Tag: Matt0147

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Madness In Iowa

February 10, 2020

Before trains, cars and airplanes, a trip to Washington was a long slog on horseback. So selecting delegates to vote for you – whether for the nominating convention or for the general election, via the Electoral College – was a big deal.

In 2020, why on Earth would a party as large as the Democrats not simply use ranked voting in the largest states, on paper ballots, to select its candidate?

The results of a ranked vote (first choice, second choice, etc) in the half dozen most populous states would clearly identify the most viable candidate.

Those half dozen states contain about 256 million people, or roughly77% of the nation’s population. I consider this a significant cross-section.

Given the Democrats’ advantage in registered voters nationwide, a candidate selected that way ought to win almost every time against the out-numbered GOP. Barring cheating in the count, of course.

MOE

M.I.C.H. – Modernity, Intelligence, Complexity, Humanity

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Sanders Warren Ticket

February 7, 2020

Sanders because he motivates the base. But his age suggests one term.

Warren because she’s the smartest. And this country is more likely to have a woman president after it’s grown accustomed to a woman vice president. Hate to say it, especially because HRC actually won in 2016, but it’s likely so.

Both because a new kind of oligarchy is forming and these two are the best heads to confront it. This might give us three to four terms, at least, to stop the cycle of Republican economic damage followed by Democrat economic repair.

The fact that they don’t necessarily get along well makes it all the better.

MOE

M.I.C.H. – Modernity, Intelligence, Complexity, Humanity

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Out They Go

February 1, 2020

So now the process of England (and maybe Wales, too, but probably not Scotland or Northern Ireland) becoming great again begins. Now they can negotiate with their neighbors once again from a position of strength.

Remind me, because I forget. What specifically is their negotiating advantage? That they drive on the wrong side of the road and therefore need their own kind of cars, or that they don’t use the same money as everybody else?

MOE

M.I.C.H. – Modernity, Intelligence, Complexity, Humanity

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So What Is It?

February 1, 2020

It’s been clear for some time that the central powers at the RNC have something on every last Republican in both the House and the Senate. Yesterday’s vote not to allow additional witnessess – in the face of an important one jumping up and down and screaming he’d like to testify – seals it. The look on Moscow Mitch’s face (“Damn, it worked again!” ) – seals it. The question is: What is it?

Is it money? A promise of a windfall from oligarchs at the end of their respective terms in office? So long as they go along with the program. Maybe. But some of these people, like Mitt Romney, are already rich as Croesus.

Is it the promise of little boys or girls, such as Jeff Epstein might have made? Or the promise to reveal that the promise has already been kept? Dennis Hastert might have been in a better position to say.

Is it the judges and Roe v. Wade thing? Arguably. We’ve seen many a conservative sell his or her soul for that. But all of them, and to avoid Mike Pence, who would only be more that way?

My guess is that it’s the voting machines. Probably each and every Republican member of Congress has been informed – and kept silent about – the probability that they were elected by cheating and therefore hold their offices illegitimately.

MOE

M.I.C.H – Modernity, Intelligence, Complexity, Humanity

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Judge Not

January 27, 2020

Re: impeachment

And so it comes to this: the country wants a real trial, and that requires a real judge.

The Constitution calls for an amalgam of the Senate and the Supreme Court when trying a President for removal from office. The Chief Justice’s role is to preside. When it comes to judges and courtrooms, that means to control the proceedings.

MOE

M.I.C.H. – Modernity, Intelligence, Complexity, Humanity

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Aging Out

January 24, 2020

George Washington was two years out of office when he died – at 67.

Abe Lincoln died in office, at 56.

FDR died at the start of his fourth term. He was 63.

JFK was 46 when he went to Dallas for the last time.

Ronald Reagan was considered by many to be too old for the office of President when he ran. He turned 70 a month after the inauguration.

Bernie Sanders is 78.

Joe Biden is 77.

Elizabeth Warren is 70.

The Thing in the Oval Office is 73.

Just sayin’.

MOE

M.I.C.H – Modernity, Intelligence, Complexity, Humanity

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Squid Pro Squall

November 22, 2019

The Donald really meant it when he told his minions “no quid pro quo!”

What he meant by this was what he always means when it comes to contracts of any sort: he considers them unilateral and binding only on the other party. Like mortgages and other loans, or agreements to pay contractors when the work is done.

So, to the Don, “no quid pro quid” translates to “Just because they hold up their end of the deal doesn’t mean I have to. Suckers!”

See he really probably did say it. It’s just that it means something else to those outside the environment.

MOE

M.I.C.H. – Modernity, Intelligence, Complexity, Humanity

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John Lithgow on What Isn’t Entertaining

October 17, 2019

Re: John Lithgow’s takedown of Donald Trump, our Reality President, in the New York Times today.

Let me say that it includes a great illustration by the writer, in addition to some fine prose. In the piece, Lithgow concludes that DT (is it pure coincidence that his initials are the same as Delirium Tremens, the post-drunk shakes?) is not only a bad president but a bad entertainer.

As an actor, Lithgow is well-positioned to comment on his subject’s lack of finesse. He is also one of the few to point out a trend: that the convergence of reality and entertainment into the infotainment world in which we now find ourselves can be traced directly to our first Actor-President Ronald Reagan. JL is also the first, as far as I can tell, to refer to Trump’s audiences by the correct term: “claque.” Takes an entertainment industry insider, I guess; and there is comfort in this. As a different kind of Republican at a similarly dangerous time – a time also involving the spirit of Roy Cohn – once said, more or less: their numbers are few and they are stupid. But I digress.

First thought on finishing the article was that we need more like this. Because how things seem is now more important than how they are. So call in a professional to describe what is going on. Robert Redford once said (I paraphrase here from memory) that he didn’t live anywhere near Hollywood because he worked in an industry whose stock in trade was artifice. So distance from that industry was important to mental health. He got the difference between real and fake. We need more actors to describe artifice in a critical way, as a component of our day to day world. My kids used to ask “Is that real?” How about watermarks in the upper right hand corner of our little screens rating credibility of the source on a numeric scale? All that’s needed is an accrediting body, such as already exists for schools.

The conflation of entertainment and reality is less surprising when we consider that a favored means of communication is via a digital slam book created by a college undergrad so that his fellow Cantabs could rate their date, including pictures (MyFace or SpaceBook; can’t recall). Now people get their news from such sources, and are as happy as not to believe that such news is fake, doesn’t matter. Easy come. Easy Go. Little high. Little low. Nothing really matters to them.

What to do?

Let us recall that decades of experts pointing out the health risks of smoking put not so much as a dent in the tobacco industry’s business model. The air of death only made smoking more cool in a dark way. No, we can trace the beginnings of Big Tobacco’s fall from grace to an ad featuring Brooke Shields, in which she said she couldn’t stand the smell of smoke in a guy’s hair. Go on a date? With you? Smokey stink? As if. End of cool tobacco, beginning of better health. So, too, malignant narcissism must be made uncool.

There was once a king of France who famously may have said that he was the state. This has widely been recited as an expression of pure power. However, it is also a leadership model. If Louis was opulent, if Louis was supremely powerful, then France was glorious, France was opulent, France was supremely powerful. After all, he was the state.

In his own sick and small way, The Donald tries to do the above. The Louis example is one which Mr. Trump adopted first as a business model, even before it became his political paradigm. Donald gets Louis the Fourteenth. And he claims to have read Mein Kampf. So he has retained at least two touchstones of Western culture we can attribute to his expensive education. Standing in front of walls of tacky one foot squares of Travertine over Hardy Board, trimmed with gold paint, he states “You gotta paint people a picture!” (Picture: Donald Trump is success. Glitter is success.) Speaking to a crowd of the easily dazzled he says: “The one thing you need to understand about me is that I’m, like, really really rich!” (Picture: Donald Trump is money.) People crave success. People love money. People should therefore want to be Donald Trump. It’s wrong, but it’s right. And it has worked before. But the perceived connection, the transference, is false and dangerous.

Lithgow’s mention of Ronald Reagan brings back a memory. Picture how Reagan used to keep the press at bay. A high wave and a smile from a distance as he walked from the helicopter to the White House. This drove me nuts at the time. After all, we (the People) hired this guy and he won’t even debrief us. He’s a Federal employee, not an emperor.

A colleague at work felt exactly the opposite about Ronnie’s style. I asked him why he preferred regal aloofness and a demonstrable lack of accountability in the president. His response was: “Because if I were President, that’s how I would be.” He liked the imagery, the lifestyle. He projected his being onto the President.

Transference can be OK so long as it doesn’t port over to Reality. Even actors have their idols and are wannabes in regards to somebody. But the President of the United States makes actual decisions that actually affect actual lives. For this reason, it is important to pick someone for the job with a reasonable chance of doing the job right. As a nation, we are blessed with good basic governmental systems. All that is necessary to avoid disaster is for a competent functionary to operate the controls in a steady and competent manner. Did I say competent? We had that for eight years prior to 2016, over which we recovered from the 2008 fiasco, which had ended the prior eight years of not having it.

The difference between the two positions is whether you see the president as someone who works for you, or see yourself as the President. Can you distinguish the state being France from the state being Louis? Are you prone to hang around the back door of theaters and hiss at the person who played the villain? Can you tell real from fake?

MOE

M.I.C.H. – Modernity, Intelligence, Complexity, Humanity

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The President can be arrested. Right?

October 10, 2019

We now move into uncharted territory, with a president claiming that impeachment proceedings – one of the things spelled out more explicitly than most in the US Constitution – are “unconstitutional.” Unconstitutional mainly, and for lack of any better cogent explanation, because they are being brought against him and not someone else.

Pundits now speak of the “oversight” function of Congress, turning a strongly worded Power into a weakly understood function. Some commentators talk of “coequal” (how does that differ from “equal” except to diminish it? Equal already carries its own symmetric properties) branches of government, implying that Congress might be on a par with the executive branch.

A review of some basics:

It is clear from the Constitution that Congress was intended to be the most equal branch, the highest and ultimate law of the land. The Constitution created Congress first. It gives Congress the right to remove the President. It does not give the President the right to remove Congress. It requires the President from time to time to report to Congress; and not the other way around. It thereby establishes a clear pecking order.

Congress was also given a little fiefdom called the District of Columbia, known more popularly as Washington, D.C. , over which Congress has exclusive jurisdiction.

In an era of increasingly imperial views of the Presidency, the attitude of the Executive toward the Legislative branch has been more and more dismissive – “go legislate” – implying that all action is entirely the purview of the former and that they can effectively ignore the latter, even its subpoenas. How would Congress enforce its will? Would it send its Sergeant at Arms to Pennsylvania Avenue, as some have snidely suggested?

No, it wouldn’t need to. It could send the Metro Police, who, ultimately, work for Congress. The White House might then move camp to Escondito, or some other town not established as the Capital of the United States. Good luck to y’all. Warrants will be issued to wherever that might end up being.

Degraded to personal lawyers, the President’s Roy Cohn if you will, the Justice Department, having opined that a sitting president cannot even be indicted, has now raised the Barr to cannot even be investigated. So great are his powers as the Chosen One. Possessed of Great and Unmatched Wisdom. And more than a little madness.

The President can be arrested. Right? I mean, if he had actually, as he once boasted, shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, he would be arrested. Right? Probably found cowering in Trump Tower like Saruman under attack by the Ents. The people who would arrest him would be the NYPD, since that is their job when crimes occur in that city.

The President can be arrested. Right? If someone were stabbed on Pennsylvania Avenue and a blood trail led to the Oval Office, where the President was sitting, cackling, knife in hand, he would be arrested. Right? The people who would arrest him would be the DC Metro Police. Because that is their job in that city which, as noted, also happens to be run by Congress, not the Executive, as a founding principle. The Secret Service would be unwise to risk a shootout under the circumstances.

The Constitution is clear about the process of Impeachment, which it refers to as a “Power” with a capital P, not as an “oversight function.” Article I, Section 2, Paragraph 5, gives the House the sole Power of Impeachment. Article I, Section 3, Paragraph 6, gives the Senate the sole Power to try all Impeachments. And by “all” they didn’t mean just Presidents (more on this below). The Constitution gives Congress broad housekeeping power to remove criminals from the Executive branch.

The large amount of space devoted in the Constitution to impeachment suggests that its writers anticipated the process might be used often – not unwise in an early republic where candidates emerged from the wild and woolly frontier with God knows what kind of baggage in tow. The presence of the Chief Justice is in place to ensure that the process not become overly political, or a beauty contest, when impeaching the President, the most solemn case. And all cases require a two-thirds majority. But, we reiterate, it was anticipated that the unfit could be fairly routinely removed. Although it is unclear whether the Oval Office is now occupied by the Unfit or by the Incubus, it certainly appears to be one, the other, or both. The best we can hope for is just manifestly Unfit. Any employer would have long ago called the Unfit into his office and said “Don, this is just not working out. You’re not who you said you were on your application.” In the Constitution, the country’s by-laws, that little conversation falls under the heading of Impeachment.

Article I, Section 3, Paragraph 7 makes clear that Impeachment speaks only to removal from office, no more or less, and that the impeached is still subject to all the laws of the land (“…the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable to Indictment, Trial, Judgement and Punishment, according to law.”) One could, I suppose, for the sake of argument, take the position that the use of the (sort of) past tense “convicted” (which is in this case a noun, not a verb) implies a certain order of events. No debater steeped in any logic would chose to defend that position. As noted, a noun, “the convicted” refers to the one removed from office, but that isn’t, from the language itself, necessarily exclusive to impeachment, or a required precedent. The Framers were, if nothing else, good with words. If they had meant “only after conviction shall the Party convicted be liable…” or, perhaps, “upon Conviction by the Senate the Party shall be liable…”, they could very easily have done so. But they didn’t say that; so they didn’t mean that. A better explanation is that they meant impeachment and removal from office, should it come first, is not a basis for a double jeopardy defense.

A good place to have said the above would have been Article II , Section 4 where it is made clear that impeachment is not just for the President, but also for “…the Vice President and all civil officers of the United States…” Would those who claim absolute immunity for the President, except after impeachment and removal, also claim it for all civil officers of the United States? Have any civil officers been found guilty of anything but not impeached before it? I suspect they have.

So, it is clear that impeachment is not reserved for the President. “…And no Person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present.” The only distinction the Constitution seems to draw between impeachment of the President, which would of course be the most momentous, and other civil officers is that the former gets the benefit of having the Chief Justice preside. (Article I, Section 3, Paragraph 7). This would have been another good place for the Framers to define further procedural items which applied to the special case of the President, if it were indeed a special case. But they declined to do so. The President is to be treated essentially like anybody else.

But the above begs the obvious question. How would the House know that high crimes and misdemeanors had been committed if the laws of the land had not already been brought to bear on the issue. The current administration now insists that a sitting president cannot even be investigated. Even by Congress! Wouldn’t want to have to play that hand. (Note to the file and the DOJ: is there any other kind of president that matters? I mean other than sitting? Drop the unnecessary modifier. Removal from office isn’t that vital an issue for people not in office. Piling on adjectives only shows that you find your own argument thin and want to use goo to thicken it).

No, the above would fly in the face of the concept of a Citizen President, so central to the country’s founding and reinforced by the First President when he asked to be called “Mister” President, not Excellency, or Your Majesty.

But beyond that, the Impeachment process implies that the high crimes and misdemeanors before the House for its consideration are already in some way manifest, obvious. Surely Congress should remove a president from office who was in jail, or standing trial somewhere outside Washington. How could he do his job?

MOE

M.I.C.H. – Modernity, Intelligence, Complexity, Humanity

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Who would self-identify as a Republican?

October 9, 2019

Consternation abounds. Why do polls show Mr. Trump’s approval rating among his base remaining so high?

No mystery, really. Given the behavior of the buffoon in the White House (not to mention Moscow Mitch) who would self identify as a Republican these days? Better to own up to being a serial killer; not as embarrassing; less stigma attached.

If someone approaches you at the mall with a clipboard, whatcha gonna say? Who me? No, I’m an independent. I think those people over there are Republicans.

Of course there will still be a few die hard fans. But the math is simple. When there’s only one left, Mr. Trump’s approval rating will rise to one hundred percent.

MOE

M.I.C.H. – Modernity, Intelligence, Complexity, Humanity