Thanks to the investigation into Anthony Weiner's hat-trick sexting scandal, the FBI has found yet more emails from Clinton's time as Secretary of State. So that means we all get to go through the whole show of "Lock her up!" again and watch the media screw up its coverage of the issue again and, finally, when it all amounts to nothing, we'll have to listen to the wailing and gnashing of teeth about how James Comey is in the Clinton's pockets again. Thanks, Anthony Weiner, you sext-addicted dick.
Speaking of Comey, I do feel for the guy. He's catching a lot of heat from the Clinton campaign and its surrogates for sending his letter to Congress informing them that they'd found the emails and were going to review them for classified information. Because, really, what else was he supposed to do? It's not his fault that Hillary Clinton worked so hard to keep her activities out of the public record and then got caught doing so, it's not his fault that she lied about pretty much every aspect of what she did regarding the emails, and it's definitely not his fault that those emails became the political shit show we all know and love.
If he had kept the discovery a secret, then when it leaked (and there is no if regarding a leak, someone was bound to say something) that the FBI had found something but didn't tell anyone the bellowing of "Cover up!" would've had much more weight behind them and nothing the FBI or the Justice Department said about the ensuing investigation would have credibility. I'd bet money that when Comey received word that his agents found more Clinton emails, he wished they didn't. Because now that they were found, he had to do something, and no matter what that something was, it would drag him and the Bureau back into a political sideshow Comey had hoped to bury months ago. So he wrote the letter, because if the FBI was going to be drawn back into this mess, at least it would do so on its own terms.
In other criminal justice shenanigans, the Bundy brothers were acquitted on the conspiracy charges brought against them in the wake of their occupation of a federal wildlife reserve in Oregon. After the dumbfounded shock wears off, it does make sense how these idiots walked away from their live-broadcast occupation. According to some of the jurors, the government had a hard time proving that the militia leaders had "intent" to block government workers from doing their jobs. They said that the defenses argument that the Bundy brothers couldn't have intent because, technically, they were never ordered to leave the refuge so therefore weren't in violation of any order to clear the premises; the defense also pointed out that the militia members freely came and went for almost the entirety of their 41-day fiasco, so they obviously couldn't be very serious about blocking government agents from doing their jobs. After all, if the cops and the feds weren't treating the militia as any kind of serious threat, why should a jury?
As usual, context is everything, and when you factor that in, the absurdity of the Bundys becomes almost satirical. At the same time that journalists, documentary film makers, and activists of all stripes are being arrested by the hundreds protesting an oil pipeline that could contaminate the Sioux's water supply, the guys who literally shit on Indian burial grounds are free, sleeping in their own beds. In the same world where black men and boys are killed holding fake guns, the people who led a heavily armed takeover of a government building never even got shot at.
On the one hand, I understand the government wanting avoid another Ruby Ridge or Waco, but the disparity between how law enforcement treated the Bundy militia in Oregon and Nevada and how they've treated the Black Lives Matter or NoDAPL protests is too wide to ignore. It almost lends credence to the usual gun advocates adage that if you want the cops to respect you, make sure you can shoot back. But, for some strange reason, I don't think the government would be worried about the optics of a massacre if they were suddenly faced with an armed contingent of black or Native American protesters.
On a lighter note, Trump made it through the week with only one woman accusing him of grabbing at her with his child-sized hands. Sure, she did say that he offered her $10,000 to sleep with him, which is pretty pathetic to offer in the first place, but even more so to have the offer turned down. Still, though, I'm sure he appreciated the change of pace.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Potpourri
I've actually enjoyed seeing Donald Trump flail about like a child as he slips further and further behind in the polls. His actions are pretty typical of conservative mindsets, namely, the habit to proclaim themselves as the strongest, most badass people on the block and then the moment anything turns against them, start bellowing about how they're being victimized and are powerless against the onslaught. It's such a perfect example of the victim culture that so many of Trump's supporters routinely mock everyone else for, so the irony of it all is just delicious.
Speaking of, Trump actually did say something worth listening to. His call for Senators and Congressmen to be subject to term limits is actually, a good plan. Of course, even if he was President, he couldn't enforce or impose those limits himself; if he tried, it'd be an action so blatantly illegal that he'd have the honor of being the first President ever convicted in an impeachment trial. Also, I'm sure Trump is making this case because he really wants to clean up the government and not, say, punish all the Senators and Congressmen who've abandoned him in the last few weeks. But still, calling for an amendment to force guaranteed new blood into Congress isn't a bad idea for people to consider.
The ground work for getting further involved in wars in the Middle East is already being laid. The Navy launched missiles into Yemen, and ground troops are among the forces trying to take back Mosul. My main concern here is that if the Mosul offensive is successful, Hillary will take the opportunity to make the case that we can drive ISIS out of Syria, too. If that happens, and the public doesn't put up much of a fight against the war, than I don't know how bad it will be, but Iraq will most likely look like a full blown success in the aftermath. For one, since Hillary has said multiple times, her real goal in Syria is overthrowing Assad. She hasn't said who exactly would take his place, but since the only real opposition in Syria is ISIS and al-Qaeda, they'll probably fill the void. Or they won't because of a high troop commitment to stop them while we install a puppet government that will survive until a new civil war breaks out. But that's okay; Hillary will just use another surge which will lead to the same political stability that you see in Iraq and Afghanistan today. I haven't even mentioned how Iran, the Saudis, the Gulf States, Turkey, the Kurds, or Russia will react to all of this and how that will make any full scale war in Syria a ludicrous option, because this America, those countries are lucky we even know they exist.
I've been seeing a lot of breathless headlines lately about how Democrats are eyeing Utah, Texas and other states that were previously thought to be no-win situations as back in the game and an opportunity to re-take the House and Senate both. My reactions are 1. That's counting a lot of chickens before they hatch and 2. Even if does happen, so what? After the 08 election, Democrats had super majorities in both houses of Congress and did... pretty much nothing with it. Obama insisted on using a Congress that would write him a blank check on demand to it through away that power and instead reduce themselves to cajoling and bargaining with a Republican minority that from the start explicitly said would do nothing but sabotage his administration. Hillary and her hypothetical Democratic Congress won't have the mandate that Obama did, and Hillary is even less inclined to pursue anything that would resemble a public good. If the Dems do get Congress back, it's a safe bet that they'll be so ineffectual and worthless that they will lose it, again, two years from now anyway.
To close, I've been thinking a lot this year about how Obama is likely to be remembered, and my conclusion is he'll be thought of well, which is better than he deserves. I'm not saying he didn't do good things as a President- his support of gay rights and the nuclear deal with Iran are his highlights- but more often than not he proved to be found wanting. The economic crisis in 2007-08 still plagues the country, he could've pushed through a bigger stimulus package which would have kick started the economy again. But no, instead he choose to make it smaller to gain more Republican support. The support didn't come, and the smaller package halted the downfall but didn't make the economy strong enough for people to go back to work.
When it came to healthcare, Obama very noticeably failed to back the public option, which would've been a government operated insurance plan that would've directly competed against the private operators around the country. It would've likely been cheaper and produced better coverage than the insurance companies, instead he deferred again in the name of compromise and fed people to the same predatory companies that had made our healthcare system the most dysfunctional in the world in the first place. He also formalized a global assassination program, indemnified the banks who caused the financial crisis from criminal prosecution, and is as ironic a Nobel Peace Prize winner as Henry Kissinger. Almost everyone blames Republican obstructionism preventing Obama from actually getting anything done, what this point misses though, is that it was Obama himself who kept Republicans in the game and afforded them every opportunity to stymie his agenda. If Obama had simply bypassed the Republicans when he had the chance, he wouldn't have had to deal with their bullshit for six years of his Presidency.
But, it wasn't to be. Because bold action has to come from a bold man, and Obama is simply not that. He's persistent, pragmatic, and charismatic, but bold he is definitely not. He was given a chance to rewrite the status quo, to fundamentally alter what we thought possible in our lives and what we, as a country, could do. Faced with all of that, Obama doubled down on the same status quo that had born the economic crisis that had propelled him to victory, he solidified, normalized, and extended the worst practices of the Bush administration, and now, at the end of his reign, is leaving the country almost exactly as he found it; teetering on the edge, desperate for a change or new direction. Except, this time, the standard bearer of the new way is Donald fucking Trump. If my legacy helped make that pathetic little thing have a chance to be President, I don't think I could be proud of it. I certainly couldn't ask anyone else to, either
Speaking of, Trump actually did say something worth listening to. His call for Senators and Congressmen to be subject to term limits is actually, a good plan. Of course, even if he was President, he couldn't enforce or impose those limits himself; if he tried, it'd be an action so blatantly illegal that he'd have the honor of being the first President ever convicted in an impeachment trial. Also, I'm sure Trump is making this case because he really wants to clean up the government and not, say, punish all the Senators and Congressmen who've abandoned him in the last few weeks. But still, calling for an amendment to force guaranteed new blood into Congress isn't a bad idea for people to consider.
The ground work for getting further involved in wars in the Middle East is already being laid. The Navy launched missiles into Yemen, and ground troops are among the forces trying to take back Mosul. My main concern here is that if the Mosul offensive is successful, Hillary will take the opportunity to make the case that we can drive ISIS out of Syria, too. If that happens, and the public doesn't put up much of a fight against the war, than I don't know how bad it will be, but Iraq will most likely look like a full blown success in the aftermath. For one, since Hillary has said multiple times, her real goal in Syria is overthrowing Assad. She hasn't said who exactly would take his place, but since the only real opposition in Syria is ISIS and al-Qaeda, they'll probably fill the void. Or they won't because of a high troop commitment to stop them while we install a puppet government that will survive until a new civil war breaks out. But that's okay; Hillary will just use another surge which will lead to the same political stability that you see in Iraq and Afghanistan today. I haven't even mentioned how Iran, the Saudis, the Gulf States, Turkey, the Kurds, or Russia will react to all of this and how that will make any full scale war in Syria a ludicrous option, because this America, those countries are lucky we even know they exist.
I've been seeing a lot of breathless headlines lately about how Democrats are eyeing Utah, Texas and other states that were previously thought to be no-win situations as back in the game and an opportunity to re-take the House and Senate both. My reactions are 1. That's counting a lot of chickens before they hatch and 2. Even if does happen, so what? After the 08 election, Democrats had super majorities in both houses of Congress and did... pretty much nothing with it. Obama insisted on using a Congress that would write him a blank check on demand to it through away that power and instead reduce themselves to cajoling and bargaining with a Republican minority that from the start explicitly said would do nothing but sabotage his administration. Hillary and her hypothetical Democratic Congress won't have the mandate that Obama did, and Hillary is even less inclined to pursue anything that would resemble a public good. If the Dems do get Congress back, it's a safe bet that they'll be so ineffectual and worthless that they will lose it, again, two years from now anyway.
To close, I've been thinking a lot this year about how Obama is likely to be remembered, and my conclusion is he'll be thought of well, which is better than he deserves. I'm not saying he didn't do good things as a President- his support of gay rights and the nuclear deal with Iran are his highlights- but more often than not he proved to be found wanting. The economic crisis in 2007-08 still plagues the country, he could've pushed through a bigger stimulus package which would have kick started the economy again. But no, instead he choose to make it smaller to gain more Republican support. The support didn't come, and the smaller package halted the downfall but didn't make the economy strong enough for people to go back to work.
When it came to healthcare, Obama very noticeably failed to back the public option, which would've been a government operated insurance plan that would've directly competed against the private operators around the country. It would've likely been cheaper and produced better coverage than the insurance companies, instead he deferred again in the name of compromise and fed people to the same predatory companies that had made our healthcare system the most dysfunctional in the world in the first place. He also formalized a global assassination program, indemnified the banks who caused the financial crisis from criminal prosecution, and is as ironic a Nobel Peace Prize winner as Henry Kissinger. Almost everyone blames Republican obstructionism preventing Obama from actually getting anything done, what this point misses though, is that it was Obama himself who kept Republicans in the game and afforded them every opportunity to stymie his agenda. If Obama had simply bypassed the Republicans when he had the chance, he wouldn't have had to deal with their bullshit for six years of his Presidency.
But, it wasn't to be. Because bold action has to come from a bold man, and Obama is simply not that. He's persistent, pragmatic, and charismatic, but bold he is definitely not. He was given a chance to rewrite the status quo, to fundamentally alter what we thought possible in our lives and what we, as a country, could do. Faced with all of that, Obama doubled down on the same status quo that had born the economic crisis that had propelled him to victory, he solidified, normalized, and extended the worst practices of the Bush administration, and now, at the end of his reign, is leaving the country almost exactly as he found it; teetering on the edge, desperate for a change or new direction. Except, this time, the standard bearer of the new way is Donald fucking Trump. If my legacy helped make that pathetic little thing have a chance to be President, I don't think I could be proud of it. I certainly couldn't ask anyone else to, either
Friday, October 14, 2016
Hypocrisy, and the Perils of a Landslide
Undoubtedly the happiest person in the country after this week has to be Hillary Clinton. She's seen her poll numbers climb in pretty much every swing state she needs to win, and since Trump is going through his own Bill Cosby phase in the wake of his "Grab them by the pussy" video, no one is really paying attention to all the Wikileaks material that would've killed her campaign were she not against someone so virtuostically repulsive.
Remember how, back in the primaries, a big theme of Bernie's was that had been compromised because of all the Wall Street money she hoovered up? And how the Elizabeth Warren story charting Clinton's change of heart over a bankruptcy bill exemplified that point? Well, Clinton made a very big point of going out on TV saying that "Oh no, it wasn't the money, it was for the women and children who came to me asking for help." Turns out, shockingly, that story isn't so much true as it is self-serving. Here's a back-and-forth between Clinton staffers about her recollection:
All of this information comes courtesy of Wikileaks, which published the hacked emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta on its website. The Clinton response to the leaks have been to say that Wikileaks, and Julian Assange specifically, are acting as Russian agents under orders from Vladimir Putin to tar her with baseless propaganda so Donald Trump can become the next President; which the media and Clinton supporters have wholeheartedly embraced so they won't have to hold her responsible or question anything she's done to get to this point. Clinton's outrage that someone was using shady, behind-closed-doors strategies directing the media to falsely debase their political opponents shouldn't carry a lot of weight anyway considering that, you know, she had just done the exact same thing to win her own fucking primary. At this point, the emails aren't really going to affect the election- especially not when there's a mountain of sexual harassment and assault allegations mounting against Trump by the day- but they do provide insight into how she is likely to govern, and depending on how much she wins by, that doesn't really bode well.
If Clinton wins in a landslide, she will, naturally, treat that as a mandate to do as she will. Since Congress is still going to be divided and useless, the only real arena Clinton will be able act unilaterally is in military actions, and Hillary has never met a war she didn't support. She's been a long-time advocate for a no-fly zone in Syria, which she won't need Congress for since she'll likely cite the AUMF (the authorization of military force against al-Qaeda directly or countries who aided or harbored them) as her authorization like Obama did. This is kinda crazy, since enforcing such a thing would require the Air Force to either escort Russian aircraft out of Syrian airspace, or, failing that, shoot them down. Somehow, I don't really see the benefit in risking such a direct conflict with another military power who is literally attacking ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates, a.k.a the same people we're supposed to have this whole War on Terror thing against.
I bring this up because if Clinton is willing to construct a primary campaign based on media distortions around her record and planting stories in the media to discredit anything that ran counter to her narratives, there's no reason to think she won't pull the same move with regards to a war, especially if she's in a position where the country is turning against her and she needs something to show her strength. For those who would doubt their upstanding candidate would ever pull such a blatant manipulation, just remember that Bush supporters told themselves the same thing about there was no way such a straight forward man was lying them into a war with Iraq.
Look, I get voting for Hillary over Trump; the man is easily the stupidest person to ever try to sit in the Oval Office, and all the white supremacists who have mainstreamed themselves under his banner would only grow bolder if he actually won. That being said, we shouldn't pretend that voting for Hillary is the same thing as voting for a good President. There's every reason to believe hat once she's in office, Hillary will use all these same gambits to push through whatever war she's jonesing for or trying to pass off continued kid gloves towards Wall Street abuses as an unfortunate cost of good-ole American Capitalism. But, if there isn't any public support for Hillary to implement that bullshit, we may actually force into being a half-way decent President after all.
Remember how, back in the primaries, a big theme of Bernie's was that had been compromised because of all the Wall Street money she hoovered up? And how the Elizabeth Warren story charting Clinton's change of heart over a bankruptcy bill exemplified that point? Well, Clinton made a very big point of going out on TV saying that "Oh no, it wasn't the money, it was for the women and children who came to me asking for help." Turns out, shockingly, that story isn't so much true as it is self-serving. Here's a back-and-forth between Clinton staffers about her recollection:
"We have a problem,” Clinton senior policy advisor Ann O’Leary wrote to campaign staffers that afternoon. “HRC overstayed (sic) her case this morning in a pretty big way.”Oops. Also, remember how when Clinton and Sanders were set to start debating each other, a lot of Bernie supporters started kicking up a fuss that the DNC was setting up the debate schedule (fewer debates than the Republicans were running, also scheduling them on the weekends out of prime-time) was to explicitly give Clinton the advantage by not risking Bernie getting further exposure and thus, more people willing to vote for him? Also, shockingly, everyone who brought up this complaint was totally right, again. This is from an email sent by a DNC official to the heads of the Clinton campaign:
“What did she say that was wrong?” spokeswoman Kristina Schake replied.
“She said women groups were all pressuring her to vote for it,” O’Leary wrote back. “Evidence does not support that statement.”
"Through internal discussions, we concluded that it was in our interest to: 1) limit the number of debates (and the number in each state); 2) start the debates as late as possible; 3) keep debates out of the busy window between February 1 and February 27, 2016 (Iowa to South Carolina); 4) create a schedule that would allow the later debates to be cancelled if the race is for practical purposes over; 5) encourage an emphasis on local issues and local media participants in the debate formats; and 6) ensure a format that provides equal time for all candidates and does not give the moderator any discretion to focus on one candidate."The email also says that another important issue is to keep the debates multi-candidate to "eliminate the possibility of one on one debates," as if they knew that Hillary having to constantly defend her record against a single, pointed attack would be bad for her. So, to recap, the DNC, who maintained it was a neutral party all throughout the primary, set up a debate schedule specifically to deny any exposure for anyone running against Hillary Clinton so its voters couldn't weigh their options, funneled money directly to the Clinton campaign under the guise of state-level fundraisers (and then tried to lie about it), and coordinated with the Clinton people to discuss strategy on how to beat Bernie Sanders and plant negative stories against him in the media. And yet, even with all that elite and media backing, she still had to fight to the very end to put away a Senator that two years ago almost none of the public could've even named.
All of this information comes courtesy of Wikileaks, which published the hacked emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta on its website. The Clinton response to the leaks have been to say that Wikileaks, and Julian Assange specifically, are acting as Russian agents under orders from Vladimir Putin to tar her with baseless propaganda so Donald Trump can become the next President; which the media and Clinton supporters have wholeheartedly embraced so they won't have to hold her responsible or question anything she's done to get to this point. Clinton's outrage that someone was using shady, behind-closed-doors strategies directing the media to falsely debase their political opponents shouldn't carry a lot of weight anyway considering that, you know, she had just done the exact same thing to win her own fucking primary. At this point, the emails aren't really going to affect the election- especially not when there's a mountain of sexual harassment and assault allegations mounting against Trump by the day- but they do provide insight into how she is likely to govern, and depending on how much she wins by, that doesn't really bode well.
If Clinton wins in a landslide, she will, naturally, treat that as a mandate to do as she will. Since Congress is still going to be divided and useless, the only real arena Clinton will be able act unilaterally is in military actions, and Hillary has never met a war she didn't support. She's been a long-time advocate for a no-fly zone in Syria, which she won't need Congress for since she'll likely cite the AUMF (the authorization of military force against al-Qaeda directly or countries who aided or harbored them) as her authorization like Obama did. This is kinda crazy, since enforcing such a thing would require the Air Force to either escort Russian aircraft out of Syrian airspace, or, failing that, shoot them down. Somehow, I don't really see the benefit in risking such a direct conflict with another military power who is literally attacking ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates, a.k.a the same people we're supposed to have this whole War on Terror thing against.
I bring this up because if Clinton is willing to construct a primary campaign based on media distortions around her record and planting stories in the media to discredit anything that ran counter to her narratives, there's no reason to think she won't pull the same move with regards to a war, especially if she's in a position where the country is turning against her and she needs something to show her strength. For those who would doubt their upstanding candidate would ever pull such a blatant manipulation, just remember that Bush supporters told themselves the same thing about there was no way such a straight forward man was lying them into a war with Iraq.
Look, I get voting for Hillary over Trump; the man is easily the stupidest person to ever try to sit in the Oval Office, and all the white supremacists who have mainstreamed themselves under his banner would only grow bolder if he actually won. That being said, we shouldn't pretend that voting for Hillary is the same thing as voting for a good President. There's every reason to believe hat once she's in office, Hillary will use all these same gambits to push through whatever war she's jonesing for or trying to pass off continued kid gloves towards Wall Street abuses as an unfortunate cost of good-ole American Capitalism. But, if there isn't any public support for Hillary to implement that bullshit, we may actually force into being a half-way decent President after all.
Monday, October 10, 2016
Either Way, It's Gonna Be More of the Same
Last night was the second Presidential debate. The hope was by focusing on policy it would cut down on the drama and tantrums so the candidates could offer the hard hitting political positions our Presidential campaigns are famous for. It worked, for the most part, but the main problem with this set up is that it doesn't really give people a proper expectation of what President's can actually do.
Let's look at healthcare, as an example. One of the questions last night was how the candidates planned to reign in premium and deductible costs in the wake of the Affordable Care Act. Hilary gave a pretty vague description about how she has some proposed fixes on her website and than just started recited things that are popular with the ACA. Being the curious fellow that I am, I checked out Hillary's site and came across a pretty good example of what I talked about in my Jill Stein and Gary Johnson pieces, namely, President's can have agenda's, but more often than not, they can't do shit to implement it. Almost every bullet point in Clinton's agenda can only happen via legislative action; want to allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs? Great, just as soon as Congress repeals the law blocking Medicare from doing so. Want to fund the FDA generic drug program to get generic brands out faster to increase competition? Good luck getting Congress to either create new revenue streams to fund it, or allocating funds from somewhere else when they write the budget. Even Trump's "Repeal and Replace" plan would require Congress to pass a law getting rid of the ACA and draft new legislation creating the ground rules for selling policies across state lines, even if the only rule is there aren't any rules.
Basically, it's nice to focus on the headliners and all, but if you want President's to actually follow through on any of the flowery shit they promise, you need to focus on Congress. And so far in this cycle, that just isn't being done. As it stands now, fivethirtyeight has the Democrats retaking control of the Senate, but just barely, with a 51-49 majority. Another projection website has Republicans keeping the House, but with a diminished majority. What this all means in practice is that no matter who wins the next election, the country is still going to be plagued by Congressional gridlock and nothing of significance will get passed.
This doesn't bode very well for Hillary Clinton. She's favored to win, but, unless she can find some way through executive action to push through her policy agenda, she won't be in a very strong position for the 2018 midterms to allow the Democrats to regain majorities in both Houses and spend the last two years of her term furiously passing bills in the hope of making a difference before 2020 rolls around. Because if all Hillary has to show for her Presidency is four more years of economic stagnation, higher debt levels, and higher medical costs, she will lose. And Republicans know this, too. It's why they spent all of Obama's Presidency being as obstructionist as they could be. Their real failure was underestimating how much people like Obama in general and how that would buffer against their efforts to cast him as a do-nothing President. Clinton, on the other hand, doesn't have that luxury. Sure, people will trot out the argument that her approval ratings go up when she's actually in office but I wouldn't expect that to save her this time; mainly because those previous jobs were a state Senator and Secretary of State, jobs that basically only political junkies pay attention to or even notice, but as President, all eyes will be on her from Day One and if she doesn't have anything positive she can point to, she'll be ripped to shreds.
None of that is to say that a President Trump will have an easier time. After all, Trump is the main reason the Senate is likely to flip and why Republicans are staring down a diminished majority in the House; I really don't see House Republicans falling on their swords for bills that will die in the Senate just so they can satisfy Trump's ego. Even now, you have Paul Ryan saying he's not going to go out and campaign on Trump's behalf; now, you could say that this will cost him the Speakership if Republican hardliners find someone who is more in line with Trump's political agenda, but even then, the House will still face the same problem of expending a lot of political capital with nothing to show for it. That's the same strategy that Republicans have been using for the last six years, and the only thing they have to show for that is the lowest Congressional approval rating in history; which isn't exactly the strongest ground to make controversial moves like, say, building a giant border wall, and survive the backlash.
All of this is to say that while the Presidential elections may be fun to talk about because of all the cult of personality conflicts going on, the lion's share of government policy isn't actually determined by who sits in the Oval Office. Yes, President's can set the agenda, and yes they can use the bully-pulpit to influence what the country talks about, but at the end of the day, it's Congress that actually has to follow through and make those things happen. So if you want to actually make a significant change in how the government works, pay more attention to what your senators and congressmen are doing instead of hanging on to every word of whatever asshole splatters themselves across your TV every four years.
Let's look at healthcare, as an example. One of the questions last night was how the candidates planned to reign in premium and deductible costs in the wake of the Affordable Care Act. Hilary gave a pretty vague description about how she has some proposed fixes on her website and than just started recited things that are popular with the ACA. Being the curious fellow that I am, I checked out Hillary's site and came across a pretty good example of what I talked about in my Jill Stein and Gary Johnson pieces, namely, President's can have agenda's, but more often than not, they can't do shit to implement it. Almost every bullet point in Clinton's agenda can only happen via legislative action; want to allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs? Great, just as soon as Congress repeals the law blocking Medicare from doing so. Want to fund the FDA generic drug program to get generic brands out faster to increase competition? Good luck getting Congress to either create new revenue streams to fund it, or allocating funds from somewhere else when they write the budget. Even Trump's "Repeal and Replace" plan would require Congress to pass a law getting rid of the ACA and draft new legislation creating the ground rules for selling policies across state lines, even if the only rule is there aren't any rules.
Basically, it's nice to focus on the headliners and all, but if you want President's to actually follow through on any of the flowery shit they promise, you need to focus on Congress. And so far in this cycle, that just isn't being done. As it stands now, fivethirtyeight has the Democrats retaking control of the Senate, but just barely, with a 51-49 majority. Another projection website has Republicans keeping the House, but with a diminished majority. What this all means in practice is that no matter who wins the next election, the country is still going to be plagued by Congressional gridlock and nothing of significance will get passed.
This doesn't bode very well for Hillary Clinton. She's favored to win, but, unless she can find some way through executive action to push through her policy agenda, she won't be in a very strong position for the 2018 midterms to allow the Democrats to regain majorities in both Houses and spend the last two years of her term furiously passing bills in the hope of making a difference before 2020 rolls around. Because if all Hillary has to show for her Presidency is four more years of economic stagnation, higher debt levels, and higher medical costs, she will lose. And Republicans know this, too. It's why they spent all of Obama's Presidency being as obstructionist as they could be. Their real failure was underestimating how much people like Obama in general and how that would buffer against their efforts to cast him as a do-nothing President. Clinton, on the other hand, doesn't have that luxury. Sure, people will trot out the argument that her approval ratings go up when she's actually in office but I wouldn't expect that to save her this time; mainly because those previous jobs were a state Senator and Secretary of State, jobs that basically only political junkies pay attention to or even notice, but as President, all eyes will be on her from Day One and if she doesn't have anything positive she can point to, she'll be ripped to shreds.
None of that is to say that a President Trump will have an easier time. After all, Trump is the main reason the Senate is likely to flip and why Republicans are staring down a diminished majority in the House; I really don't see House Republicans falling on their swords for bills that will die in the Senate just so they can satisfy Trump's ego. Even now, you have Paul Ryan saying he's not going to go out and campaign on Trump's behalf; now, you could say that this will cost him the Speakership if Republican hardliners find someone who is more in line with Trump's political agenda, but even then, the House will still face the same problem of expending a lot of political capital with nothing to show for it. That's the same strategy that Republicans have been using for the last six years, and the only thing they have to show for that is the lowest Congressional approval rating in history; which isn't exactly the strongest ground to make controversial moves like, say, building a giant border wall, and survive the backlash.
All of this is to say that while the Presidential elections may be fun to talk about because of all the cult of personality conflicts going on, the lion's share of government policy isn't actually determined by who sits in the Oval Office. Yes, President's can set the agenda, and yes they can use the bully-pulpit to influence what the country talks about, but at the end of the day, it's Congress that actually has to follow through and make those things happen. So if you want to actually make a significant change in how the government works, pay more attention to what your senators and congressmen are doing instead of hanging on to every word of whatever asshole splatters themselves across your TV every four years.
Saturday, October 8, 2016
A Tragedy of Errors
Everyone has been been trying their hardest to find the appropriate analogy for this election season. After a lot of thought, I think I've found it: it's the South Park episode "The Losing Edge." The only difference is that instead of trying to lose on purpose like the boys did, both the candidates and their respective parties have done everything they possibly can to lose this election and it is only by sheer idiot luck that one side hasn't stumbled it's way into a competent, winning strategy.
Take the Democrats for example. Winning a third consecutive presidential election for any party is already an incredibly difficult thing to do, so, naturally, you would nominate someone that almost the entire country either hates or is deeply ambivalent towards. Add to that, the young and independent voters that were so crucial to securing Obama his two terms in office completely rejected her in the primaries and are still, to a large part, not at all promised to vote for her come Election Day. Against literally any other Republican candidate, we'd be seeing the absolute collapse of the Clinton campaign in the wake of her leaked audio tapes dismissing the political beliefs of an entire generation and Wikileaks releasing sections of her Wall Street speeches which show she's exactly the big money shill that people think she is. It'd be poetic, in its own way, watching a woman who has spent the last couple decades scheming and maneuvering her way into higher and higher positions of power only to spectacularly fail on her biggest stage precisely because of all that wheeling and dealing would be exactly what she deserves in a just world. Luckily for her, though, we live in this one, and in this world, people think Donald Trump is qualified to run for President.
Seriously, Hillary Clinton should be thanking whatever god she believes in and however many she can name every single day that she's running against Donald Trump. That doofus is the single biggest reason she has any hope of winning and there shouldn't be a moment that goes by where she isn't celebrating that fact. There's been a conspiracy theory for a while now that Trump is a secret Clinton plant to make the Republican Party nominate someone so repulsive that it would guarantee her victory. I've never bought in to this theory because it's creation seems more of a way to avoid dealing with the implications of what it means for our politics when one of the two major parties willingly and enthusiastically embraces a borderline fascist. But after the last week or so, I can understand why people are willing to believe it. Nobody is really talking about either of the Clinton leaks, after all, because almost as soon as the news broke on those, Trump provided scandals of his own to steer media attention back to himself. The tax return story broke two days after the Clinton audio leaks, and the new "Grab them by the pussy" tape came the day before Clinton's speech transcripts. So while Clinton's controversies make her implode, Trump's make him a walking dumpster fire that can't be ignored.
But even with all that, both candidates still have paths to victory that aren't actually all that difficult to do. For Hillary, she could stop browbeating the millennials and independents who are still hesitant to get behind her and actually give them a reason to vote for. For example, if she gave a speech like this:
Trump, still, has a way to win too, but like Hillary, he won't actually do it. Now, there are people asking if his latest comment will be what finally sinks his campaign. It won't, not really, and here's why: because his base doesn't give a shit. If Trump was going to lose out or be disqualified because of the reprehensible shit that comes out of his mouth that would've happened the day he announced his run for President and said Mexico was shipping rapists, murderers, and, maybe, some good people into the United States. What this latest thing will do is basically sever white, educated women from voting for him. That's not really a terrible loss, since they aren't and never have been a significant part of his base and he's been steadily losing them the entire campaign anyway. The audio isn't going to alter his demographics in any significant way, or convince anyone who has already supported him through everything else to jump ship now.
Trump's way to victory isn't based on how he can get more people to vote for him, rather, it's how he can get people to not vote for Hillary. Trump has literally no chance to improve his chances among blacks, Hispanics, millennials, or independent voters. Whatever poll numbers he's gotten in those groups is all he's going to get, there is no way for him to move up. But, he can start splitting the vote, start saying to independents and young voters that hey, they don't have to vote for him, but they also don't have to be bound or guilt tripped into voting for Crooked Hillary, either. Hillary as way more to lose in those demographics than he does, and if actively undermines her outreach efforts to those groups by talking up the third party options than he should be able to draw enough of them away to Gary Johnson or Jill Stein that Hillary's base becomes too diluted for her to win. Luckily, Trump is too egotistical to do this; I honestly think he is completely incapable of endorsing anyone that isn't him.
At this point, the only hope I have is that reality t.v. producers will go on one of the morning news shows and reveal how this entire thing has basically been the most elaborate and detailed prank pulled on the American public. Like, they wanted to make a show where two narcissistic and completely opportunistic people ran for President. How would the country feel, watching those two duke it out like competing Bridezillas for a year. Hell, even the candidates themselves could show up, sitting across from each other laughing at all the ridiculous things that've happened and how they're easily the worst people to ever run for the job. Sure, they would say, listening to Clinton go out and pretend to actually give a shit about people demonstrated her range, and watching Donald say Megyn Kelly asked tough questions because she was bleeding out her hoo-ha is a great moment in edgy comedy. But really, Hillary would say, how terrible would things have to be if the two of us were seriously the only options for President? That'd be awful, right? And everybody would laugh, because it'd be true, and no matter how scary or uncertain the world seems right now, at least we would be spared waking up on November 9th to a Clinton or Trump Presidency. That'd be a world worth having hope for.
Take the Democrats for example. Winning a third consecutive presidential election for any party is already an incredibly difficult thing to do, so, naturally, you would nominate someone that almost the entire country either hates or is deeply ambivalent towards. Add to that, the young and independent voters that were so crucial to securing Obama his two terms in office completely rejected her in the primaries and are still, to a large part, not at all promised to vote for her come Election Day. Against literally any other Republican candidate, we'd be seeing the absolute collapse of the Clinton campaign in the wake of her leaked audio tapes dismissing the political beliefs of an entire generation and Wikileaks releasing sections of her Wall Street speeches which show she's exactly the big money shill that people think she is. It'd be poetic, in its own way, watching a woman who has spent the last couple decades scheming and maneuvering her way into higher and higher positions of power only to spectacularly fail on her biggest stage precisely because of all that wheeling and dealing would be exactly what she deserves in a just world. Luckily for her, though, we live in this one, and in this world, people think Donald Trump is qualified to run for President.
Seriously, Hillary Clinton should be thanking whatever god she believes in and however many she can name every single day that she's running against Donald Trump. That doofus is the single biggest reason she has any hope of winning and there shouldn't be a moment that goes by where she isn't celebrating that fact. There's been a conspiracy theory for a while now that Trump is a secret Clinton plant to make the Republican Party nominate someone so repulsive that it would guarantee her victory. I've never bought in to this theory because it's creation seems more of a way to avoid dealing with the implications of what it means for our politics when one of the two major parties willingly and enthusiastically embraces a borderline fascist. But after the last week or so, I can understand why people are willing to believe it. Nobody is really talking about either of the Clinton leaks, after all, because almost as soon as the news broke on those, Trump provided scandals of his own to steer media attention back to himself. The tax return story broke two days after the Clinton audio leaks, and the new "Grab them by the pussy" tape came the day before Clinton's speech transcripts. So while Clinton's controversies make her implode, Trump's make him a walking dumpster fire that can't be ignored.
But even with all that, both candidates still have paths to victory that aren't actually all that difficult to do. For Hillary, she could stop browbeating the millennials and independents who are still hesitant to get behind her and actually give them a reason to vote for. For example, if she gave a speech like this:
"I understand why all of you felt like voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary and why you still don't feel like I represent you now; I've done and said some things in the past that are in direct opposition to what you want the country to become. I believe that universal health care and paid college tuition are noble goals, but in this time, and in these politics, we simply don't have ability to pass legislation to accomplish those goals. however, if you vote for me, I promise to dedicate myself to bringing those goals closer to fruition. I won't promise you to fix this in my first 100 days, because it'll take a lot longer than that. But, if you stand with me here and in November, I'll stand with you for the long haul so that we can reform this country into a nation that reflects and inspires the exuberance and hope of its youth"That would go a long way to fixing her problem. There would still be skeptics, of course, but at its basest form politics is about recognizing what people want and promising them you'll work to get it. But Hillary will never give anything resembling a speech like that because it would require for her to admit that she's made mistakes and that she isn't already inherently worth voting for and would actually have to earn people's trust.
Trump, still, has a way to win too, but like Hillary, he won't actually do it. Now, there are people asking if his latest comment will be what finally sinks his campaign. It won't, not really, and here's why: because his base doesn't give a shit. If Trump was going to lose out or be disqualified because of the reprehensible shit that comes out of his mouth that would've happened the day he announced his run for President and said Mexico was shipping rapists, murderers, and, maybe, some good people into the United States. What this latest thing will do is basically sever white, educated women from voting for him. That's not really a terrible loss, since they aren't and never have been a significant part of his base and he's been steadily losing them the entire campaign anyway. The audio isn't going to alter his demographics in any significant way, or convince anyone who has already supported him through everything else to jump ship now.
Trump's way to victory isn't based on how he can get more people to vote for him, rather, it's how he can get people to not vote for Hillary. Trump has literally no chance to improve his chances among blacks, Hispanics, millennials, or independent voters. Whatever poll numbers he's gotten in those groups is all he's going to get, there is no way for him to move up. But, he can start splitting the vote, start saying to independents and young voters that hey, they don't have to vote for him, but they also don't have to be bound or guilt tripped into voting for Crooked Hillary, either. Hillary as way more to lose in those demographics than he does, and if actively undermines her outreach efforts to those groups by talking up the third party options than he should be able to draw enough of them away to Gary Johnson or Jill Stein that Hillary's base becomes too diluted for her to win. Luckily, Trump is too egotistical to do this; I honestly think he is completely incapable of endorsing anyone that isn't him.
At this point, the only hope I have is that reality t.v. producers will go on one of the morning news shows and reveal how this entire thing has basically been the most elaborate and detailed prank pulled on the American public. Like, they wanted to make a show where two narcissistic and completely opportunistic people ran for President. How would the country feel, watching those two duke it out like competing Bridezillas for a year. Hell, even the candidates themselves could show up, sitting across from each other laughing at all the ridiculous things that've happened and how they're easily the worst people to ever run for the job. Sure, they would say, listening to Clinton go out and pretend to actually give a shit about people demonstrated her range, and watching Donald say Megyn Kelly asked tough questions because she was bleeding out her hoo-ha is a great moment in edgy comedy. But really, Hillary would say, how terrible would things have to be if the two of us were seriously the only options for President? That'd be awful, right? And everybody would laugh, because it'd be true, and no matter how scary or uncertain the world seems right now, at least we would be spared waking up on November 9th to a Clinton or Trump Presidency. That'd be a world worth having hope for.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Of Cabbages and Kings
Underneath all the personal insults, insinuations of corruption, foreign shenanigans, and reality show antics of this election cycle, the fundamental narrative of this sad little circus has been "Who are we as a people, and where do we go from here?" Donald Trump bellows that he'll Make America Great Again, promising a return to our glorious, mythical past where we enacted our will without restraint or consequence. Hillary Clinton says that sure, things are bad now, but they aren't that bad really, and if we all just band together, we'll find the way forward that maintains just how awesome we are. At the heart of both of these platitudes is the idea of an America that represented the peak of human civilization, the country that took all the ideologies and failures of all the previous world superpowers and condensed them into their purest, most complete form. This, to me, is bullshit, mainly because it actively ignores the scale of our problems and instead focuses on giving people a false sense of security about how great the country is. So here, I'm going to try and break down some fucked up about us so we can at least be honest with ourselves, if nothing else.
The first thing we'll look at is our military, and its capabilities. Now, the military is the most sacred institution in America; anyone who doesn't break out raging Ron Jeremy patriotism boners is an automatic pariah in pretty much every social situation. Which must be nice for the military, since if you actually took a look at it, you'd realize that it really hasn't accomplished much of anything since, oh, the 1940's. World War II was really the last time the armed forces went out and defeated an enemy who had parity in size, supplies, and weapons capability. After that, we have a draw in the Korean War against the North Koreans and China, a loss in Vietnam against an under-equipped and much smaller force, and petty school yard actions in Panama, Grenada, and the Gulf War, actions against enemies so pathetic I bet most of you don't remember or even know about the Latin America adventures. In our lifetime, we have the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, which, sure, kicked out tyrannical governments, at least, until the Taliban pretty much waltzed back into Afghanistan because we were too busy trying to suppress a civil war in Iraq. These days, the armed forces are used for counter-insurgency stuff, fighting terrorist off-shoots wherever they spring up. They do this so much, in fact, that the Pentagon has had to institute training programs that re-teaches soldiers how to fight against actual opposing armies, since they'd sort of forgotten how to do so. Which is bad, because, that's kinda the point of having an army.
But the problem runs deeper than that. Because when your main strategy is to basically run around and blow shit up wherever enemies pop up, your're not really in control of the situation. Instead, you're constantly reacting, constantly on the defensive, and instead of implementing or even formulating a plan that stops these groups from even starting, the only hope is that maybe you'll have to use fewer bombs and bullets to kill off the next group. It is impossible to win with this line of thinking since it implicitly assumes that victory isn't an achievable goal. So if the day comes where we actually do have a war with another nation-state and a comparable army, we'll be asking an army where no one in living memory has actually done that or actually figured out what the end of a war looks like or how to achieve it. Lovely.
To be clear, none of those things are the soldiers fault. All of these things are political and leadership failures who plot the direction soldiers have no choice but to follow. They aren't off the hook, though since these failures aren't an accident, they're pretty much by design. The switch from a conscription army to a volunteer one in the aftermath of the Vietnam War was a way for the Powers That Be to continue their military adventurism with the lowest possible societal cost. Think of it, right now, with active duty members and reserves, there a little over 2.1 million soldiers in the armed forces, total. There are an estimated 22 million veterans in society, so all told, military personal account for about 8% of the population. This a incredibly small figure, for a reason. By cutting down the amount of people who have ever served in the military, you cut down the political risk of treating them like shit or putting them in unwinnable situations. It's the main reason why every time a VA scandal makes the news, it dies relatively quickly,without anything being done to fix it; there just aren't enough people around to make a fuss big enough for Congress or anyone else to take notice and keep giving a fuck.
The other nail in our coffin, as I see it, is that we are becoming an increasingly stupider country. Almost half the country believes the Book of Genesis is literally true, and thanks to the ever increasing amount of idiots not vaccinating their kids, diseases like measles and whooping cough are all enjoying fresh outbreaks when we had almost eradicated them like polio and smallpox. This trend of disregarding evidence "because I just don't believe it, you know?" is an especially worrying one, it doesn't do us any good to live in the information age if we can't assess or judge the quality of the information that's constantly bombarding us..
How our educational system got into such a pitiful state is probably a post of its own, so for now I want to focus on an exemplar and driver of our collective ignorance, and that's Texas. Due to its sheer physical size and market value, textbook publishers generally just follow the guidelines set by Texas Board of Education for textbooks and sell those books nationwide. To give you an idea of why this a problem, the Texas GOP Party Platform, aka the people who actually make up the board, once declared that it was formally opposed to teaching critical thinking skills. There's also the problem that the Board's main goal is rewriting American history so that it looks like it was a glorious thing born out of the brilliance of (exclusively) white Christians. Taking this bullshit to its natural conclusion is why there are books in Texas calling slaves migrant workers or how Moses was a Founding Father.
We might be able to survive such an onslaught of stupid, but our education just isn't up to handling it. We're consistently falling further and further behind the rest of the world in virtually every subject there is. We'll never catch up until we can guarantee a quality education for everyone, but since none of the education reform conversations involve breaking the funding tie between schools and property taxes in lieu of straight national and state funding, if your neighborhood is shit, than your education will be, too. And that just sucks for you.
The most frustrating thing is that all of problems, be they education, our broken health care system, our crumbling infrastructure, are easily solvable. We can look out to the rest of the world and see higher quality educational systems paid for entirely by the state all the way through college in some countries. We also see state run health care systems that have exactly zero of the problems ours faces. But are we going to actually do any of those things? No, because we don't want to. The idea that anyone who doesn't overcome the hardships is inherently lesser is an idea that is something so ingrained in our culture I honestly think we forget it's there. That idea makes any government action to improve the quality of life feel humiliating instead of altruistic. So instead we'll just keep on flaying around blind in the dark looking for any other solution as we continue our slide to becoming the richest third world country the world's ever seen. But we'll still have our pride, at least.
The other nail in our coffin, as I see it, is that we are becoming an increasingly stupider country. Almost half the country believes the Book of Genesis is literally true, and thanks to the ever increasing amount of idiots not vaccinating their kids, diseases like measles and whooping cough are all enjoying fresh outbreaks when we had almost eradicated them like polio and smallpox. This trend of disregarding evidence "because I just don't believe it, you know?" is an especially worrying one, it doesn't do us any good to live in the information age if we can't assess or judge the quality of the information that's constantly bombarding us..
How our educational system got into such a pitiful state is probably a post of its own, so for now I want to focus on an exemplar and driver of our collective ignorance, and that's Texas. Due to its sheer physical size and market value, textbook publishers generally just follow the guidelines set by Texas Board of Education for textbooks and sell those books nationwide. To give you an idea of why this a problem, the Texas GOP Party Platform, aka the people who actually make up the board, once declared that it was formally opposed to teaching critical thinking skills. There's also the problem that the Board's main goal is rewriting American history so that it looks like it was a glorious thing born out of the brilliance of (exclusively) white Christians. Taking this bullshit to its natural conclusion is why there are books in Texas calling slaves migrant workers or how Moses was a Founding Father.
We might be able to survive such an onslaught of stupid, but our education just isn't up to handling it. We're consistently falling further and further behind the rest of the world in virtually every subject there is. We'll never catch up until we can guarantee a quality education for everyone, but since none of the education reform conversations involve breaking the funding tie between schools and property taxes in lieu of straight national and state funding, if your neighborhood is shit, than your education will be, too. And that just sucks for you.
The most frustrating thing is that all of problems, be they education, our broken health care system, our crumbling infrastructure, are easily solvable. We can look out to the rest of the world and see higher quality educational systems paid for entirely by the state all the way through college in some countries. We also see state run health care systems that have exactly zero of the problems ours faces. But are we going to actually do any of those things? No, because we don't want to. The idea that anyone who doesn't overcome the hardships is inherently lesser is an idea that is something so ingrained in our culture I honestly think we forget it's there. That idea makes any government action to improve the quality of life feel humiliating instead of altruistic. So instead we'll just keep on flaying around blind in the dark looking for any other solution as we continue our slide to becoming the richest third world country the world's ever seen. But we'll still have our pride, at least.
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