Month: October 2023

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The situation in Israel and Gaza is mess. It is impossible to ignore because, at the very least, displaced refugees will exit a war zone and need new homes and, at worst, a wave of terrorism will be unleashed on the West. The options on how to handle the mess is depressing because there is nothing new here. Israel and Hamas will continue to do the same thing they have always done with the same depressing results.

It is difficult for me to take Hamas’ complaints about Gaza seriously because Hamas deliberately attacked Israel with the intention of provoking Israel. There was no other reason. They knew this would happen that is why they attacked.

Hamas is supposed to be the government in Gaza so their behavior on October 7 is unacceptable. If killing children, raping women and kidnapping grandmothers is what a Hamas government is about, then Hamas’ behavior is more than alarming. It is a war crime and the Israelis have every right to pursue these criminals. As a government, Hamas is responsible for their soldiers. They haven’t done anything to discipline the worst offenders of October 7, so I can only assume that they are a criminal government with criminal soldiers.

Also, a Hamas government has sadly neglected the people in Gaza. They knew they were going to attack Israel. Did they do anything to protect their own population against what was about to happen. Did they store food and medicine? Apparently not. They don’t mind hiding in heavily populated areas which puts their civilian population (read here women and children) at risk. Hamas is discouraging evacuations and blocking exits out of dangerous areas. This is good government? So you can spare me any arguments that Hamas cares about their civilian population. They want them massacred. They need bloody bodies so that the BBC and CNN can show them to a horrified public.

Finally, there is the argument that the people in Gaza are being held captive by Hamas so they shouldn’t be punished for Hamas’ actions. What? If Hamas is holding the people in Gaza hostage then we should be rescuing them. Right? Hamas is either the government there or not. If Hamas represents the people of Gaza, this means that the civilian population of the country is fair game. I know that this is true because Hamas and its supporters in the West tell me so. You see if it is all right for Hamas to attack the civilian population of Israel, how can it be wrong for Israel to do the same. If Gaza is being held hostage by Hamas, then let’s rescue the people in Gaza immediately because Hamas isn’t doing much to help them.

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I grew up under a different Republican Party (and admittedly a different Democratic Party as well). The Republican Party of my youth won elections big. The biggest vote getter was Ronald Reagan. He called himself a big tent Republican. Republicans didn’t have to agree with him 100% of the time. He was all right with that if they stuck with him most of the time. He also famously worked with Democrat Tip O’Neill in creating budgets that both the Democrats and Republicans could live with. Reagan showed how well the big tent worked by winning two two landslide elections.

Something Republican candidates for President can’t do anymore. Since 1992, Republicans have won a majority of the popular vote once — 2004. This depressing statistic doesn’t seem to bother them in the least. Indeed, they are moving to a strategy that is puzzling. They only want true believers and, because they only want true believers, they are chasing away members who actually would prefer to stay. Really Liz Cheney, George Will, where the Hell are they supposed to go but the present party leadership wants to scream Liberal when they walk in the door. So instead of going to a big tent, they want to move to a much smaller tent, let’s call it the pup tent strategy.

You can catch this strategy if you watch the endless election of the Speaker of the House. The normal procedure is that the Republicans would choose their candidate through a majority vote of the Republican members. The guy (or gal) who got the majority of the votes would then become Speaker. This tried and true system no longer works for Republicans because they hate each other so much that one individual member always will hold grudge for anyone who winds up being their candidate for speaker. Just because someone has a majority of the votes doesn’t mean I have to respect the majority’s decision. We certainly have known this since the 2020 election but that involved a Democrat which, while troubling, is at least understandable. Republicans are supposed to hate Democrats but that they turned this hatred on to Republicans is a bit of shock. I am enjoying it tremendously but I don’t understand it. So a party where members pretty much agree about everything will torpedo one of their own — making their party a laughingstock because of a petty disagreement with the guy who won. It makes no sense at all, at least no sense for a party that wants to win an election.

The present Republican Party would rather quarrel. Kevin McCarthy had to sell his soul and, even that wasn’t enough, they still kicked him out. Steve Scalise preferred to bow out rather than be humiliated by numerous failed votes. Jim Jordon tried to steamroll his way into winning and ended up pissing off so many people that they wouldn’t buy his soul if he was the last soul on earth. So a revolving number of Republican members continue to thwart majority rule. Because. Because. Because they can???

And after thwarting these men, all who had at one time were the choice of the majority of Republicans, they are about to destroy any future candidates chances. Tom Emmer’s name is being batted around as the next victim person to run for Speaker. Instead of saying great here is the person to lead, there are Republicans saying that Emmer is Nancy Pelosi in a suit. Now that is about as low as a Republican can get when throwing insults around and, unsurprisingly, not even remotely true. Emmer’s only sin is accepting the election of Joe Biden in the 2020 election otherwise his record is similar to every other Republican in Congress and certainly doesn’t match Nancy Pelosi record. Hyperbole I guess but Jesus this seems to be way beyond hyperbole.

And it is going to get even worse. If a minority can hold finance bills hostage, this minority will do it. McCarthy was able to delay this reckoning. It is in fact what did him in — cooperating with Democrats. So we know there are enough Republicans who would rather shut down government than have a bill that has any Democrats fingerprint on it. Since Biden is a Democrat and the Senate is run by the Democrats, Democrats, by the very structure of our government, are going to have their fingerprints on it. The idea, at least in the past, was that people worked together to find a bill that would get a majority of votes. It is hard work and difficult but government has to run and the only fair way to do this is by majority rule. But Republicans don’t care about majority rule and they certainly can’t pass a bill that Democrats may like and so they will shut down the government. Of course, their true believers will love it but what about everyone else. Pup tent thinking.

But these Republicans aren’t interested in creating a broad center right party. They are working to make voting harder instead of trying to attract new voters. There is even talk of limiting the franchise to fewer and fewer voters — to land owners only, to people who have children only, to men only ( see here and here). Ideas that have long gone ago passed their expiration dates but, because the Republicans aren’t able to persuade a majority of Americans to side with them, they are fondly remembering that you were once able to choose your voters and are trying tirelessly to make that happen.

Compromise is the only way the American system works. It isn’t perfect but it is the system we have. If you can gain more seats, you don’t have to compromise as much as the other party but you will still have to compromise. That compromise is seen as a problem speaks to a much bigger problem that Republicans seem to have with democratic institutions. Working with the system we have and making it work isn’t nearly as much fun as making the system dysfunctional. They don’t give a damn what the majority wants and apparently have no interest in making the tent larger. Indeed, some even don’t believe the majority should decide. That is a problem.

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The recent recopening of war in the Middle East also reopened discussions on what is morally acceptable behavior during a war. It is a difficult topic because people’s opinions shift depending upon what war you are fighting, who is fighting it and whether you are winning. In the Catholic School I attended I received two very different messages about war from the same teacher. Sister Mira thought the Viet Cong were cowards because they hid among the Vietnamese people and fought a guerrilla war. They should fight on a battlefield like good soldiers instead of engaging in guerrilla tactics. She alao admired the ingenuity of the Minute Men during the American Revolutionary War because they avoided open warfare with the better armed British forces. They would attack the British were they could and then retreat into the vast American countryside to avoid being caught. Which sounds very much like the Viet Cong were doing. So your moral decisions about war depends on which side you are on — rebels you like can use guerrilla warfare, rebels you don’t like shouldn’t.

War is a problem ethically. War is violent. War kills innocent people. It is hard to justify killing a small child but, if there is a war going on, there is a pretty good chance that a small child is dying somewhere because of it. It is unavoidable. Now these killings can come in different ways with varying degrees of culpability. There is a difference between killing a child through dropping a bomb on his house and slitting the child’s throat in his bed. But still the child is dead in both cases. An innocent died because of the war you are waging. How do you stop someone like Hitler without killing innocent children. The truth is you can’t.

No matter how just the war is in the general sense, specific acts are going to go wrong. Should you stop fighting Hitler because you want to limit your fighting to actions that won’t kill children? Morally speaking — how many children will die if I fight Hitler and how many children will die if I fail to fight Hitler. It is a horrible choice but one that has to be made.

This is why war is to be avoided it if at all possible. It is a moral quagmire. Perhaps when a nation is considering war, instead of demonizing the future enemy, people should consider the question is this worth killing innocents to get what we want? And if the answer is yes then go into it accepting your soldiers will face this dilemma. Possibly this will make people act better but I doubt it.

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Hamas isn’t interested in making the Palestinians lives any better, they want the destruction of Israel. These are two distinctly different goals. One might be done peacefully, the other will require a bloodbath. Hamas wants the bloodbath.

Since the Israelis have a strong military, and, where it matters, a unified population on how to battle Hamas, Israel has the distinct advantage. There is little to no evidence that it is even possible to drive the Israelis out and it certainly would cost many lives on both sides. Without some change in strategy, the only thing Hamas can do in the short term is make life miserable for the Israelis which, in turn, also means the Palestinians. And around and around she goes.

So for the foreseeable future, life in the Middle East will continue to be bloody. The Palestinians in Gaza are about to pay a high price for Hamas brutality which means the world is about to watch Israel go into the Gaza with both guns blazing. More dead women and children, more wounded and maimed, more cities in rubble, so more people without homes and more people who nobody wants searching the world for a place to live without fear of a missile flying through their roof. It is hopeless and depressing and I wish I had an answer. But I don’t and really it doesn’t appear that anyone else does either.

I do know that Hamas are evil fucks. I just can’t listen to their excuses nor their outrage over how the Israelis treat the people in Gaza. They knew what they were doing and how the Israelis would react that was, after all, the only purpose for the attack — a giant publicity stunt showing how relevant Hamas is. But they fucked that up when they gleefully started killing children. This wasn’t the publicity Hamas was after.

And it isn’t as if I believe the Israelis have been saints, they haven’t. But, seriously, I haven’t heard of any recent Israeli military actions where their soldiers intentionally killed children or, for that matter, a doped up audience. Attacking a rock concert at sunrise. How brave. Their victims were probably high as kite or coming down from being high as a kite — not quite equal combatants with the Hamas terrorists.

People are still responsible for what they do. No amount of suffering justifies raping hostages and killing babies. If Hamas represents the Palestinian nation, then their soldiers should behave like good soldiers when acting for the nation. Good soldiers only kill when it is necessary and not out of revenge for past wrongs. Killing should be the last resort. This isn’t what happened. Hamas exhibited a cruelty that was inexcusable for good soldiers in combat which means they are terrorists and not soldiers.

So, all that is left for now is for the Israelis to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and thus begins a new round of bloody recriminations.

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I live near downtown San Diego and drive an automobile. This means I experience two problems whenever I leave home. Parking will be limited and I will probably have to pay for it. The easiest and cheapest way to park is street parking which, depending on the time of day, will be metered. So far so good and I accept that this is the way things are.

What I don’t accept is that fucking meters are out of order half the time I pull up to one. In a fair world, this would mean that parking is free. The machine that the city provides to give payment is out of order. How can I pay? But reason is irrelevant when dealing with San Diego Treasury department who are responsible for the parking meters. You are supposed to pay even if there is no way to pay. Understand because they are very firm about this.

So, when I find myself in this dilemma, I scan the street quickly to see if I have an alternate. Hopefully this gave you a few moments of amusement because you already know that there is rarely an alternate and that I have already spent the last half of an hour driving the neighborhood looking for an open space. I am tired of looking, late for my appointment and now angry at the world for putting me in this position. In these cases, I usually make a quick sign of the cross and risk it. Sometimes I get a ticket, sometimes I don’t.

What irritates me is the city’s position on this. I made a genuine effort to feed the beast but the beast refuses to bite. Perhaps, and I am guessing here (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that part of the problem is the parking meters are a good source of revenue for the city. In the last fiscal year $7.3 million in traffic fines were collected. Now if all this money came from malcontents trying to dodge the meter, I would say fine the shit out of them baby. However, as I have pointed out, some of this money comes from good and faithful citizens trying to do their civic duty and pay the God damn machines and who were unfairly fined because of broken parking meters.

To make matters worse, I hear that the City Council is making it easier for new building contractors to get exemptions on the new construction laws which require that new buildings have a parking place for each person in a unit. They are, in fact, allowing new condos without any parking whatsoever. Why anyone would buy a new condo without parking is beyond me but then I suppose the desperation to own something, anything at all, has gotten so bad that there are people who will pluck down a million dollars to own a condo without parking in the most congested part of the city. But I digress.

Oh, and then there are the bike lanes. Yes the bike lines put in by the city in the hopes of changing San Diego’s dependence on the car and pursue a more ecologically minded form of transportation like bicycles. Well, unsurprisingly, it has failed miserably. I can stand in a bicycle lane for hours at a time without seeing a bicycle. The net result for the city’s efforts is less parking spaces and the streets are more dangerously narrow to the extent that I can hold conversations with the drivers in the next lane.

So in review:

Parking is difficult in San Diego.

So parking must be paid for.

Even if the parking meter is broken and is unable to take your payment, you have to pay.

The city is exempting contractors from building more parking in new buildings so they are making parking even worse than it already is. Why they are doing this is a mystery. Oh, wait, it may not be a mystery at all — campaign donations from contractors might have something to do with it. I am not sure but I am throwing that out there for your consideration.

In order to encourage better ecological behavior on its citizens, the city has also taken away parking by building new bike lanes thus making parking even more challenging and driving more dangerous. All to accommodate the 5 bikers who use the bike lanes.

On the other hand, I do live in America’s finest city.

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I was appalled to read that Mary Lou Retton, Olympic Gold Medal winner, doesn’t have health insurance and has to raise money for her hospital stay through an on-line fund raiser. She has a life-threatening pneumonia and is in critical condition. She has been in the hospital for over a week, so you can imagine the cost already and she isn’t out of the woods.

How does someone so well connected not have health insurance? This absolutely blew me away. If Retton is taking risks regarding health insurance, then the number of people who faces these choices must be much larger than I imagined. This doesn’t mean that they decide not to get health insurance either, they may decide for health insurance but what are they doing without. This is about life on the margins where the cost of health insurance might make people sacrifice other necessities of life — like not paying the mortgage, half dosing prescription medicine, skipping meals. But, then, there will be people who will argue that this is good, Retton will make better decisions in the future from the lessons she learned from not having health insurance.

Like delaying necessary treatment because she doesn’t have health insurance. I can’t imagine what I would do if I were sick and didn’t have health insurance. You don’t know if you will get off easy with $100 bill for a doctor’s visit and prescription or a $50,000 hospital stay. And even if you only have to pay $100, it may be $100 you don’t have, so what do you do? How is not taking care of your health beneficial to society?

Then when you are so sick you have to seek medical treatment, who pays the bills when the person involved is not America’s sweetheart? What happens to a person who is an asshole and people hate the person so much that they are angry at you for even thinking of helping the asshole. Though it pains me to say this — even assholes deserve healthcare and they probably won’t fare well in the Go Fund Me Route. So instead of contributing to every Go Fund Me asking for help with medical bills, our system is set up to treat everyone through a universal health care system.

That won’t happen because that is socialism and socialism is bad. I honestly don’t care how it is done either. If you can propose a way to do it through the markets and it is both affordable and universal, I am cool. But I haven’t heard one yet so there is that. The Republicans, who I would assume after bitching for 8 years about Obamacare, would have passed reform bills with these market solutions incorporated when they took over, but they didn’t so it looks very much like they don’t have anything. Which is unsurprising but nonetheless disappointing.

Until then I will continue to enjoy the best medical care in the world.

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A television ad blew my mind the other day. An American Health Insurance companies was offering health plans that included Mexican doctors. I thought this had to be wrong. American Insurance companies would never include cross border doctors. I was wrong. I googled it and sure enough I found a Health Insurance company that includes Mexican doctors. Forget the bullshit about being culturally sensitive and giving customers a wider network of doctors. They can’t contain themselves about the real reason. I am betting you already know the answer but just in case you are struggling, I will let you know — it is cheaper. The lower co-pays for using Mexican doctors gave the game away.

Living on the Mexican border, on and off, for the past 30 years, I knew people who have crossed the border for medical care but I always was a little suspicious because there alway seemed to be some horror story attached with the doctor’s visit to Mexico. Plastic surgery gone wrong, dental work that turns into health emergencies. Of course, the same horror stories happen with American doctors every day so why this influenced my thinking is a mystery. I am sure it has something to do with having been told my whole life that American healthcare may be expensive but it is the best in the world

But now that American Insurance companies allow Mexican doctors in their plans, this lays to rest these concerns. Of course, it also raises a big question – why is American healthcare so much more expensive. I mean, any insurance company that includes Mexican doctors has to believe that Mexican doctors are, at least, comparable to American doctors or why would they include them in their plan. They could never publicly say there is a difference in service because to do so would undermine the whole idea of American Healthcare which is price doesn’t matter. The quality is the same, the different prices customers pay only means lower co-pays, lower deductibles. and more doctors in the plan. But the quality is exactly the same.

How, then, can American Insurance companies continue to say that American Healthcare is the best service at the best price when they are also willing to pay for comparable services of Mexican doctors which is a lower rate. It is a contradiction that requires some explanation. I am listening.

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Something goes on in people’s minds when they start talking about poor people that doesn’t happen with your average middle class person and certainly not rich person. People assume they know the general outline of the poor person’s story which can be whittled down to the person fucked up and somehow deserved the consequences of their mistakes. Poverty and the attendant despair teach a great lesson. How else will they learn? Right. This kind of help has proven itself enormously successful with this nations homeless problem. If anything, the present spirit is that all this mollycoddling we shower on the homeless is part of the problem. There are some people who think we should do even less than the very little we are doing now.

Any way I digress. I was talking to friends about a person who is having financial problems. She lives month to month and needs every penny she can get. More than once in the discussion, people said that her situation was shocking because she was a good person and undeserving of such problems because she worked hard all of her life. Of course, I nodded my head in agreement. Poverty shouldn’t happen to good people.

There is the rub however. If good people shouldn’t be poor, then the unspoken part is poor people are somehow bad. They deserve their fate. They either behaved badly or made bad decisions in order to find themselves in such a state. And because of that, they must pay. Indeed, the most important thing, more important than helping them, is that the poor must realize that they made a mistake and their poor judgement is the reason they are poor and suffering now. If we don’t make them pay, they will just continue making more bad decisions.

If I needed any more evidence of how bad poor people are, earlier in the week I saw the following in Facebook:

God forbid that the poor experience anything other than looking for a job and suffering. You simply aren’t suffering enough if you have a beer and a cigarette. You are a bad poor person and are certainly undeserving of any help if you would spend your money on such luxuries. Give me a break.

Try this on for size. Jeff Bezos receives government tax breaks. This means, he doesn’t have to pay all of his taxes because the Government wants him to invest in his business. But because we give him a tax break, he has more money to spend on drinks, first class hotels and his own god damn airplane. Does he really need those things? Of course not. Yet, he is getting a government handout and he dares to have a good time while getting them. If he needs these tax breaks so badly, he should be only spending his money on his business and nothing else, and certainly nothing that might be considered fun. Both the poor and the rich receive government money but we only police the poor on how they spend this money.

This is because we give the rich the benefit of the doubt. We assume that they are good people unlike those horrible poor people who are bad. They are drug addicts, they sleep on our streets, they beg for money, and, horrors of horrors, they are doing it in front of me. It taints everything we do as country for poor people but we sincerely believe that unless help comes with a healthy dose of disapproval, the poor will never change.

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The ouster of Kevin McCarthy has caused some Republicans to engage in some mind blowing contortions to get the blame firmly pinned on the responsible party. Yes, Republicans are trying to blame it all on the Democrats.

How they got the finger pointed in this direction is pretty amazing. In order to be elected Speaker, after 15 failed attempts. which, by the way, should have given McCarthy and the Republican leadership a hint that he didn’t have the full confidence of his party and might have trouble with his bomb throwers later, McCarthy agreed to an almost complete emasculation of the Speaker’s power. So, then, due to the intransigence of members of his own party, McCarthy begin his role in an incredibly weak position.

He was further hobbled in that the people within the Republican Party most opposed to him were also the same people who thought that any compromise with the Democrats was treason. Given that the Speaker has some responsibility to keeping the government running, McCarthy was doomed. McCarthy, at some point, would have to work with his Democrats colleagues. Unsurprisingly once he did, Matt Gaetz went into action. What was surprising is the McCarthy thought he was in the catbirds seat and challenged Gaetz to remove him. Gaetz took him up on the challenge.

Just in case you haven’t noticed, the Democrats have been uninvolved in McCarthy’s troubles up to this point. Here is where they come in. McCarthy apparently was under the impression he would be saved by the Democrats. Why he thought this is still a mystery. Maybe he had conversations with them prior to the vote but, so far, no real evidence of a deal between McCarthy and the Democrats exists. McCarthy, I guess thought, because earlier in the month he made a deal with Democrats to keep the government going, that the Democrats owed him. The Democrats thought differently.

Even if the Democrats had been willing, would the votes of the Democrats have helped him in any way? Isn’t working with Democrats what got him in trouble with Gaetz in the first place? Wouldn’t the Democrats support in this situation be more evidence of his treachery? He was doomed because his responsibility to govern clashed with his bomb throwers desire to, well, throw bombs.

Before you issue a challenge of the kind McCarthy offered Gaetz, it is best to find out if you really have the votes you are depending on. Did he really think that the Democrats would give their votes without getting anything in return? Since he was the one who needed help, it was incumbent on him to ask for it. He did absolutely nothing to get the Democrats on board. He couldn’t without unleashing the rage of his nihilist fringe. It was all wishful thinking on McCarthy’s part. So the idea that the Democrats somehow double crossed McCarthy is laughable. There has to be an agreement before there can be a double cross.

It reveals a shocking lack of competence and of knowledge of the Republican Leadership and of McCarthy in particular. The Democrats are supposed to make his life difficult. They are, after all, the opposition party. His own party was in the majority and they are supposed to back him because that’s how they stay in power. Eight colleagues of McCarthy opted to bail on him. Eight people who agree with McCarthy about almost everything but his willingness to keep the government open. How is this the Democrats fault? Did anyone sit down with Gaetz and company and spell it all out for them? Tell them how this could damage the party and its ability to govern? And, if not, why? Leaving politics aside and looking at executive abilities, the Republican Leaders in the House are incompetent managers and unable to govern effectively.

Say what you will about Mitch McConnell but he knows how his institution operates and knows how to get things done. I may not agree with McConnell or his politics but I can certainly admit he knows how to use his power. He rolled the Democrats twice on Supreme Court appointments and used his power effectively to bring on as many Republican appointed judges as he could during his time in the majority. Even though he had two troublesome partners – Donald Trump and the Republican House – he still managed to use his power effectively. It sends chills down my spine to think of what he could have done if he had a more reliable president and competent House leadership.

Democratic institutions are complicated. Winning elections doesn’t give you much power and it can disappear quickly even if you are doing things well. Winning one of 425 seats only gives you a seat at the table but you have to work in the institutions you have with people there. You don’t get everything you want but you work for the best deal you can get. This is why McConnell and, for that matter, Nancy Pelosi get things done and McCarthy gets kicked to the curb.

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I am a bit peevish about all the wonderful things people are saying about Sen. Feinstein. On one hand, I get it. Hell, I voted for her every time she ran. I think she did an outstanding job for most of her career however the past few years she has been in bad health and she couldn’t give 100% to the job she was elected to do and there was little hope that her health would improve enough to change this circumstance. Instead of recognizing that it was time to go, she needlessly clung to power.

This is the only reason I can see for her continuing. Gavin Newsom, the California governor and a Democrat, would appoint her successor so there was no worry about turning the seat over to a Republican which would have been, at least, a reasonable concern in a divided Senate. Then, I can see holding onto her seat. So when she realized that she wasn’t up for the job any more, the right thing to do was to resign and make way for someone who could.

If she was unable or unwilling to surrender her seat, then people who care about her or colleagues who might influence her, should have interceded. There are all these excuses. Nobody wants to tell an esteemed colleague that her time has past and that she needs to retire. It would be a difficult conversation. I personally would hate to have such a conversation.

But, then, this is part of the vetting process called elections. People demonstrate their abilities and their positions and the public must decide which person can best represent their interests. One of the perennial abilities that candidates make is their ability to make difficult decisions. This is a fundamental part of the job description for people running for public office. So let me see you make difficult decisions.

Feinstein’s Democratic colleagues were remarkably mum when confronted with Feinstein’s fitness for her job. Which is disappointing. This was a difficult conversation yes but since there were very low stakes in the decision. There was going to be a Democratic replacement and there is a way to say Feinstein had done a fine job but isn’t up to the demands of such a position any more. Now, she may have ignored this advice but at least they would be on record at saying someone should be fit enough to continue in office.

By keeping their mouths shut, these titans of democracy don’t exactly leave me with the impression that they can make difficult decisions. This is concerning, particularly, since there are so many difficult decisions to make.