (and I suppose also “morally” or “ethically”) decide what we want our government to do, and let the tax and spending levels follow from that. For example, if we decide we want to give free college to all students with B averages or above, we need to be willing to pay for it, and then to raise the revenue to pay for it, and that’s how we figure out how much taxes we want to raise.

Like Daddy Starbucks, I used to call myself a political centrist, but also like him, I think I based that on seeing polls that showed most Americans agree with my political views. Of course, that conveniently ignored the fact that my views aren't actually “centrist”, they’re “liberal”, which is why I now consider myself a “liberal Democrat” — which, by definition, would be in the mainstream. But being “mainstream” is not the same as being in the “center” of the stream, it just means being where most of the water is.

But to get back to Starbucks man, instead of presenting himself as the guy behind Starbucks who has, for some reason, decided he’s running for president, maybe he should go talk to the Democrats in his state and ask them to help him learn the trade of politics from the bottom up, and maybe he’ll run for some public office some day — like mayor of some big city, or maybe governor.

In fact, maybe he shouldn’t even mention Starbucks, which is really not that relevant — although I suppose what might help him get his foot in the door is if he mentions that he has lots and lots of money, since that might be considered relevant indeed.

Rick

Response to Lit by Gas

(See: Just Above Sunset: Lit by Gas)

I presume that what Trump means is, Mexico will be paying for the wall through his fancy new NAFTO 2.0 that will go into effect in 2020, and that Congress has yet to approve, to be disbursed out of U.S. tax revenues that will come from an anticipated reduction of our trade deficit with Mexico?

But that would only be true if tax revenues rise because of that happening, assuming it will, which apparently economists are not so sure will. But if it does, it could be argued that he got Mexico and Canada to pay for it! Oh, well, we may never know if that ever happens, which probably suits Trump just fine.

But a more important issue that we all should be talking about right now, during this shutdown while Americans are paying attention, is that all Americans need to agree that these government shutdowns need to just stop.

They not only needlessly hurt our government employees, they also deprive access to crucial government services that citizens depend on, they hurt the economy, they end up costing us rather than saving us money (which too many Americans erroneously believe), and probably the most significant of all, the fact that some politicians think it’s okay to blackmail the country into passing bills that the country can’t seem to pass the normal way — because Americans are not in favor of them — is a symptom of the failure of America and its constitution.

And while, in fact, any one of these arguments ought to be enough reason to stop the practice, it’s especially true of the first one, which wreaks serious and sometimes irreparable havoc on the lives of people we hire to do our work. We treat this issue casually, but in truth, it’s a serious case of wrongdoing on our part, and it needs to stop.

Although there’s probably no way to outright outlaw government shutdowns — google the "Antideficiency Act" of 1884, which says it’s against the law to spend government money that hasn’t yet been allocated, and which is what supplies the legal groundwork for all these shutdowns — we might at least try to make it unacceptable in the collective brain of Americans to do so.

How?

We Americans need to insist that both parties make sure whatever our government buys or rents is fully paid for in advance. This means that well before these deadlines arrive, neither side puts any “poison pills” (that is, nothing that the other party would refuse to vote for) into the spending bills. In other words, keep the controversy out of these last-minute appropriation bills, safely put off to the side to be discussed at a later date.

Nobody should “proudly” own a shutdown, and everybody should shame anybody else who forces into any bill a poison-pill rider that they know will be rejected by the other side.

Another way of looking at it:

Do not lard appropriation bills with those riders that wouldn’t pass Congress without the extortionate cloud of a government shutdown hanging over it.

Why?

Because shutdowns were not part of the design of the founders. The people who invented this country back in to 18th century came up with a way to govern it that relied on the good will of all to vote for or against bills in ways that reflected the collective will of the governed, without having to resort to such gimmicks as threatening to shut everything down if the minority doesn’t get its way, as a way of overruling the will of the people.

Yeah, you say, but that’s never going to happen.

Okay, I’m not predicting that it will happen, only arguing that it should. I’m pretty sure the founders were not so stupid as to think the system of governance they designed would be automatically protected by an all-powerful God, but instead knew it was a design that, by necessity, would only survive if future generations (that’s us!) understood how fragile it is, and would have the common sense to make sure it did not fall apart.

In short, all these government closings that we have blithely been accepting as business-as-usual politics, are really just a sign that we have forgotten how to govern ourselves according to the original plan. Starting right now, we all need to just stop allowing these shutdowns to happen.

Pass it on.

Response to Passing Losses On

(See: Just Above Sunset: Passing Losses On)

I confess, Obamacare has always been confusing to me but I suspect it’s even more confusing to Republicans, who don’t seem to understand that when ACA was being devised, the planners came up with pieces that all fit together in such a way that, if you take away any one of the parts, the plan falls apart.

For example, those planners knew they could always insist that insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions, but they also knew they couldn’t do that unless they allowed those companies to make enough money to pay for it. And that’s why they came up with a mandate that said everybody had to have insurance or else pay a penalty (originally a “fine”, but eventually, a “tax”) to cover it.

So the Republicans, who are apparently not as good with money as everyone seems to think they are, ZERO OUT the penalty for the mandate, yet still insist on keeping the pre-existing conditions that the mandates pay for!

And then some conservative judge comes along with his long-awaited ruling on a lawsuit filed by a number of state attorneys general. Here’s the background from the Wall Street Journal’s own reaction to his ruling:

Recall that Chief Justice John Roberts joined four Justices to say ObamaCare’s mandate was illegal as a command to individuals to buy insurance under the Commerce Clause. “The Framers gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it,” he wrote.

Yet the Chief famously salvaged ObamaCare by unilaterally rewriting the mandate to be a “tax” that was within Congress’s power. Never mind that Democrats had expressly said the penalty was not a tax. Majority Leader Roberts declared it to be so.

Enter Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who argues in Texas v. U.S. that since Congress has repealed the mandate, the tax is no longer a tax, and ObamaCare is thus illegal. Judge O’Connor agreed with that logic, and he went further in ruling that since Congress said the mandate is crucial to the structure of ObamaCare, then all of ObamaCare must fall along with the mandate.

Okay, but think about this and tell me where I’m wrong:

Since Roberts’ “tax” solution was in response only to whether we can “fine” somebody for not buying insurance, and since the Republicans zeroed out that fine/tax to nothing, then where’s the problem to which the word “tax” is the solution? Because of the fact that there’s no longer teeth in the mandate, there’s no longer any compulsion here, which is what brought up the question of constitutionality.

Or am I missing something?

On the other hand, the actual problem we’re left with seems to be that, without the “stick" with which to hit people who refuse to buy insurance, making sure most every American is in the pool, where will insurance companies find the money to pay for all this stuff?

So no, you blockheads, ending the mandate didn’t make the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, it just made the Affordable Care Act un-fucking-affordable!

Or did it? Maybe not.

According to Andrew Sprung at HealthInsurance.Org, who wrote "The GOP is still coming after your ACA coverage (whether you have a pre-existing condition or not)" back in September before the ruling of this past weekend:

The [State Attorneys General’s] suit ignores the fact that the current Republican Congress deliberately zeroed out the penalty while not repealing the ACA, reflecting learned experience that ACA subsidies are enough to keep the ACA private plan marketplace functioning, albeit in impaired fashion, no matter what measures (other than repeal) Republicans take to sabotage it.

In other words, maybe those subsidies called for by Obamacare will be enough to continue paying for coverage of pre-existing conditions?

I do hope so, but I must admit I’m not greatly encouraged by any argument that rests of the “learned experience” of a gaggle of random Republican Congressmen.

* * * * *

But while I got you, let me change the subject to the upcoming “Trump Shutdown” of the government to pay for his stupid wall.

Will there be a shutdown? I don’t know, but I do predict that he will fail to get his wall, and yet will still claim he succeeded.

So you have Stephen Miller saying that the administration would do “whatever is necessary to build the border wall,” and I’m thinking, "Anything at all that’s necessary?"

How about maybe rallying all those few Americans in favor of your wall, to roll up their sleeves, "put on overalls, bring hammers and saws and spare bricks and lumber and barbed-wire and whatnot, and meet us at the border, ready to put your sweat equity where your mouth is!"

"(Oh, yeah, and don’t forget to bring money!)”

Response to Idiot’s Delight

(See: Just Above Sunset: Idiot's Delight)

Here’s Colby Itkowitz, in the Washington Post:

Over 10 minutes of a surreal public sparring match in the Oval Office, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tried mightily to rise above the bluster and ego that erupted between the men in the room.

But Pelosi (D-Calif.) instead had to listen as President Trump mansplained to her the legislative process and her role in the debate, while Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer talked over her to trade barbs mano a mano with Trump.

I think playing up this “mansplaining” view — that the men talked over the woman — may have missed the point:

Both Chuck and Nancy conspired to play Trump, tricking him into owning any government shutdown. After all, she knew exactly what she was doing when she tried to move the debate into private session to discuss any upcoming “Trump Shutdown”, goading Trump into talking about it, during which Chuck then forced the overly-cocky Donald to “proudly” take ownership.

And while her “manhood” comment afterward is certainly memorable for whatever belittling effect it might have on Trump when he reads it, I also hope that her mentioning that she felt like she had been in “a tinkle contest with a skunk” gets some future mention, maybe in some debate, just to let a little air out of his balloon.

I’m convinced one reason for Trump’s undeserved reputation for success in battle is that, because he always pretty much controls the setting, and because he usually only engages with news reporters who he knows, for professional reasons, can’t fight back, he's never really seen getting into any face-to-face confrontations with anyone who disagrees with him, and who are more than willing to talk back to him in front of cameras. It was, as CNN's bemused resident Brit Richard Quest noted afterward, the closest thing he'd seen to Wednesday Question Time in Britain's Parliament, during which the Prime Minister is compelled to debate her opposition.

In any event, I’m sure Trump will think twice before he decides to trap these two with a bait-and-switch photo-op. And Pelosi is no dummy! She’s got my vote.

In fact — and this occurred to me just now — Nancy Pelosi is, as of this moment, my top choice of Democrats to face Donald Trump in 2020!

(See: Just Above Sunset: Imagining The Worst)

Trump is, almost literally, a real world representation of those three monkeys that see no evil, etc. What he is doing is exactly the behavior that the metaphor was invented to mock.

Donald Trump:

"The world is a very dangerous place!”

And thanks to his efforts, it seems to be getting more so every day!

Conservatives tend to be afraid of the world, claiming it’s more dangerous than it really is, and tend to lack the courage to deal with it the way it is. Previous presidents, not nearly as conservative, and therefore less fearful than Trump, would have a better idea of how to deal with this situation. If the world is dangerous, it’s because too many world leaders lack the guts and brains to deal with it.

What is it about Trump that made the Saudis think they could slip this one by America?

For one thing, they probably sense, like MBS has told people, that they got us "in their pocket”. It’s no wonder, since our Artist of the Deal tends to tip his hand in dealing with them. They can easily smell fear when Trump tells everyone, 'Hey, who knows if they did it? The important thing is they’ve promised to buy a gazillion dollars worth of weapons from us!’

True! They’ve already given us fourteen billion, and they promise the check for the rest is in the mail!

I’m old enough to remember when WE held arms sales over THEIR heads, instead of the other way around. But maybe that was back when we had leaders who were better at making deals, and who were also infused with good old American moral values that kept them from baldly looking the other way when an ally murdered someone. That’s why an American leader with the necessary skills could extend the soft power that made America a respected leader in the world.

Donald Trump lacks both the smarts and the courage to be very good at any of this, and he’s apparently not smart enough to see it, and even if he could see it, he’d lie and say it’s not happening. I’m getting to the point of thinking we need, under the threat of impeachment, to make a deal with him to get him out of there, like we did with Nixon and Agnew.

I’d been holding off on that because I was afraid of what might happen to us under “President Pence”, and thinking maybe after 2020 the problem would go away on its own, but things are getting too bad and the harm he’s done to our stature in the world may already be irreparable.

Maybe the time has come to seriously consider that a president taking it upon himself to do harm to his country is grounds for removal. Odd that our founders overlooked that eventuality.

Response to Trump Change

(See: Just Above Sunset: Trump Change)

If the truth be told, it’s was not all that difficult to figure out what to do.

When we — or at least those of us who understand that words do matter — acknowledge out loud that Dr. Christine Ford was a “credible witness”, we need to understand that this means she’s “believable” — which is just another way of saying, “Yes! Yes! We believe her!”

And no, not only was Brett Kavanau’s performance not believable, it was, in itself, disqualifying for the job, at least to most people who watched it, including many who are experts at law and the Constitution. To anyone with good judgement, it was unforgivable and irreversible: You can’t just undo it by admitting the next day that you said some things you probably shouldn’t have said, but you promise to be good from now on.

(Okay, behave yourself from now on, but how about doing it somewhere else than in the Supreme Court of the United States?)

And who knew that Trump would get the FBI to join his cabal! One problem with the investigation is that nobody was sure what the FBI was looking for — evidence that Dr. Ford was telling the truth? Evidence that Kavanaugh was lying? Both? The veracity of the woman he allegedly exposed himself to at Yale? We may never know, but it’s hard not to suspect the whole FBI thing was faked.

And this whole idea of finding anyone who remembers being at that party? Try this yourself: Do you remember ever being at a high school party in which something was going on upstairs that you were not aware of?

Of course not! If you weren’t aware of what was going on at some party, why would you remember the party? And if you do remember, it’s probably because you were the one doing what was going on, in which case you won’t want to admit it. The whole thing was silly.

And because we really don’t want to talk about sex anyway, there may be another reason to be in denial about the event at the party: Even if it did happen, what’s the big deal, you may ask? After all, it’s only sex! Sex happens all the time, people of both genders will admit, and much of it by girls who change their minds later about wanting to do it in the first place. But it's certainly not something that should ruin the life of a good man who we desperately need to get onto the Supreme Court.

And, in fact, in this case, it’s not even sex, it was only attempted sex! And what if it had actually been rape? What’s the big deal! Once again, I’m sure there are still plenty of people who believe, as my neighbor suggested the other day, that “Rape is just having sex with someone you don’t like!"

So the truth be told? But that’s just it: For obvious reasons, the truth is not going to be told, at least not by Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate Republican Booster Club, and what each and every one of them won’t tell you is, they spent all that time and energy looking for a credible “Yes”, and were not going to settle for “No", which is why the Republicans arranged to keep the discussion in the realm of “He said, she said”, which “he” always seems to win by default.

Here’s where Susan Collins’s logic went off the tracks in her Senate speech: 

"Some argue that because this is a lifetime appointment to our highest court, the public interest requires that doubts be resolved against the nominee. 

Others see the public interest as embodied in our long-established tradition of affording to those accused of misconduct a presumption of innocence. In cases in which the facts are unclear, they would argue that the question should be resolved in favor of the nominee."

A more specific statement of the American version of this “presumption of innocence” is, in this country, people are presumed innocent until proven guilty — in a court of law!

And to integrate that into something that has been mentioned by those on both sides in the last two weeks, what has been going on in the Senate is not a court trial, it’s a job interview, and while there may be a presumption of innocence in a courtroom, there is none when you’re interviewing for a job.

An example:

Suppose you’re a middle manager, looking to hire a specific person for your company, and you hear several rumors he was let go from his previous job after being under suspicion of molesting some of the children in the company-run daycare center.

So you call his previous employer and ask someone in the HR department about the rumors, and are told they’ve been advised by the legal department to not discuss this person at all, and you ask why, and you’re told “We just don’t want to get involved in any legal disputes.”

So you ask the applicant about the rumors, and this is his angry reply:

“First of all, I was in the top of my class in school! I was also captain of the football team and basketball team! Let me tell you, I worked my friggin’ ass off!”

Okay, you say, but what I’m asking is, what can you tell me about the rumors? And his answer is, “Okay, they have absolutely no evidence I did any of that! Zero! None!"

So what do you do? You have no evidence that the applicant did anything wrong, and so you ask yourself, shouldn’t I give this guy the benefit of the doubt?

Answer: Maybe, but not necessarily. If you think he’s most likely not guilty, you might decide to take a chance on him. On the other hand, if you get the feeling he’s probably guilty, feel free to cut him loose. So you do.

And that’s that? Not so fast.

Because then, after you tell the guy no, you get a call from your upper management, maybe your boss’s boss, who informs you the applicant is the son of a good friend, and so he tells you to call the guy back in and hire him. So then you tell the high-up mucky-muck about the daycare rumors, and that you can’t, in good conscience, hire some child molester.

Then he says, hmm, oh yeah, that would look pretty bad, but then he orders you to find a way to hire the guy anyway. In other words, make the problem go away, and then hire the guy.

So you do. After all, you tell yourself — and anybody else that asks — that, here in America, you’re presumed innocent until proven guilty, and since we have no actual evidence of any wrongdoing…

You then call the guy back and give him the good news!

“That’s great!”, the guy says.

But just before you both hang up, the guy says, “Oh, by the way, one more question?”

“Sure. What?”

“Does the company have onsite daycare?"

Now for the big question: Did you do the right thing?

Maybe, maybe not. But whichever, just remember to make sure you send your daughter elsewhere for daycare.

Will there be an upside to all that Kavanaugh crap we just went through?

Yes, I do believe that it only helps Democrats to realize that, no matter what they lead you believe time and time again, Republicans like Jeff Flake and Susan Collins will always be like Lucy with the football, and that when it comes to doing the right thing, we Democrats will need to find some way to do that ourselves.