Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

It’s been a strange two and a half years. From the first allegations, in July, 2016, of Russian meddling in the U.S. election campaign to the arrest of President Donald Trump’s former adviser Roger Stone last week, many of us who write about Russia professionally, or who are Russian, have struggled to square what we know with the emerging narrative.

In this story, Russia waged a sophisticated and audacious operation to subvert American elections and install a President of its choice—it pulled off a coup. Tell that to your average American liberal, and you’ll get a nod of recognition. Tell it to your average Russian liberal (admittedly a much smaller category), and you’ll get uproarious laughter.

Russians know that their state lacks the competence to mount a sophisticated sabotage effort, that the Kremlin was even more surprised by Trump’s election than was the candidate himself, and that Russian-American relations are at their most dysfunctional since the height of the Cold War. And yet the indictments keep coming.

Reader, I think I’ve finally figured it out. I don’t mean that I’ve figured out whether Russians influenced the outcome of the American election—I doubt even the Robert Mueller investigation will be able to answer that question. I mean that I’ve figured out how to think about what we know and not go crazy. The answer lies in the concept of the Mafia state. ...

 

[NorthMich]

Corrupt and he’s proud of it.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Michael Bloomberg has bigger plans for 2020 than running for president. The billionaire and former New York City mayor has been openly dreaming of the White House for 25 years, and spent huge amounts of time and money four times over the past 10 years trying to figure out a way to get himself there.

But he has hesitations about this race, too. He’s not sure there is a realistic space in the Democratic primaries for his centrist record. And he almost certainly won’t run if Joe Biden does, members of his team believe.

While no final decision has been made, his aides have been working on a fallback that only a man worth $40 billion can afford. Bloomberg is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a data-centric political operation designed to ensure one goal: crush Donald Trump.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

By the time local elections officials downloaded a list of 366 registered voters the Texas Secretary of State’s Office initially said may not be citizens, the office had called to tell them to disregard the list, Elections Administrator Kathy Van Wolfe said.

The state told her office by phone Monday that the citizenship of everyone on the list is not in question, Van Wolfe said. The office was informed Friday it would get the list and need to contact each voter for proof of citizenship, she said. The list came Monday, and the secretary of state had backed off on its initial request by the time anyone downloaded the list, she said.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Not.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

It is more than a little ironic to see progressive ideas being subjected to the test of whether they are responsible. Where does the idea come from that responsibility is a standard anymore?

Elites — and I define those as the wealthy, the leaders of corporations, government, think tanks, universities and the media — enjoy their positions and privileges to set the ethical standards for a society and to guide the direction a society moves in. So how have they been doing?

To assess this, I think we can agree that not all issues are created equal, so let’s focus on the ones with the greatest and most long-lasting impact. Readers of this blog know what I take to be the big two: wealth inequality (with its inevitable conjoined twin of power inequality) and the climate crisis. I do not believe you can have a healthy democracy with a vast chasm between a tiny class of hyper-wealthy and powerful individuals and everybody else.

And you definitely won’t get a stable climate with everybody sitting around avoiding the subject to the extent they can get away with. Our current elites, however you want to apportion the blame among them, have failed cataclysmically on both counts. So whither this sudden concern for responsibility from progressives?

Last I saw, the federal government gave stupendously MORE in https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/business/what-republican-tax-plans-could-mean-for-you/?utm_term=.d5d83b04bedd (tax cuts to the rich). How was this funded? It wasn’t! It was written entirely in red ink! Oh, yeah, the deficit. Which has been another area of endless empty lecturing from the elites. And yet there is always room for more tax cuts for the rich.

There is a difference between a grave shake of the head in apparent concern and the actual outcome. If the most powerful and influential people in this country wanted any of these outcomes to be different from what they have been, the outcomes would have been different. At the very least, there would have been a debate of a much more vehement nature than what we saw.

It is so very, very easy to merely harrumph a bit as the climate is destroyed and sane budgeting is destroyed while your own position is safe and/or you see your pockets filling with cash. At the end of the day, it’s about outcome and accountability. This day is nearly done, and time to tote up.

But suddenly, it’s: Is Medicare-for-all RESPONSIBLE? Are higher marginal tax rates RISKY? Is a Green New Deal properly DETAILED? Mightn’t there be costs or TRADE-OFFS? And — again, for progressives only — what about the DEFICIT?

These progressive proposals aren’t irresponsible. They are aimed at undoing prior irresponsibility. If we are going to use responsibility as a standard, let’s let the current swath of leaders back things up, reduce the vast inequality they have allowed and institute their own program of carbon reduction, and then we’ll resume the discussion about responsibility.

Until then, the tune has been called. Don’t feign alarm at the nature of the dancing.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

HOLIDAY POWER GRAB
https://claytoonz.com/2019/02/01/holiday-power-grab/

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has no shame. The man isn’t afraid of exhibiting blatant hypocrisy. He’s not ashamed of stealing power. He’s not ashamed of preventing bills from being voted on. He’s not ashamed of changing the rules to put the least acceptable people on the Supreme Court. He’s not ashamed of stealing a Supreme Court seat. Most of all, he’s not ashamed of being the leader of the United States Senate while doing all he can to suppress the people’s choice that puts the leader in place. This is why people yell at him in restaurants. Plus, he looks like a tortoise and those things shouldn’t be allowed in restaurants.

This week, he accused Democrats of a “power grab” when they presented a bill to make Election Day a paid federal holiday.

Voting on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is a United States tradition. It’s also a relic of a bygone era, like the Electoral College. You would have thought we’d have gotten rid of one of those things when we got rid of slavery. Most developed nations hold elections on weekends or have made them national holidays. Most developed nations encourage as many eligible voters to vote as possible. Republicans hate that. Republicans prefer lower turnouts on Election Day. Most Republicans are still in a plantation-state-of-mind.

McConnell is right. It is a “power grab.” But, Election Day is supposed to be a power grab by the people. Our leaders should be elected by the majority vote, not by acreage which is what the Electoral College does. It’s also how we’re represented in the Senate which is why Republicans control it.

McConnell is not opposed to all “power grabs.” He’s not opposed to gerrymandering. He’s not opposed to voters being purged, like what happened in Georgia for the last election. he’s not opposed to wanky new rules preventing Native Americans from voting, like what happened in North Dakota in the last election. He’s not opposed to towns like Dodge City, Kansas moving their voting precinct outside the city limits. He’s not opposed to African-American students at Prairie View A&M being given the wrong information on where to vote. He’s not even opposed to Russian meddling to help elect a Republican president. He’s not opposed to that Republican candidate colluding with the Russians.

McConnell and Republicans fear a large turnout on Election Day because more Americans vote Democratic, that is, when they bother to vote. According to a 2014 Pew Survey, 51 percent of non-voters lean toward Democrats.

Since 2000, Democrats have only won the House when they won a majority of the vote nationwide. In 2018, they won over 53 percent of the House vote. In 2012, Republicans got fewer votes for the House than Democrats, but they still retained the chamber. When Republicans made massive gains in 1994 and 2010, they got more seats than Democrats did in 2018, though with a smaller percentage of the vote.

Republicans actually gained seats in the Senate while losing the vote to Democrats by over 12 million. They even control the White House despite receiving fewer votes than the Democratic candidate thanks to the Electoral College and Vladimir Putin.

Republicans fear an equal playing field. I’ve actually heard Republicans argue that they should receive more representation since more people vote Democratic. They love to display maps showing how Red the country is, ignoring that the majority of that red space is lowly-populated areas, like Kansas and Nebraska. Republicans think grass should have more representation than black people.

When every citizen of this nation has an equal vote, Republicans will lose. The majority of this nation are tired of Republicans and their bullshit. They’re tired of a party that only cares about white, male, Christian, and rich greedy bastards. They’re tired of a party that has more deference to Russia than to patriotism.

Most of all, they’re afraid of what they screamed about during the Obama era, people taking their country back.

McConnell and Republicans should be making voting easier, not harder. But they won’t do that because their ideas can’t compete with those of Democrats. We won’t have a nation for the people by the people until we get rid of the old guys who favor representation by corporations and lobbies that don’t care if your toddler gets shot at preschool.

Democracy could be a beautiful thing, if we ever try it. So would kicking Mitch McConnell to the curb, which would be much more beneficial than screaming at him in a restaurant.