Saturday, October 28, 2017

MIKE LEVIN : FACTS AND MYTHS

In 1999 it was revealed that an Albuquerque City Council candidate and nine of his relatives had registered to vote at a mobile home in Southeast Albuquerque. He said at the time that his relatives never voted. Having gone to college at the University of New Mexico, it was not a shock this miscreant would have pulled that brand of stunt. I'll go to my grave having to explain why I helped the guy get elected as our Student Body President. 

Even by the low standards of "the Land of Enchantment", a ballot box stuffing stunt seems pretty brazen. Given the optics, it's rather petty and really dumb. Eighteen years later I witnessed a clumsily executed variant courtesy of "Environmental Attorney" Mike Levin's campaign for Darrell Issa's 49th Congressional District seat on California's bucolic coast.

It was a beautiful morning in Northern San Diego County. Early on a Saturday morning at the meeting of a local Democratic club, there was a vote on which delegates the club will send to the area's Democratic pre-endorsement conference.

At that event, several non-residents of the area were able to vote for the representatives of these tightly knit together coastal communities. On the very deadline to pay the membership dues to vote in this election, thirty-eight new members suddenly appeared and enrolled. The majority were "carpetbaggers". They were there to vote for a slate favoring Mike Levin.

Those responsible for these sudden last-minute enrollees saw nothing wrong with a little ballot box stuffing. Their campaign staff (perhaps) forgot this was not just a case of winning an endorsement for their trailing campaign. In the shadow of the 2016 divide in the Presidential Primary campaign, forgetting the right of neighbors to have their voices heard looms disproportionately large.

To those on the receiving end of this internecine struggle, it's another example of the Democratic Party processes seeming not right, and unfair. It's a question that potentially will be scorching the party's earth for years to come. There was an air of ruthlessness in the way the Hillary Clinton campaign conducted its affairs in 2016.

It comes as no shock that Mr. Levin would follow that playbook. A selling point for Mike Levin's candidacy has been that he is "dialed in" to the Clinton family, and spent much of 2016 bundling donations for HRC. It is also been widely broadcast that Levin went to Stanford at the same time Chelsea Clinton did.

His stated credentials as an "environmental attorney" would seem to resonate in a district concerned about rampant coastal development and the issues surrounding the closed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. As expected in a hotly contested campaign, Mr. Levin's bona fides seem to be in some dispute. Before delving into those matters, a little background information is assistive.

BACKGROUND.

A year after the 2016 presidential election, festering tensions between the Clinton and Sanders wings continue to divide the Democratic Party. 2017 began with the struggle over who should chair the Democratic National Committee. Sanders and his supporters were behind the losing candidate, Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.), while the Clintonian Democrats were seen as supporting the winner, former Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez.

Recently a resolution calling on Senator Sanders to join the Democratic Party was defeated during the Democratic National Committee meetings in Las Vegas October 18-21. It was yet another sign of the tensions between Sanders's acolytes and Clinton people still blaming Sanders for the debacle last November. Hopes that perhaps the depths of calamity we witnessed last November 8th would chasten the troops were dashed. There is ample evidence that peace will not ensue anytime soon.

More than a year after Clinton’s primary win and nearly a year after Donald Trump’s victory on Election Day,  all the infighting takes the focus off of the President. Witnessing Donald Trump bringing us to the brink of nuclear war, obstructing justice, and being "on the take" from foreign governments should be a prescription for party unity. Sadly, the race for the 49th Congressional District on the coast between Orange County and San Diego has become a microcosm of that divide.  

THE STRUGGLE TO OUST DARRELL ISSA

A retired Marine colonel came within 1621 votes of defeating Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista in 2016. Doug Applegate's appeal to the military veterans residing around Camp Pendleton helped Applegate to actually defeat Issa in Northern San Diego County. After the last census, there were 46,441 civilian veterans in the district. Charges were voiced by Issa in that race about a messy divorce, including false allegations of spousal abuse, yet Issa sued Applegate for alleged libel. In the end, a judgment ordered Issa to pay his opponent more than $45,000. 

One demonstration of how motivated the electorate is to purge Issa is that hundreds of voters turnout every Tuesday at 10 am to demonstrate outside of his Vista, CA office. 


Issa defeated Applegate in the closest congressional race in the country last year. The 49th District race is being targeted for 2018 by the DCCC. With a proven candidate there seems to be no compelling reason for another entry into this race. In theory, a contested primary would be a good thing, if all the candidates were raising money and ganging up on Issa and his ties to President Trump. Sadly, the race has turned into a saga of three significant candidates in the field. It’s an open question whether Democrats have increased or decreased their chances of knocking off Issa by the hard-edged tactics of one of these new participants.

ENTER MIKE LEVIN 

For Democrats, the good news is that capable candidates will be in the primary field, raising money and shining a lantern on Issa, his record, and his ties to President Trump. The bad news, of course, is that the race has begun to resemble a knife fight. Only one will make it through the primary to face the incumbent in the November general election. Certainly, Mr. Levin is entitled to run for the nomination. For many, it is a pervasive sense of entitlement which is the concern.  

The Levin campaign has insisted that there are no meaningful policy differences between Colonel Applegate and their candidate. That would seem to beg the question of why Democratic voters need to vote for anybody but Colonel Applegate. To date the Levin campaign's rationale for his candidacy goes like this: 

1- Applegate lost last time. We need a winner. 

Linked here is an analysis of Issa's electoral history. The 2016 hairbreadth margin of 1621 is a vast contrast to past Democratic performance in the 49th. 

2- Mike Levin is a family man, with an adorable family that should be in a Kellogg's commercial. Applegate once had a contentious divorce.  

Outside of the rather feline nature of this argument, it is based on the whispering campaign Issa conducted in 2016. Having just received a rather emphatic sanction for his tactics in court, it's hard to conceive that Issa has held anything in reserve as far as opposition research on Doug Applegate. Mike Levin has not really been vetted in terms of surviving the "heaters" Darrell will throw at any nominee's head.  

When looking into the policy utterances of Mike Levin, he appears to be a cipher. His Facebook page, until he declared, was a repository of banalities with some Clinton family hagiography tossed in. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein's comment about Oakland, "there's no there, there." 

WHERE IS THE BEEF? 

For John Q. Citizen, one would expect a page replete with anything that resembles a conviction. For a candidate for Congress, much less one claiming he has spent years in the political vineyards where the Republican grapes of wrath are stored, the absence of the same is jarring. Not only should we ask "where's the beef". we should ask why the refrigerator is utterly empty. 


An interesting aspect of Mike Levin's career is the "environmental attorney" claim. Just this week the Levin camp put out invitations to view this link. It was entitled "myths vs. facts". It sought to address the questions being raised about this vital part of his resume. Here's an example:

Myth: Mike is not a “real” environmental attorney because he didn’t litigate many cases, and there is no record of his advocacy prior to 2016.

Fact: Since 2007, Mike’s work in clean energy has focused on accelerating our transition to a sustainable future. He has worked with companies and non-profits as both attorney and advocate. He is not and has never been a registered lobbyist.

A search for any narrative surrounding Mike Levin's career as an "environmental attorney" is as difficult as penetrating the veil of his policy positions. If your expectation of an attorney dealing with the environment is Atticus Finch filing briefs on behalf of adorable creatures, our air, and our water, Mike Levin’s career is going to disappoint. As one observer noted, "LexisNexis has only three pleadings, none of which are environmental." 


Another question to ask is if a "Director of Government Affairs" can look you in the eye and assert his job is not about lobbying. As seen in the video above: if it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it's a duck. Regardless of whether the duck resides in San Juan Capistrano or on K Street. 

Fact- Mike Levin was Director of Government Affairs and later VP of Legal and Regulatory Affairs for FlexEnergy/Ener-Core, a gas turbine/oxidizer manufacturer-distributor.   

Fact- Mike Levin was then the Director of Government Affairs for FuelCell Energy, Inc. Levin's Linked-in page states that "FuelCell Energy, Inc. (Nasdaq: FCEL) is a leading integrated fuel cell company that designs, manufactures, sells, installs, operates and services ultra-clean, highly efficient stationary fuel cell power plants for distributed power generation. 

The Yale University Climate Connections site notes the Following "Concern about the natural gas used to make hydrogen in fuel cells reflects what it takes to get that gas – fracking and its impacts, and the methane leakage associated with transporting gas. 

Given this rather interesting dichotomy, Mr. Levin's "Myth vs. Facts" page has either made a transposition error or it's written deceptively. It really should read as follows: 

Myth- Mike is a proud owner of a Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle, which emits only water vapor from the tailpipe, has a 366-mile range, can refuel in less than 5 minutes, and has roughly the same carbon footprint as other electric vehicles.


Fact- Mike supports Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles, which are a non-renewable technology that relies on fracking.


“Any time you’re talking about fossil fuel,” said Nathanael Greene, director of renewable energy policy for the Natural Resources Defense Council, “no matter how efficient your conversion technology is, you’re starting with something that’s fundamentally unsustainable."



Given this rather interesting dichotomy, Mr. Levin's "Myth vs. Facts" page has either made a transposition error or its written deceptively. It really should read as follows: 


Myth: Mike opposes fracking.

Fact: Mike supports fracking.


In May of 2016, ExxonMobil either bought an undisclosed interest in FuelCell and/or the two companies entered into an agreement to collaborate on carbon capture and clean coal development. This year, FuelCell's Vice President was a featured speaker at the National Coal Council's Annual Spring Meeting. As the industry website H2- International notes:

"During the industry conference Energy – Think Outside the Box in Berlin, William M. Colton, vice president corporate strategic planning at ExxonMobil, talked about the big potential of a technology called “carbon capture.” By that, he meant the option to add CO2 to hydrogen to create methane and convert the result into power and heat inside a fuel cell. ExxonMobil’s partner for generating energy from emissions is FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ: FCEL). Days later, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a speech that he intended to “end the war on coal” and that the United States was going to have “clean coal.” A coincidence? One of the members of Trump’s team is former ExxonMobil chair Rex Tillerson, who could have told Trump about the technology."
Given this rather interesting dichotomy, Mr. Levin's "Myth vs. Facts" page has either made a transposition error or it's written deceptively. If there was an investment by Exxon, they own an interest in FuelCell Energy.  Even if FuelCell Energy is said to be a strategic partner or a vendor,  the following holds true:


Myth- Mike has never worked for Exxon.

Fact- Mike has worked for Exxon

FACTS AND MYTHS


According to Mike Levin's own assertions on this page,  He has devoted his career “directing lobbying” for grants, financing, and favorable regulations. He has been integrally involved driving legislation as a "Director of Governmental Affairs" of companies that specialize in the development of fossil fuel-based technologies. 

The fact remains that natural gas is integral to the operation of microturbines, hydrogen fuel cells, and carbon capture, for which the number one source is the same ‘clean’ coal a certain "dotard" really likes. Of course, reports state that Trump really believes that "clean coal" means that workers are actually hand-washing the coal. 

At the end of the day, both Trump's claims of "clean coal" and Mike Levin's assertion that he is an "environmental attorney" sound like great spin. Until they aren't. 




All of this brings us back to where we began. Mike Levin's campaign keeps running away from his actual background rather than taking pride in it. Though it might sound better in a "dial group" than fessing up to swimming in the "swamp" as a Director of Governmental Affairs, it does not seem as if the truth is something that is very harmful. 

If we are the "company we keep", perhaps Mike Levin has been unduly influenced by Hill, Bill and Chelsea to parse his own life and career and create an illusory one. It seems one of those tragic situations where one would have better served by the truth than spinning it. The saddest thought that crosses my mind as I write this, is that maybe, just maybe, I would have been helping the Levin campaign heist a small club's delegate selection today. If he had told us the truth. 

One may read this as a polemic against a nice young guy. One could be partially correct in that assertion. But until we as a Democratic Party learn how to be true to our traditions, and learn how to communicate with people once again, all we will be left with are campaigns that do not inspire. Real emotions are not derived from a focus group. And real "Environmental Attorneys" actually are practicing "Environmental Attorneys"

MANY BLESSINGS

NOEL

Thursday, October 26, 2017

DONALD AND ROY AND JOE

"When the wind is right, a faint odor of kerosene is exhaled from Senator McCarthy"- Ray Bradbury

During the Red Scare of the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, a virulent nationalist crusader, hauled dozens of alleged “Communist sympathizers” before a Senate panel. Earlier, the House Un-American Activities Committee ( led by a young Dick Nixon) had conducted a "witch hunt" against artists and entertainers in the same vein, resulting in a trail of fear, prison sentences, and ruined careers for hundreds.

One favorite charge back then was "premature anti-fascism" many of whom had found common cause in fighting Hitler a tad too early. That charge, in particular, worked well for Joe and Dick. For when they pursued Jewish folks, it was easy to forget that there was a small event called the Holocaust going down for years before the US entered World War II.

I never met Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, but he was a family friend before I was born. My family was from Syracuse, but my uncle married a Wisconsin girl. In the faded pictures one sees the demon incarnate. In those days before Jack Kennedy was elected, Irish Americans were more of a cohesive immigrant community. Politicians worked as "retail politicians." The pictures and images of the man in archival footage simply do not agree. In later years, I learned the implications of what our "family friend" had done.

Joe McCarthy died a broken man and censured legislator, with early death from drinking as divine retribution for his tactics. I adopted the Democratic Party-driven initially by my sense of being an Irish Catholic and familial pride. My ancestors were part of building the party in upstate New York, for Governor Al Smith. I never could understand why in a backdrop of professed liberals, and houses full of shrines to the Blessed Virgin and JFK, the pride in knowing Joseph McCarthy was as apparent as those who had met "Honey Fitz", Joe and Rose, or Jack, Bobby, or their relations.

One day it was explained beautifully. "He was "one of us'" when there was an "us" before we were assimilated." It's amazing how many things have changed since 1960, for our small part of America's melting pot culture. The evil stench left by the author of the "politics of personal destruction" seems to reside in our DNA, in politics, in business, and in modern life. It resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue today.

President Trump and Joe McCarthy are very different historical figures but there are some things in common. There is the fact that Trump was mentored by Roy Cohn, who just happened to have been McCarthy's, right-hand man. As CNN's Jake Tapper has said, “They say, ‘history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes.’ And when you read about that era, Joe McCarthy was doing indecent things and lying for years and years with Republicans and Democrats not saying anything.”

Jack Kennedy managed to be absent from the Senate when the McCarthy censure vote came down in 1957. For not only was Joe a friend of the family, but he also gave Bobby a job as the Democratic counsel to his famed investigative committee. Though it certainly was not the most popular thing to do after McCarthy fell from grace, Bobby Kennedy was nothing if not loyal. He actually attended Joe's funeral. There was also a political calculus in all this. Until the day he died, Joe McCarthy had a huge base amongst the Irish Catholics of Boston. Joe's opting not to campaign for Henry Cabot Lodge in the 1952 Massachusetts Senate election, essentially handed the election to John F. Kennedy. 

Only a few individuals spoke out against the Wisconsin senator. One was Sen. Margaret Chase Smith whose "Declaration of Conscience" came years before the famed intervention of Edward R. Murrow on his CBS program "See it Now." Her words are ring so similar to the words of outgoing senators Bob Corker and Jeff Flake.

"....Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism:

The right to criticize:

The right to hold unpopular beliefs;

The right to protest;

The right of independent thought:

The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us doesn’t? Otherwise, none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in."

When history looks back at our time, as history looks back at that time, those not standing up against Trump will be viewed with contempt by history. People are going to look back at this time and say What were you doing with all this indecency, all these games, and all these lies? What did do you when perhaps freedom itself is at another place of danger? Truth is not a fungible thing. There aren’t two sides when it comes to the truth. There’s one side: the truth.

THE WAY WE WERE,,,,, AND SOMETIMES ARE

In a post some time ago we discussed the excellent book Dallas 1963. its authors remind us of so many behaviors from that era that have made a resurgence. Today's images of ISIS may have replaced the villains of the Cold War era, but there is the same atmosphere of a moral right to exclude those who seem different, or who we simply do not like.

Even Lucille Ball was dragged before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Linked here is the Wikipedia article about those times, and the list of the names is breathtaking. If you parse this list, there are few you remembered as later generations did Jane Fonda The creative toll the Hollywood witch hunt took was massive, the toll including many premature deaths and suicides.

There have been great pieces written on the era, such as Lillian Hellman's Scoundrel Time, David Halberstam's book the Fifties, and Haynes Johnson's. The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism, One film set in the time, was "the Way We Were", An integral part of the original plot was the ideological differences between liberal Katie and the apolitical Hubbell.

The legend goes that after mixed preview audience reaction, Director Sydney Pollack grabbed a razor and cut the scenes dealing with the true reason for the characters divorcing while they are having a baby. Katie had been informed upon - leaving Hubbell unemployable unless they split. The cut changed the "Way We Were" into a great romantic film. but sent the story downward, Pollack maintained afterward, the change saved the movie. as a commercial enterprise.



Being "blackballed" was once common in social circles. Many have been denied a chance to buy a condo, or join a country club or fraternity. Starting in the '50s those times faded (except during "Rush Weeks"). The vast injustice behind apartheid and segregation is apparent, it has takes time to address the smaller scale injustices seen each and every day.


Dissemination of negativity against individuals is made easier by the technology we have at our fingers. Sociologists explain the spectrum of behaviors we encounter in our world, which causes some to lose any relationship to truth. Like "Tail Gunner Joe" they stop at nothing to hurt someone they are jealous of, or even if they are unknown except by rumor.


As a former campaign manager, I relished the times I could go “off the record”.By leveraging the use of deep background, one can shoot your opponent's rotten fish in a barrel. But after reading comments reporters ran without an attempt at confirmation, I stopped confiding to journalists that cared that little about their craft. In a modern campaign, it’s all about raising the other candidates' negatives, whether they deserve it or not. But there should always be some limits and some attempt to discerning the truth.


Whether it’s journalism or business, when anonymous and negative sources are accepted, without confirming information, the door opens for the unethical. If one seeks to find feral behavior amongst humans, read the comments in any loosely moderated forum, where people are not forced to provide a true identity. Just read what happened after the 2015 Miss America contest. Eventually, the unfortunate comments were taken down, but at some great cost to a twentysomething winner. 

HOW MC CARTHY ENDED


Joseph Nye Welch (October 22, 1890 – October 6, 1960) was the chief counsel for the  Army while it was under investigation for Communist activities by Senator McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, an investigation known as the Army–McCarthy hearings.


His confrontation with McCarthy during the hearings, in which he famously asked McCarthy "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" is seen as a turning point in the history of McCarthyism.


On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the Army–McCarthy hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before the sun goes down". McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, which Brownell had called "the legal mouthpiece of the Communist Party".

Welch had privately discussed the matter with Fisher beforehand and agreed Fisher should not participate in the hearings. Welch dismissed Fisher's association with the NLG as a youthful indiscretion and attacked McCarthy for naming the young man before a nationwide television audience without prior warning or previous agreement to do so

"Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us...Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad.


It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.

When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted him: "Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild ... Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

McCarthy tried to ask Welch another question about Fisher, and Welch interrupted: "Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this further with you. You have sat within six feet of me and could have asked me about Fred Fisher. You have seen fit to bring it out. And if there is a God in Heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good. I will not discuss it further. I will not ask Mr. Cohn any more witnesses. You, Mr. Chairman, may if you will call the next witness."

At that, those watching the proceedings broke into applause. That was the beginning of the end. 




FINAL THOUGHTS


McCarthy was a demagogue who would lie, slander, and cheat to advance his political career. He used fear and innuendo in his fulsome campaign against innocent Americans whose patriotism was questioned during the Cold War with the Soviets because they were liberal. Like Trump, he was a divisive politician.

Rather than be a leader who can bring the country together, Trump tears it apart. He has divided Americans at a time when the specter of racism requires a president who can unite Americans of all races.

McCarthy’s long reign of terror ended when the U.S. Senate censured him. McCarthy’s undoing came because he lost the support of his fellow Republicans, like Smith. The end of McCarthy's terror came when his accusations of communist infiltration of the U.S. Army backfired. Will Trump's indifference to racism effectively end his presidency? His loose relationship to truth? Time will only tell. 

In the meantime, Joe McCarthy’s legacy of hate hangs over Trump’s presidency. Let’s hope that Jeff Flake's speech is the beginning of the end. 



MANY BLESSINGS- NOEL

Monday, October 16, 2017

HOW TO EXPLAIN REALITY IN A WORLD OF "ALTERNATIVE FACTS"

By this stage of the surreal reign of the troubled and dangerous man residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I've grown weary of being forced to debate reality with apologists for this sociopath.

With the union of white nationalists and religious zealots which has been thrust upon us, I still cannot understand why these two concepts are so hard for them to accept.

1- People should be able to do what they want as long as they're not hurting anybody 

2- People have a responsibility to take care of others.

If one accepts these two common-sense premises, argument ceases when considering these seven issues...




1- Same-Sex Marriage

Y'all lost. The SCOTUS ruled. Besides, it truly has nothing to do with your life. Surely you can certainly try to find a community that maintains the same bigoted heteronormative prejudices you carry. If other people do what they want — it's really none of our business. 

2- Transgender People And Bathrooms

Imagine living a life so boring that you really care about who can use what bathrooms. Remember those "whites only" bathrooms and drinking fountains? It was wrong then and it's still wrong.

3- Gender Wage Gap

Remember back to childhood? Chances are the mothers in the neighborhood were the ones who took time off work to go to doctors' appointments and drive carpool. If that doesn't seem like an issue to you, try equal work for equal pay.

4- Black Lives Matter Vs. All Lives Matter

It is a fact that if "all lives matter" that "black lives matter" too. 

5- Leaving the Paris Accords

The United States could end the addiction to fossil fuels, invest in renewable energy, and probably end up far better off economically. Corporate interests in "big oil" and "big coal" that are enabling the Dotard do not care about the damage they cause. The research of scientists has nothing to do with their being "liberal snowflakes," they're trying to protect the Earth.

6- Gun Control

Why should the inmates in an asylum have access to guns!??? Or folks that cannot board an airplane? After Las Vegas, why are we waiting to ban bump stocks and assault weapons? When is that "appropriate time" to discuss any form of licensing the NRA keeps talking about?

7- Universal Healthcare

If you believe everyone deserves the same chances in life, that starts with healthcare. Maintaining physical health is one of the few things that everyone has in common, so why not make the solution equally accessible to all?

CONCLUSION

If humanity survives the Trumpster, my bet is that the need to debate common sense will lessen with time. In the meantime, I question why we bother explaining reality to magical thinking and closed-minded? If one believes in karma it is almost certain the actions of the President and his Party in Congress will have the MOST impact on their "Base".

I predict that every Alt-Reich voter has their health insurance premiums skyrocket. That their pre-existing conditions disqualify them from coverage. That the upcoming "tax reform" hits them hard in their already reduced purchasing power. That their assault on the EPA poisons their air and water. That their summer vacation to America's National Parks takes place in the shadow of a drilling platform.

Hopefully neither they nor one of their loved ones will die in a senseless NRA enabled mass shooting. Perhaps when a natural disaster occurs they luckily will escape the "compassionate response" as seen in Puerto Rico.

Perhaps it will take a mushroom cloud to get them to reassess their support for the Rethuglican Party, or believe the Secretary of State who when he says the POTUS is - an "f...ing moron." Or the highly respected Senator who calls the Trump White House, "an adult daycare?" 

On the bright side, whatever tragedy occurs, they can blame it (always) on Barack Obama.

MANY BLESSINGS- NOEL


Wednesday, October 4, 2017

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

If anyone needs a metaphor for why the Democratic Party is in worse shape now than any time since Calvin Coolidge the picture attached below says it all. I do not want to get into last year’s primary campaign or revisit the election. One point does bear noting, a primary process that only featured two viable candidates last year, said something about the vigor of the party.

The fact remains the Democrats are a minority party and often a non-factor in states not touching an ocean. If Democrats were owners in the NFL, it would be an outright bloodbath in the front office, where a teams strategies and personnel are discerned. Sadly the Democratic Party has continued to use marginally effective strategists who have more losses than wins in this century.

In many states leaders are in place either by default or because they have succeeded in keeping the doors closed to people with passion and new ideas. Is it accidental that the Los Angeles Rams have drastically improved by hiring a new coach? Not really if one considers the last coach had a handful of winning seasons in the last two decades. 

When one looks at the most successful teams in baseball, experts can predict easily the teams that will win in future years. The problem the Democrats have is that we have neglected the farm system of state and local offices. To those who wonder why the party lost the Senate in 2016, ask this question. Rather than offering new faces with innovative policies, the Democratic Party opted to run figures from the past like Strickland, Feingold, and Bayh. 

One must ask if the Democratic strategies and messaging are up to the task of competing with a Republican Party populated by those who work 24/7 to win? The GOP has been out of new ideas for eons, except for the lunatic fringes who oppose everything. What do Democrats really stand for? The other team can always unite around those populating “the left.” Outside of opposing figures like Issa and Trump, one can honestly ask what does our party stand for? 

Democrats have spent my entire adult lifetime allowing ourselves to be defined by the right. The things that resonated with voters the most still boiled down to the populist message. Simply put, "the people versus the powerful. " A huge reason the election was lost in places like Michigan was that the Trump campaign hijacked that historic message. 

I do not have all the answers. None of us do. But rather than having the Republicans dictating how we think and what we do, we need to start dictating the flow and tempo of the game. I’m sick of being told we have to “be kind” when faced with a knife fight in an alley. Like any good team, we have to get our pride and our swagger back again. That begins by being proud of our party and it’s history of economic justice. 



MANY BLESSINGS- NOEL

COLD DEAD HANDS

As of this writing, at least 59 people are dead and over 500 people are wounded in the worst sole gunman mass shooting in modern American History. The previous record of 49 dead was the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando last year. The record before Pulse was held by the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 with 33 killed. Then there was Newtown. 28 were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. 20 were children aged 6 and 7.


The video linked above is an excerpt from the PBS Frontline documentary on the aftermath of Newtown. It details how Wayne LaPierre and the NRA turned this tragedy into a legislative victory. It details how gun manufacturers made money on increased firearm sales. La Pierre famously stated, the answer is easy enough. Buy more guns. Buy Bigger guns. Buy Bigger guns that can be converted into automatic weapons. And make sure to legalize silencers too. Wayne states, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away … or a minute away?”.

So here we are again. I've been watching the tragic aftermaths of gun violence since 1963.  The only thing that has changed since those "Four Dark Days" after Dallas, is how we have ceased to be truly shocked. Our collective reaction in 2017 seems more and more a confirmation of what Stalin said, "One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic."  Certainly, there is no real metric for the proper levels of grief individually or collectively after Las Vegas or any other tragedy of our time.  But given the endless lunatic newsreel of our times,  we are certainly not shocked. 


We pray for the victims and their survivors. We never ever satisfactorily explain why a human being would do something like this to other human beings. We can be listening to music at a concert, attending a movie, or simply attending first grade. There once was a time where no one could expect that something hideous might happen. With increasing frequency it does. 

THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN

Though there have been horrible incidents scattered throughout our history, it was not until 1966 that these types of murders entered our consciousness. Charles "Texas Tower" Whitman boarded an elevator in the University of Texas Tower with a cache of weapons, intent on deadly mayhem. From more than 300 feet above: Whitman shot victims on campus and nearby, a pregnant woman, shot in the belly; her boyfriend, shot in the neck; a teenager, shot in the face. Seventeen people died that day, and more than 30 were wounded. Like the hundreds of victims of Stephen Paddock, Whitman’s victims were confused, defenseless sitting ducks.  Police scrambled to find where the shots were coming from. 

Can anybody imagine how much more difficult a time law enforcement would have had if the Republican leadership had actually passed a silencer bill? Like Whitman, Paddock carried his 17 weapons to a high perch, positioning them to achieve maximum carnage.  He shot into a crowd of 22,000 people. And as a result of his evil, we again have orphans and widows, and parents without children.  

In the aftermath of Las Vegas, the Washington Post reported a stunning statistic.  Over the 50 years prior to Charles Whitman’s rampage, "there were 25 mass public shootings, defined as the killing of four or more people in a public place without a connection to drug deals, gang disputes or other underlying criminal motives." We are now at more than 150. And Counting. Echoing an earlier point, the reporters covering Charles Whitman in 1966 were horrified. Today the coverage bears the unmistakable tone that we have all been here before. 


ON AND ON AND ON

Bobby Kennedy knew what was heading down the tracks for him when he said this in 1968. "The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on." 

Perhaps we as a nation have given up and resigned ourselves to this. I caught myself saying that hours ago. Perhaps it was the McDonald's tragedy in 1984 that made us cynical. Perhaps it was the Luby's in Kileen in 1991. Perhaps it was the other assassinations and assassination attempts we have witnessed, and the smaller slaughters we read of every day. Suicides, Domestic Homicides, gang bangers in our cities, make us numb and callous, after which our collective fatigue kicks in. 

It's been 49 years since RFK said these words...."Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire."

One quote makes one wonder if Robert Kennedy somehow predicted the age of Trump. "Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.....Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence...."

CONCLUSION

One of the most frightening things I've experienced was the reaction of my neighbors in Arizona after the Gabby Giffords shooting. Few cared about the families who had to live with the aftermath of the senseless violence of some nutjob forever. The main concern was that they have the right to buy any firearm for any reason. I'm still waiting for Obama to lead a squad of ATF agents to clean out individual gun lockers in Northern Arizona demonstrating "the tyranny of government", as they warned. 


But yet another individual held 22,000 souls in the throes of his brand of tyranny because he procured a stockpile of high-powered rifles and used them to shoot people. Somehow that is OK in the most armed region of America.  I admit to being profoundly scared of the messages I received the last time I tentatively tried to speak up. I never imagined simply supporting the renewal of a twenty-year-old assault weapons ban would be equated to trying to take away everybody's guns. The threat of being subject to a "Second Amendment Solution", certainly limits our exercise of other portions of our Bill of Rights. 


When someone foreign attacks us, we take steps to assure it doesn’t happen again. But when an average-looking white American male slaughters other Americans, we are told there’s nothing we can do except buy an M-16 or consult Jesus Christ. In Tucson and Orlando, Aurora, and San Bernardino, the murderers used automatic or semiautomatic rifles. These are not weapons for self-defense or sport. They are weapons designed to create a large body count in a limited period of time. Why is that remotely OK? 


In June of last year, the NRA fought to make sure people on the no-fly list could own a   dangerous weapon.  Only politicians who vote with the NRA,  think it is common sense that "just a guy"  should be able to buy 17 AK-47's.  A number of the NRA's acolytes,  from the unfortunate White House Press Secretary to the equally unfortunate Republican leaders of the Congress,  assert it's too soon to discuss gun legislation.  For these leaders, there will never be a good time. 


Despite the propaganda promulgated by the gun lobby, there is not much disagreement about the steps we could take to address gun crime. The vast majority of Americans do not oppose universal background checks, permitting requirements for ownership and bans on profoundly dangerous kinds of weapons and ammunition. The gun lobby and the loud vocal minority it has created make the issue seem like more of a hot button than it is. 


President Trump spoke of offering prayers for the Las Vegas victims.  Though I appreciate his pro forma words in support of law enforcement officers  if he really cared he would take steps to help officers stay alive and do their jobs.  After all, in February, he signed a bill that made it easier for the severely mentally ill to buy guns.  

Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and the other NRA supporters on the Hill have sent their thoughts and their prayers. So have Wayne La Pierre and the staff of the NRA. God knows they are lying through their teeth. Not a single one of them cares if you or your spouse or your parents or your kids get offed by some crazy guy with a gun tomorrow. They don't. They simply don't. 

Back in the days when the NRA used the star power of a failing and declining Charlton Heston to advance their cause, he used to mutter,  as senility crept in, the famous phrase:. "From my cold dead hands."  Was he really referring to his "cold, dead, hands "?  Or ours? 



MANY BLESSINGS

NOEL

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