Tag: Politics

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Michael Golden, in Real Clear Politics, wants the media to stop publicizing the names of serial shooters as a way of denying the shooter the infamy they desire. He believes it will discourage other shooters from seeking the same fate.

While I can support Golden’s proposal to quash any media attention these people are seeking, I doubt very much that anything significant will come from implementation of it. Mostly because, the shooter is already dead — either by suicide or by police action. What ever thrill the shooter was seeking was experienced in the shooter’s mind prior to the shooting. So I am unconvinced that such a media ban would have much effect at all on future shooters. It is worth a try but I would be surprised to see any change in the number of shootings

The problem with mass shootings, as Golden acknowledges, is the division in the country on what to do about them. One side wants to restrict access to guns; the other side thinks the problem is mental health. Since there is little areas of agreements, nothing much gets done despite the number of shootings. Golden, probably correctly, thinks that a media ban on naming the people who kill during a mass shooting would be something that both sides can agree on and get implemented.

But does it solve the problem? Not even close.

These people are well-armed and crazy. They are facing almost certain death. They know that they probably will be dead by the time the media begin discussing their actions. How does not mentioning their name going to stop them? The shooter is still crazy and still has a gun.

If people want to give it a try, fine, give it a try. But it changes nothing about crazy people still having access to guns. It is a way of looking like you are doing something while you are doing absolutely nothing to address the problem at hand. In other words, a waste of time.

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Another assassination attempt was made on Donald Trump. The Secret Service shot the man down. Early reports about the shooter are depressing. He thought he was God so I am not sure whether he had a coherent world view which prompted him to take this action but I doubt it. People who think they are God are uniquely incapable of coherence so this leaves us with crazy.

Early in the week two teenagers stormed a San Diego mosque — killing three people and then themselves. They hated about everybody, given the way it turned out, even themselves.

I don’t know what to do about the crazy people in this country. As a nation, we have pretty much decided to lump them in with the regular citizens which means they are left to their own devices. They can own guns, sleep on the streets, do whatever the Hell they want until they cross a line and then, in the worst case scenario, they are gunned down.

This is how we want to live and, lets be clear, no decision is a decision. We would rather have the occasional blood letting to addressing why unstable people with guns keep creating such havoc. Limiting gun availability is off the table. Let’s face it the 2nd Amendment makes this impossible. Furthermore there are too many guns out there now and there would be way too much resistance to confiscating guns to make it worthwhile. It is, for now, off the table.

But what about the other part of the equation dealing with all the crazy people. Well, this would require political will and money. Why this is controversial is beyond me? Mental health requires some level of preventative measure. Identify the people who are sick and get them the help they need before they break.

Think physical health. For example, we can control high blood pressure through medication. The first step, though, is identifying people suffering from it before we can help them. The same practice apples for mental health. We need to know who needs help.

But freedom, people shouldn’t be forced into a psychological check. We could require a yearly psychological check as a part of having health insurance. This would, at least, help us address the vast majority of the population.

Who is going to pay for all these checks? The government or the insurance companies? Forget I said anything.

So you see nothing is going to happen. We just have to accept that mad men with guns will be walking the street until they break and then after they are done killing, we will kill them or they will kill themselves. A little messy but the problem is solved without raising taxes.

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Sophia Tesfaye, in Salon, reports that conservatives are trying to recast the Rosa Parks story. In 1956, Parks famously refused to go to the back of the bus which set into motion the Birmingham Bus Boycott. Matt Walsh, conservative podcaster, made a documentary trying to show how this was not just a story about a tired seamstress breaking after a hard day of work when asked to move. No, it is worse, so much worse — Parks was a member of the NAACP and was looking for a way to challenge segregation. The bus incident provided her with an opportunity to do so.

Amazingly, Walsh isn’t giving us any new information. He just seems a little surprised that Parks was a member of the NAACP and how it might have affected her refusal to move. Well, yes, so what? This is stunningly meaningless presentation of the facts. The law was wrong and she was right to refuse. NAACP needed a case to highlight this indignity, Parks provided it.

The problem wasn’t that Parks was an activist, the problem was there was a back of the bus laws in the first place. There would be no need for activists opposing unjust laws if the laws did not exist in the first place. If Parks, based on her experience and the experience of other Blacks, saw a situation and was prepared to act in no way diminishes what she accomplished.

And, if Parks and the NAACP set a trap, then who is to blame for the cops falling into it? The cops had other choices here too. They exacerbated an already tense situation with Parks’ arrest. Who better to act when an opportunity presents itself — an ordinary seamstress after a long day of work or an ordinary seamstress after a long day of work who is also a member of the NAACP. What am I missing here? Is Walsh saying that Blacks should remain disorganized and leaderless?

It is painful to listen to this crap because they are trying to turn history upside down. Walsh is all about undermining Rosa Parks? Who backed the NAACP? Who paid for their resistance? Could there have been Communists involved and, if so, doesn’t that make the fight against segregation wrong? Well, the USA fought along side the Communists in World War II, does this some how diminish the Allies’ victory. Walsh misses the whole point — the segregation laws were unfair and needed to be resisted. Parks admirably used the opportunities and resources available to her. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

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It has come to this. A woman in Florida was in labor. Her doctor advised her that their might be a problem if she decided to have her baby vaginally. They advised a C-section. She wanted to continue with vaginal delivery. In a normal world, the doctors and the woman would make a decision based on the medical circumstances involved. This is far from a normal world and Florida is being pretty much at the center of the weirdness that now revolves around pregnant woman delivering a baby. The woman, while in labor, had to discuss her delivery choices with a judge who then made a decision on how she could proceed.

This type of decision is, even in the days before Roe versus Wade, a medical decision. No ruling from a judge is needed. The woman and the doctor would work it out based on the woman’s circumstances. Why does a judge have to be involved at all?

Well, because now, the fetus, in Florida, has protected rights. In the past, there was an assumption that since the woman wanted the baby and the doctors wanted to deliver a health baby, then everyone involved was working together for this same happy ending. But, because Florida’s abortion laws are so restrictive, doctors now are worried that if something were to go wrong with the delivery, they may be held liable if the baby were to die in the process. Hence a judgement from the courts was required before the doctors would proceed.

This is worrisome for a number of reasons:

  1. The law was intended to protect fetuses from abortion not delivery. This case does not involve abortion in any way, yet the courts were dragged into it because the anti-abortion laws make any tricky delivery suspect. Did the baby die in delivery or was the doctor sneaking in a late-term abortion? If a doctor wants to cover her ass, she will make sure that a judge knows what she is doing and she goes on record with the courts what she is trying to do. Hopefully this will prevent any busybody from claiming otherwise later thus protecting the doctor from future legal hassles but also delaying medical attention to the woman in labor.
  2. Delivering a baby involves a woman’s health. It needs to happen when it needs to happen. Waiting for a court to make a decision on the best way to proceed is ridiculous here. Delaying medical procedures in order to get this decision is criminally stupid because both the mother and the baby are at risk. In this case, the judge decided for the woman with the caveat that the doctors could perform a C section if the vaginal delivery became difficult. This is how the doctor and the patient wanted to proceed in the first place. What possible wisdom did the judge add here that the doctor and the patient hadn’t already discussed?
  3. The doctors were over reacting you say. This should never have happened. Florida’s draconian abortion laws have nothing to do with this case and it was unnecessary for a judge to be notified. Well, probably, but try telling that to doctors who are trying to avoid going to court over their handling of women going through childbirth. Any state with such restrictive laws will have this problem. Better to go to court to check that you are right, then to go to prison if you are wrong.

The irony here is that laws instituted to protect the fetus from abortion are now causing delays in health care that both endangers the mother and the baby. It is also making it more difficult for medical professionals to advise women how to proceed during a difficult delivery. What if the judge makes a decision that the doctor’s and the patient disagrees with? How will the doctors proceed? A certain amount of good faith needs to be given doctors trying to navigate on how to proceed in a difficult situation. Florida’s abortion laws have only created confusion not better health care for pregnant women.

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It always irritates me when I read articles like Barton Swaim in the Wall Street Journal (paywall though you can get a free article if you get a log in). Swaim thinks that the adherence to the Protestant Work Ethic is in decline and he pins this decline on Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty and every other helpful thing ever done for poor people since then because the poor have no reason to work hard when they can get so much free shit from the government. The USA has just made it too easy for poor people to goof off instead of work.

Those retched poor people are just too God damn powerful and greedy as opposed to those put upon rich people who everybody keeps picking on. Swaim’s thinking is that we need to make the poor more miserable than they already are. They will never understand the value of hard work because they are given too much. His search for a villain in this story stops directly where his prejudices end — the poor.

Where to begin? First, we have to take him at his word that people would rather not work. It is mostly word of mouth drivel about adult men living with their parents, COVID subsidies and Somali refugees. Some of these may be problems but Swaim doesn’t really give much insight on how these unrelated problems have undermined the Protestant Work Ethic or how they are related to Johnson’s War on Poverty. He is flinging them out like a mad ape throwing shit at patrons at a zoo. He is hoping one of them will hit the target. They don’t. Adult men living off their parents, I am afraid to say, are living off their parents and not the government. COVID subsidies are long gone and no longer an issue. Which leaves the Somali refugee scandal which may or may not be a problem (it is still under investigation) but hardly a reason to eliminate a whole system. You wouldn’t call for the end of Corporate Capitalism based on the bad behavior of Bernie Madoff or Enron now would you? Why apply a different standard to government assistance.

Swaim also mythologizes life in pre-War on Poverty America. It was not sweetness and light. It was grinding poverty for most Americans — with estimated poverty rates between 40 to 60 % of the American people. And I am not talking the Great Depression either because even before the Great Depression an awful lot of Americans lived in poverty. It was only after Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal that this rate came down to about 20% in 1960. After Johnson’s War on Poverty, the poverty rate now hovers around 11%. So government services lifted many poor Americans out of poverty.

Next lets look at those patriotic Capitalists who, in order to avoid paying higher American wages, brought to you, thank you very much by unions, fled the country in order to pay lower wages to workers outside the country. These “good” Americans pulled the rug out from under high wage workers in order to make more money with absolutely no concern for how this affected their now out-of-work employees. Nobody, by the way, stopped them. They were free to undermine union workers wages and unions themselves with nary a complaint from anyone.

This left getting a good education which has turned out to be bit of a trap for some. Many took out loans for educations that turned out to have very little benefit in the job market. People came out of college owing a bundle of money with little chance of recouping on their investment. So much for a home and a family.

Now AI is whittling away at the functions in the better jobs so that workers even in medicine, law and engineering are being threatened. What type of jobs does Swaim have to offer these young people with the advent of AI? Even a $15 minimum wage is insufficient to pay the rent in most states. The lowest possible wage can’t provide a meaningful income for survival. Some companies like Walmart and McDonald’s encourage their workers to use government benefits to supplement the low wages they pay their employees.. People actually are working full time jobs while receiving government assistance. Then these same assholes are trying to take away these benefits from full time workers because it discourages them from hard work.

Fuck them. Talking about how government benefits discourages people from fully engaging in the Protestant Work Ethic is just bull shit. People can see their reality. Hard work without a pay off is a meaningless exercise. I am surprised that so many low wage workers are still punching a time clock.

If only the poor worked harder, the world would be a better place. Maybe for the rich but there is little evidence that it would help the poor. The corollary to this rule is that rich people need even more money or else they will stop working so hard. Do you see the problem here? Rich people need more money are they won’t work while poor people need less money are they won’t work. Genius.

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I wrote about this the other day so I thought I had vented my spleen sufficiently but then I stumbled across Erick Erickson’s lame rejoinder regarding Trump’s threat to destroy a civilization and the spleen became inflamed again. Erickson rather blithely said he would have preferred that Trump had not said it but if it was between that and Trans Recognition Day then well wink wink nudge nudge. Get it.

Fuck you, Erick Erickson. How was this the choice? The choice was between Trump making a measured comment about the American involvement in a war (or military operation if you will) and one where he threatens to destroy a whole civilization. On Easter — the Christians holiest day. Trans people were no where in the equation until Erickson dragged them out.

This is yet another example of Trump supporters dismissing Trump’s terrible behavior. I don’t like what he said but it is better than the alternate. The alternate, in this case, is a president savvy enough to talk reasonably about a dangerous situation that he is responsible for. What needs to be addressed is Trump’s statement. Erickson needs to give critical feedback without the additional little zinger about Trans people which suggests, I might add, that there are no limits to Erickson’s support of Trump. This might have been a good time for Erickson to stipulate these limits instead of giving him limitless support for fear of what was it? Oh, yeah, Trans Recognition Day.

Trump has always been an asshole and will continue to be an asshole. He is what he is. But his supporters are a different story. To continue to support a careless president is madness particularly as he continues his dangerous meanderings through the world. Republicans and Conservatives must draw the line because they hold the power in Congress to stop him.

Just for the record, and I can’t believe I am suggesting this, the alternate is J.D. Vance. When that weasel starts looking good to me, and he is, you know we are in desperate times.

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I try not to talk about Donald Trump too much. It is a nearly impossible task as he is president of the United States and is always inserting himself into everything. So I apologize for yet another Donald Trump post and, after some consideration this more about Donald Trump’s apologists who, instead of trying to right Trump’s direction, just go along with him come Hell or high water.

I took a photo (see below)of an Instapundit post because Instapundit doesn’t provide a direct link to their post so this was the only way I could figure out how to get you the post in question without you paging through the whole blog which would leave you disheartened from the slavish loyalty to Donald Trump. It is a dirty job and I am willing to do it.

Trumps threat in this post, although a bit tamer than the one where he wants to bomb Iran back to the stone age one, is about annihilating a whole country. Instapundit’s defense is to point out that the Islamic aspect of Iranian civilization is actually a colonist civilization and is separate from actual Persian civilization. So, I am gathering, destroying Iran now is perfectly OK because it is Islamic and not in fact Persian.

Well OK thanks. I guess but that has nothing to do with the point Piers Morgan was making. Trump is talking about destroying an entire civilization because they won’t do what he wants. Maybe Trump has a less deadly idea of what destroying a civilization is but my interpretation is that all the Iranian people would be dead along with all buildings and all infrastructure. There would just be a pile of rubble after the Tuesday deadline. This is what Trump is threatening. The distinction between Islamic and Persian here is meaningless. Islamic rubble and Persian rubble are pretty much the same thing. Rubble.

Trump’s tone and Instapundit’s unwavering support are unhelpful in bringing about peace for the following reasons:

  1. The US does not have the fire power to flatten Iran. It would take nuclear bombs to accomplish total destruction and, call me naive, I am assuming nuclear is off the table. We could maybe level the center city of a few major cities but the rest of Iran would still be standing. Threatening annihilation is an idle threat and everybody knows it.
  2. It is also nearly impossible, at least in the short term, to destroy a civilization. Both Japan and Germany recovered quite nicely after World War II which was the last time we experimented with total annihilation. There were a lot of dead people and burned out buildings but both nations recovered. So, even, if the worst were to happen (see point 1) the Iranian people and their civilization will survive. The hated Iranian government might even survive.
  3. It does not help that Trump at numerous times have told us that the Iranian military and the nuclear capability has been destroyed while also threatening to destroy Iranian military capabilities. Sometimes even in the same statement. Which begs the question, what is left to destroy?
  4. The snarkiness about Muslim culture might feel good in the moment but keep in mind we are depending on some Muslim allies in the region for bases in which to wage the Iranian war. They are already taking missiles for us, they may feel a little less inclined to assist if they think we are antagonistic to Islam.
  5. If Trump wants to help the Iranian people, he might try to co-ordinate his war making with Iranian critics in Iran. He may be doing that but his tone suggests he is not. What reasonable Iranian ally would want to see the total destruction of their civilization?

Trump’s go to tone is the aggressive attacking of his opponents and then when you are done attacking them, go back and attack them again. It has worked well for him in the past but is wrong for this moment. He might even consider just keeping his trap shut for a few days just to see if people are more amenable to what he is trying to do. It is worth a try.

And, if he can’t see his way into keeping his trap shut, this is the time for his allies and supporters to tell him to do so. They are failing miserably in their responsibility here. Pissing off half the nation and our allies is a terrible strategy for winning a war. But, hey ho, at least I learned the difference between Muslim Iranian culture and Persian culture. Very helpful that.

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I once worked in a company where everyone, and I mean everyone, hated the Vice President for Human Resources. Being new to the corporate environment, I asked an executive in the know why then does she keep her job then. He just laughed and said she knows where all the bodies are buried, implying, in the process, that the President of the Company was greatly dependent on her discretion because of his many indiscretions. This analysis was proven correct because when a new President took over and she was the first person shown the door.

Which brings me to Pam Bondi. One of the dangers of firing and humiliating someone who knows where the bodies are buried is that person, once removed from office, can opt for revenge. I don’t know how angry Bondi is, I am hoping really pissed off, but she might, if sufficiently pissed off, be willing to reveal the graveyard map of Trump’s many indiscretions.

I do know that she was given an impossible job with high expectations from an unreasonable boss. Since she failed to satisfy the tyrant, her professional reputation in tatters because she tired to keep in happy and was humiliated by the boss in the process, she has absolutely nothing to lose any more and might be willing to point people to the relevant graves. Given Trump’s experience with troublesome ex-employees, I suspect he has paid Bondi off in some way or has something on her that will buy her silence. On the other hand, as the old saying goes: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, we might be in for a summer of fun.

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Donald Trump acknowledged that he calls the Iranian military operation instead of a war because of legal reasons. Congressional Authorization, then, boils down to what the President calls his action rather than a universal understanding of what war is. You say potato, I say … Sorry, that old saying does work in writing but you catch my drift. Also, just as a reminder to the President, parsing phrases to avoid the unlikely retribution of Congress only really works if you don’t tell everyone what you are doing otherwise, in legal terms, this is known as a confession.

But, never mind — a military operation it is. This military operation has been going on a good month. Now I can quibble, and I will, about bombs and targeted assassinations being acts of war, but, say I wanted to be generous to Trump here, and agree with his characterization of those actions as being a military operation instead of a war.

When does a military operation become a war? And, just like that, an answer appears — when you send 50,000 ground troops. Bombing plus troops surely adds up to war. Or are we in some semantic Hell where Trump can call a war anything he wants and the Congress will agree to in order to avoid the wrath of Trump’s more rabid supporters. Apparently it is semantic Hell.

This whole operation is caught up in different definitions of words. Trump supposedly can only act without Congressional Authorization if it is an emergency. The USA would have to be in immediate and grave danger. My understanding of this power would be an impeding attack of USA was about to take place. There is absolutely no evidence that this was the case.

But the Iranians were trying to restart their nuclear program. No doubt, however, according to Trump the Iranian nuclear program was destroyed in a previous attack so the idea that so the idea that the Iranians had miraculously resurrected their nuclear capability to the point of an immenent attack is unbelievable. I am fairly certain there was more than enough time for Congress to review the problem and give its consent.

The Iranian, dare I call it, War is a disappointing display of hubris on the part of Trump and cowardice on the part of Congress. The whole point of Congressional Authorization for wars is that war is a serious business for a country. If we are going to take on such a responsibility it needs to come after careful consideration from the body that represents the all the people of the USA. For wars, particularly messy and potentially long term commitment wars to be won, everyone needs to be on board. This has not happened.

Instead we have semantic parsing of words so one man can drag a nation of 300 million plus people into a war dressed up like a military operation.

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The problem that many people, including myself, have with Donald Trump is he is, above all else, an asshole extraordinaire. That this detestable prick is president of the United States is both extremely depressing and a source of conflicting feelings about what he does.

So let me lay it out for my present destress:

  1. I dislike Donald Trump and disagree with most, if not everything, he does.
  2. I like the United States. It is my home.
  3. Donald Trump is the president of the United States.While I think he is a fuck up and fucking up everything he lays his tiny hands on, he also leads my country.
  4. I want my country to succeed whenever possible.

Which leads to the question, how can I hope for the best for my country with this miserable little shit running the country?

For example, the war with Iran. I think it is a big mistake. On the other hand, I think the world would be a worse place if the United States lost it. Muslim extremism, chaos in Iran and in the neighboring region, Women’s rights, Gay rights, things could get a whole lot worse if he were to lose. I can’t see how any of this would be better if the United States lost.

But, then, Trump is such a detestable man, if he wins, he will take credit for the victory and thus become even more insufferable. He will think he is smarter than he actually is and will continue governing as he had thinking he is wiser than he is. Thus making him even more likely to make even more risky decisions because he keeps rolling the dice and coming up a winner.

My one fond hope, though highly unlikely, is that Trump will be forced to work with Congress and our Allies to obtain a settlement that frees Iran from Muslim extremism while also bringing some peaceful resolution to the troubles in the region. So what I want, I guess, is for Trump to succeed only after he throws himself on the mercy of Congress and our Allies in order to ensure the victory.

Barring that, all I see is a mess.