Notes from the Cafe Fiasco

ACHA

The interesting thing to me about the Repub.'s AHCA is that, if enacted the way that it is now configured, it will result in killing off, literally killing off through disease and bankruptcy, the constituencies that support the current Republican party - white working and middle class women and men.

 

The party and it's leaders have become such a captive to money and ideological purists that they can not see that the lack of medical care embedded in the new structure is going to destroy the Reagan Democrats as a group. These are the people that have supported them for over 35 years and will allow them to rule for the next two or possibly four years. You would think that they would like to keep them around over the long-run, but they don't seem to care. This will inevitably end up in the Repubs cutting their own throats.

 

If it wasn't for the medical carnage that I see coming, I won't be sad to see them go.

Government by the Disengaged

As we come into the first debate tomorrow, the polls show a razor thin advantage to Hillary Clinton. Since the opinions on who should be our next President are so polarized this season, this must mean that the final deciders of the race will probably be those who are, as yet, undecided who to vote for. This begs the simple question:

How the hell, if you're paying attention, can you be undecided with the emotional, dirty, in-your-face, campaigns that the candidates have run?

Over the past year, anyone who has had half an civic ear has been inundated by charges and counter-charges both in the primaries and the general election. Sure, there have been a huge collection of lies and false charges that citizens have had to cut their way through in order to make a choice, but things have been set up pretty well for a while now - most politically aware citizens are either for Crooked Hillary or Temperamentally Unqualified Donald.

Unless, of course, you're not paying attention.

Americans, by and large, don't like government (even those who receive government assistance either don't believe that the help comes from the government or it somehow is their "right" to receive it and therefore is not tainted by politicians). And as a result, Americans generally have the election participation of some third world countries. But this campaign has been the equivalent of ignoring the riot that's been going on in front of your house. I have a hard time understanding how you can do it.

So now the choice for the Presidency is up to the confused and the disengaged? I find this fact scarier than the choices that we have in front of us.

 

 

Convention Day #4: The Coronation

(These are my rough notes from Day #4, which include my editorial comments. My reaction to the speech was wanting to immediately wanting to hide under the couch because of all the violence which DT will be saving me from. The strong man speaks - don’t look for detail.)

• “The Donald” - a film about a boy from Queens who started in just a million dollars and the ability of his father to extort millions of dollars of loans from bankers. Then he helped New York City rediscover its soul by getting tax abatements from the City to build his very first building. Then he got his children involved in building stuff.  Now he’s rebuilding the United States, sacrificing the making millions of dollars for political power.  DT is a leader, not a politician. Standing up for everyone (except, of course, Hillary and Ted).

•  Lady Ivanka -  Number One Daughter (#1) and Power Behind the Throne (PBT): DT is the people’s nominee (sounding vaguely Communist). She, like many millennials, is not Republican or Democrat, but she knows who she’s voting for. Donnie is a fighter (though not in the military). What daddy taught us kids:  {insert working class values}. He’s empathetic, he’s strong, he’s kind, he’s compassionate, he’s fair, he’s a meritocrat, he supports women, he’s colorblind and gender neutral, he’s a builder, he’s a listener, he pays women equally, he’s pro child care, (she will fight for this too), he will turn the economy around, he makes things happen, he will make America great again, he will set lofty goals, he will not let you down, he is the only person to say “I’ll fight for you.” Judge him by what he does (Don the Builder). He’s your CHAMPION.

And now, here’s Donnie ……

•  Donnie entrance stage right (no blue smoke this time). Crowd goes wild.  He “humbly” accepts the nomination for President. He then leads a chant of “USA, USA” Who would have believed how successful we’ve been?  Safety, Prosperity, Peace! (And Law and Order - shades of Nixon). There’s a crisis - our way of life is threatened. (He’s running against Hillary and Black Lives Matter).  Violence will come to an end. On January 20^th, safety will be restored. (Law and Order)

Here’s the facts: we can’t be politically correct anymore (there will be no lies at our Convention), there’s an outbreak of homicides in large cities, police officer’s killed have increased 50% this year, illegal immigrants are being released into our communities by the tens of thousands, (Law and Order) (Now a story about a young girl in Nebraska being killed by an immigrant - who has not been caught, one more child sacrificed …), 58% of African American youth are not employed, 14 million people have left the workforce entirely, trade deficit is $800 billion dollars last year, budget - national debt has doubled, roads and bridges are falling apart, 43 million on Food Stamps.  Foreign policy:  national humiliations one after another, iran deal gave them $150 billion and we got another, Syrian policy, Libya.  World is now more unsafe because Obama made Clinton SofS. “Let’s defeat her in November.”

All the stuff that’s happened internationally in the past 8 years are the result of Hillary being Sec of State. Death, destruction, and WEAKNESS.

All this crap requires a change in leadership (to guess who?). The Plan: Puts America first. (Crowd goes wild).  Americanism, not globalism. We deserve respect! Plan begins with safety at home (Law and Order!). Economy:  Millions of new jobs. These policies will upset the special interests (who support Hillary - she is their puppet). Things have to change - right now.  Unfair trade deals.  I am the voice of the forgotten American worker!  (Interruption as security deals with a protester and the crowd shouts at her). How great are our police (who reinforce our values)? No patience with injustice.  Hit’s Hillary on the email server (she puts our country at risk) shows that corruption of the system. She hid her terrible, terrible, crimes. The time for action (what action?) has come. (Law and Order)

Nobody knows the system better than me - so that’s why I alone can fix it.  The system is rigged (it was rigged against Bernie Sanders too).  Millions of Democrats will join us because we will fix the system.

Introduces Mike Pence.  We will bring that same success to America that he’s brought to Indiana. Mike sits down.

Pivot to all the current violence against police officers. An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans.  He will restore (Law and Order) to the country when he’s in charge.  He’s talk to prosecutors.  I am the (Law and Order) candidate. Obama has used the Presidency to divide us by race. He has fail America’s inner cities. All of our kids will be protected equally.

Threats from Outside the Country:  We’re going to defeat ISIS.  (Law and Order International).  Litany of islamic attacks in America.  Highlights Orlando - we’re going to stop it.  Will protect LGBQ’s from violence.  (Thanks for cheering for that.) 

Focus on three things:  best intelligence, abandon nation building and regime change, work with allies to stamp out Islamic terrorism.  Fast!  Includes working with Israel (bit applause). NATO:  we are picking up the cost - not fair.  Finally, we must suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism.  No refugee increase over the massive flow of refugees come in already.  They have to “love our people.”  We will have an immigration system that works for the American people.

Example of three representatives of people who have been murdered by immigrants.  I have to solve the violence spilling across our borders. (Law and Order).  We will save countless families from having to go through this - we will build a Great Border Wall. He’s got the endorsement of Border Patrol Agents.  Illegal crossing and peace will be restored (Law and Order).

January 20^th - laws are enforced.  We will be considerate and compassionate to everyone, but the greatest compassion will be for our own citizens (leads a short USA chant).  Hillary wants mass lawlessness (Law and Order).  Economic policy begins with a new fair trade policy.  I’m going to make our country rich again - using the greatest business people in the world to renegotiate trade deals.  Bill Clinton signed NAFTA - never ever again. Hillary supports all of the trade deals.  He will make individual deals with individual countries.  We will enforce all trade violations (Law and Order) including China’s currency manipulation.  We’re going to start building and making things again.

Reform of taxes - I’ve proposed the largest tax reduction of any candidate.  Taxes will be simplified.  Will make economic development.  Regulation is costing us $2 trillion a year.  Energy:  go back to steel and mining.  Makes for trillion and trillion of dollars will come into the country and we’ll use it to repair infrastructure.

Schools:  supports “choice.” Hillary protects bureaucrats.  Replace Obamacare. Fix TSA at the airports.  Work with students drowning in debt.  Completely rebuild the depleted military - countries that we are protecting will be asked to pay their fair share.  We’ll take care of veterans (like they’ve never been taken care of before).  They will be able to visit the doctor or hospital or their choice.

Eliminate wasteful spending in the first 100 days.

Appoint Supreme Court Justices like Scalia. Hillary wants to abolish the 2^nd amendment, but I have the endorsement of the NRA.

Thanks the Evangelicals for their support (not sure that he deserves it).  Should be able to have political views without jeopardizing their non-profit status.

We can do all this, we just have to believe.  Time to tell the world that America is back.

So lucky to have my wife and family!  (And did Melania and Ivanka do a job?)

Fred Trump was that smartest and hardest working man I ever know - it’s because of him that I learned to respect the dignity of work and working people.  Mother Mary - strong, warm, and fair minded.  A great judge of character.  His sisters and brothers.

Sole and exclusive mission is to deliver a victory for the American people.  We are going to start winning again.  To do this, we must break away from the past.   Love defeating the people who said that we didn’t have a chance.  They will do anything to keep the rigged system in place.

 

“I’m with you”  the American people.  I am your voice.  I will win for you.

 

We will make America safe again (Law and Order).

We will make America proud again.

We will make America strong again.

We will make America great again.

 

God bless you.

Vice Presidential Politics Redux

Normally the Vice Presidential pick for a presidential election doesn't mean much. The last VP to "balance a ticket" was Lyndon Johnson (who did bring Texas into the fold for JFK), but in the past few cycles just who was selected to be the second banana hasn't been important  Of course, you could argue that Cheney as an important pick since Bush let him run a large part of the government, but generally the job consists of going to State Funerals and that's about it.

Of course, in this particular election season you could also say that, like everything else about modern politics this time, things have changed. In particular, who Donald Trump picks to be Vice President is particularly important.

If Trump wins, I think that there's at least a 50/50 chance that he will be impeached - not only because he's probably going to do some crazy stuff if he is elected, but this will be a neat way for the Empire, er, the Republican establishment to strike back and re-establish control while keeping their hands clean. And then there's the stuff that Donald has managed to duck for the past 30 years as a business man that he won't be able to stiff arm if he's president. Yes, Donald, there are different standards for politicians and there are large bureaucracies (some of which you won't control) that uphold them.

So that makes his selection of a Vice Presidential nominee particularly important, because that person may be running the country at some point.

President Pence?

Just when you thought that a Trump presidency could just about be the scariest thing that you could imagine ...

Boston Cultural Plan

Executive Summary:

Art is good.  Let's get some.

Week 37 - 2015

The Campaign

"There are no rules. All of the rules have changed." - Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press

Yes, Tom. We're not in Kansas anymore. And just because the rules (including the ones that don’t seem to exist) have changed doesn't mean that there aren't any - it’s just that you might be a little slow to catch on to what the new ones are.

 From over here, the way that the American public seems to have decided to deal with the almost total disfunction of their national government is though the creation of separate movements (one per party) to “throw the bums out.”  We haven’t seen anything like this since the anti-war movements of the 1960’s. As usual, the people who are the last to know what’s happening outside of the lines are the people running (sic) the ship, and that includes the talking heads at NBC News. I guess that Tom just got the memo that things aren’t as they were.

There are signs that at least some media folks are getting beyond the “horse race” of individual candidates metaphor however and they are starting to analyze the campaign as a fight between a collection of interest groups. It’s good that someone in the media is waking up. For example, Matt Taibi has a good analysis of the Trump campaign in this month’s Rolling Stone, for example.

With the Dems, we have the corporate verus the anti-corporate, with the anti-corporate surprisingly gaining steam and making people nervous.

On the Repub side, at the moment it’s clear that Cruz and Huckabee are vying for the religious right (Huckabee going to pray at the altar of St. Kim), Scott Walker is the candidate of the Koch’s, Bobby Jindal is in the total thrall of Grover Norquist, Pataki is looking for someone (anyone) to listen to him, and The Donald seems to be the candidate for the White Nationalists. All of these guys (and girl) are fronts for somebody or are looking to me and the only question is who. The primary process is the process where we get to find out which of these interest groups win. 

So far, the racists are way ahead. Stay tuned (you too Tom).

 

President Kanye

Getting a early, early start on his campaign, Kanye West announced his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States at the MTV Video Music Awards last week. He may or may not have been announcing for the 2016 race, his announcement was not clear. I’ve never found anything very clear when it comes to Kanye, but maybe I’ve just run out of hip-hop.

I personally would love to see a Trump/West Republican ticket. What would happen the first time that there was the two of them on the stage with only one microphone would undoubtedly be priceless.

 

Brady Freed

I ‘m so happy that the multi-millionaire was freed from the restraints of unfair treatment by the multi-billion dollar corporation for which he works. Hopefully we can now spend time and attention on finding other multimillionaires with beautiful wives that are in trouble and need our support. Play ball.

 

High Alert

All ears on Amherst Street have been tuned for the past few days to the sounds of our cat Harry about to cough up a hair ball (or not, as it turns out) at any moment. Day or night, when you hear that distinctive sound, you have to be prepared to rush to wherever the cat is and make sure that he’s on a bare floor and not on a rug. This makes cleaning up after the thing that I have no control over that much easier. 

There’s a metaphor for the current state of my life in there somewhere, I just don’t know what it is.

Boston Olympics

I have to admit that my first reaction to hearing that Boston was in the running for hosting the Olympics was - run!

Have people forgotten that the last major infrastructure project in the city was the Big Dig and it's cost went from $4 Billion to $14 Billion during it's construction?

 

Scott Brown for Senate

We in Massachusetts don't mind New Hampshire using our slightly used Senator (he didn't do much for us while he was there) for their own, but we do ask that, if he is not successful in New Hampshire politics, they keep him and not send him back to us. Thanks.

MacArthur MacSmarthur

Damn. Missed the MacArthur Genius Grants again this year. Time for more blatant self-promotion.

Hanging Honor

So the Boston cops honor a homeless guy who turned in $40,000 that he found in a backpack. They gave him a plaque. Where do they think he's going to hang it?