Who's Obsessing?

To be clear: If Beto O'Rourke somehow becomes the Democratic nominee against Donald Trump in 2020, I will happily vote for him. In the meantime,  though, I also would like to answer some questions about him. Does he support Medicare for all? $15 minimum wage? Green New Deal? Jobs guarantee? ICE? And others.

These happen to be issues that are very important to me. If asking these questions is somehow offensive to Beto supporters or other centrists, then I would contend that I am not the one "obsessing", as they seem to be claiming. This is how it's supposed  to work.

Personhood and Speech

Conservatives have created out of whole cloth a world in which corporations have (1) personhood and (2) free speech rights like any other person. Conservatives have further constructed--also out of whole cloth--a world where money is speech. So when people call out, say, Pacific Life for advertising on a TV program which labels immigrants as dirty, it is disingenuous to cry foul. Conservatives have defined Pacific Life's advertising spending as speech, so it is perfectly legitimate to challenge that speech. And if I decide to not use my money to buy Pacific Life's products, I am simply exercising my speech.

Conservatives have created that world but now don't want to have to live in it. This is the world you wanted. Don't wish for something if you don't really mean it.

A Review

Just a few things to review, just to keep them clear in my mind.

1. James Comey is (was) a Republican.
2. Robert Mueller is a Republican.
3. Mueller was appointed by the Trump administration.
4. Fed Chair Jerome Powell--whom Trump is currently bad mouthing--was appointed to his position by (drum roll) Donald Trump.
5. People referred to as "Never Trumpers" are Republicans.
6. Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein was appointed to his position by (drum roll) Donald Trump.
7. Since I have been a voter (i.e., 1972), the only significant documented voter fraud I know of just occurred in North Carolina and was perpetrated by Republicans. The number of votes involved in one relatively small county in North Carolina probably far surpasses the total number of documented voter impersonation episodes in the entire country over that same period (maybe the entire history of the US). Not one of the votes in question in North Carolina would have been stopped by any of the various Jim Crow laws passed by Republicans around the country.

Interest Rate Hypocrisy

In this article Kevin Drum has put into words what I've been thinking a lot of recently, with the Fed expected to raise interest rates this week. (They could still change their minds.)

I recall that during the entire Obama presidency, the Wall Street Journals and the Rick Santellis of the world were predicting clear and immediate catastrophe if the Fed didn't raise rates and soon. Inflation was either in full swing or just around the corner, even though it was essentially zero or even negative. Shoot, the House's resident Obama/Bernanke/Yellen hater, Jeb Hensarling, was holding hearings all the time scolding the Fed for not raising rates (and quite disrespectfully I might add).

Like Drum, I happen to agree that rates don't need to be raised, but the hypocrisy of the Right is pretty amazing. There was even less justification for raising rates during the Obama years than now, but that didn't matter. The Repubs spent eight years opposing everything for the sake of opposing everything, even if it hurt the country.

And I am supposed to think things will get better if we just get rid of Trump? Give me a reason to think so. They are all Donald Trump now.

Blue Dog Dems?

Generally I view Josh Rogin pretty favorably. While I frequently disagree with him--he is quite conservative--he's also a guy who argues in good faith and is worth a read.

This op-ed piece in The Washington Post isn't among his best, The title suggests that the Blue Dog Dems will have an important part to play in the upcoming Dem majority in the House. Unfortunately, other than the vaguest of generalities, he never really delineates what this "crucial role" actually is.

The piece leaves more things unanswered than answered. For example, the essay suggests that the progressive wing of the party is pursuing issues and policies "outside the mainstream". I wish he had told us what those are. $15 minimum wage? Medicare for All? Affordable housing? Criminal justice reform? Gun control? Jobs guarantee? These issues are basically the platform that Ocasio-Cortez ran on. If Rogin and the Blue Dogs think these are not in the mainstream of the Democratic Party, then they are the ones out of touch.

It's also ironic that on the very day I read Rogon's piece, I also read that a handful of Blue Dog Dems in the House joined the Repubs in preventing a vote on the disastrous war in Yemen. Is this the sort of "crucial role" Rogin has in mind for these folks? This is what moving to the center means? This is what compromise means?

No thanks.

Misreading the Fight Against Centrism

From Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone

The inability of pundits to make sense of the plummeting popularity of “centrism” is a long-developing story in the West. 

Over and over, a daft political class paternalistically implements changes more to the benefit of donors than voters, then repeatedly is baffled when they prove unpopular.

See: NAFTA, the creation of the WTO and GATT, deregulation of the banking sector, multiple unnecessary wars, tax holidays and other corporate subsidies like bans on drug re-importation, mass construction of prisons during an era of sharply declining crime (coupled with broad non-enforcement of white-collar offenses), and so on.

Headline of the Day

Washington Post today....

Wisconsin Republicans shield their voters from the horrors of democratic elections