Another State With Legalized "Murder"

The politics of abortion has a way of crushing the character of most Republicans.

A case in point is Ohio governor John Kasich, who was "ubiquitous" hanging around the GOP presidential convention in Cleveland in July 2016 but never entered the convention hall.  Kasich also lobbed veiled insults at Donald Grump and

Trump's campaign has fired back; its chairman this week called Kasich's absence "embarrassing."

To Republican delegates and activists, especially those supporting Trump, it's all a bit baffling.

"He's a good man and a bad host," said Bobby Kalotee, a county GOP official from New York who was chatting with fellow politicos at a downtown hotel lobby. "You do not invite guests to your home and not be at your home."

Gregory Peterson, a New York delegate, called the behavior "childish" and "petulant."

"In politics, winning counts," he said. "After you've lost, that's a test of character. You've got to be a big boy now."

If the party of Donald J. Trump is accusing you of lacking "character," thy middle name is Integrity- but no longer in the case of John Kasich.  The governor and 2016 candidate for the GOP presidential nomination always has been a supporter of forced birth and in late December Ohio

became the fourth state to ban abortions performed after a prenatal test shows the fetus has or might have Down syndrome.  

Gov. John Kasich signed into law House Bill 214, the 20th abortion restriction passed since he took office in 2011, and 14 other bills Friday morning.

Under the law, doctors who know of a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis and perform an abortion could be charged with a fourth-degree felony, punishable by up to 18 months in prison. 





You probably know what comes next: "There is no punishment for the woman who seeks the abortion."

Of course there is no penalty for the individual who seeks, and pays for, what forced birth activists consider "murder."  There will be no penalty because the myth that the anti-choice movement is about the life of the fetus, rather than restricting the right of a woman to reproductive freedom, can endure.

With the action taken by Ohio governor Kasich, the number of states so concerned about an act they designate as murder that they punish the indivdual most responsible stands at.... zero. Armed with few facts, the forced birth movement is armed with even less integrity.




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Sticking With Trump

In the short term, Donald Trump is in less trouble than he appears to be at the moment.

He's not in trouble because Republican members of  Congress are having second thoughts about his candidacy.  In the wake of his comments about Judge Gonzalo Curiel, two of the least conservative members of the Party's Senate caucus, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Susan Collins of Maine, have sought an apology from the presumptive presidential nominee.

According to Politico, even some supporters are highly critical. South Carolina Senator Tim Scott maintained Trump's remarks "were toxic and they were inappropriate and they were offensive and they were wrong. His walking it back was to some extent a sign of leadership, but we've got a long way to go." North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis asserted "He's still got some work to do to establish confidence in people that would be inclined to support him." Senator Hatch of Utah acknowledged "you know those remarks were completely inappropriate."  Lindsey Graham, never a big fan of Trump, previously had stated "There'll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary."








No, there won't be, not in his Party, and that's why these reactions as well as others ultimately will harm Trump very little.   Once the convention comes and goes, the GOP will be largely unified behind Trump's candidacy. As former Governor and Democratic National Committee chairperson John Dean explained Wednesday evening to Chris Hayes, Mark Kirk and other officeholders who withdraw support for the nominee will find that not only will Republican voters resent them, Democratic voters will not rally to their side. It comes close to a lose-lose and they know it.

However, the defections are a sign that Trump faces an enormous hurdle.  Trump didn't get blowback from his ethnically offensive comments because fellow Republicans suddenly got a twinge of guilt or conscience.  They're looking to save their own hide or that of their Party.

However, they're not reassessing their extremist ideology.  Ohio Governor John Kasich reportedly told Fox News on Wednesday "We’re like two companies. You know, we have a different vision, a different value system and a different objective. So it’s pretty hard to put that together. But the divisiveness, the division, the name-calling, it just doesn’t go down well with me.”

Kasich evidently isn't aware that Trump has gotten religion, conservative religion, on Medicare and Social Security..  He added  "And then when you look at the entitlement stuff — ‘We don’t have to deal with entitlements’ — are you kidding me? Of course we have to deal with entitlements. We have to modernize them." (Add "modernize" to "preserve and protect" as the conservative euphemism for cutting earned benefits.)

It's reducing earned benefits, arguing workers are overpaid, opposing a federal minimum wage, proposing tax cuts for the wealthy, applauding torture, opposing reproductive freedom, and on and on and on. Charlie Peters recognizes "Trump is not an aberration. He is an exaggeration."  When Republicans inch away from the candidate, it is a bad sign. But when they realize he's fully on their train, they will accept him as the conductor.  It's a bad option, but the other is worse.

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With Nary A "Thank You" From Trump

History can repeat itself, albeit in a cryptic manner.  In November of 2009 investigative reporter Robert Parry recalled

In fall 1980, as President Jimmy Carter struggled to free 52 American hostages in Iran and as American voters focused on a crossroads election, key supporters of Republican candidate Ronald Reagan were confident not only of Reagan’s victory but that the hostages wouldn’t be released until after Reagan was sworn in.

He wrote that CIA operative Miles

Copeland, who had taken part in the CIA’s covert operation to oust Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and replace him with the Shah back in 1953, told me during an interview in 1990 that he and some of his old CIA colleagues, including Iran hand Archibald Roosevelt, were in touch with Republicans regarding Carter’s Iranian hostage crisis of 1980...

These Republicans, however, didn't believe it necessary to device a plan to set the hostages free because

“That was sort of an open secret among people in the intelligence community, that that would happen. … The intelligence community certainly had some understanding with somebody in Iran in authority, in a way that they would hardly confide in me.”

Copeland said his CIA friends had been told by contacts in Iran that the mullahs would deliver the hostages to Reagan.

“At that time, we had word back, because you always have informed relations with the devil,” Copeland said. “But we had word that, ‘Don’t worry.’ As long as Carter wouldn’t get credit for getting these people out, as soon as Reagan came in, the Iranians would be happy enough to wash their hands of this and move into a new era of Iranian-American relations.”

Moments after Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6) was sworn in as the 40th President, the Americans were released by Tehran.   Jimmy Carter thus was humiliated and Republicans spun into motion the story that the hostages were released only because the Iranians were terrified of what the big, tough President Reagan would do to them otherwise.

Contrary to myth still spread by Republicans to this day, the mullahs in Iran had maneuvered- by styming all efforts at setting the hostages free- to defeat President Carter and elect a guy who later turned out to be their patsy.  Fifty-two Americans had gained their freedom, but too late for Jimmy Carter and just as Reagan's presidency began. Mission accomplished.

Thirty-five years later, something analogous occurred in the GOP presidential race. And so it  was that in late March we read

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz says “there’s no good reason” for rival John Kasich to continue his campaign.

“When you go 1-for-27, that’s a problem,” Cruz said of Kasich during a Friday interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

"At this point it is clear the voters have decided it is a two-man race," he added. "It is between me and Donald Trump. We are the only two candidates with any plausible path to win the nomination."

Nevertheless, Kasich continued to run interference for Trump by refusing to leave the field to a two-man race, which would have included a candidate harboring an eclectic batch of political views and history of personal associations including Cosa Nostra figures, the Clintons, and others.  Facing him would have been Ted Cruz, a conservative stalwart who has been a Tea Party favorite and has argued before the Supreme Court nine times.

Refusing to drop out, Kasich denied Cruz a very favorable matchup, the contest the Senator longed for with the business mogul and newcomer to the Republican Party.

Following his devastating loss to Trump on Tuesday, Cruz abruptly and surprisingly exited the race. Though it had been clear for at least five weeks that Kasich had virtually no chance at being nominated, he decided only the day after Cruz's announcement to declare that he, too, was dropping out. The governor told reporters "I have always said that the Lord has a purpose for me as he has for everyone. And as I suspend my campaign today, I have renewed faith, deeper faith, that the Lord will show me the way forward and fulfill the purpose of my life."







Mission accomplished.  Just as American hostages were released practically to the minute Jimmy Carter left the presidency, so, too, did Kasich leave the field for Donald Trump once he had blocked the way forward for Ted Cruz.  Perhaps the Lord did have a purpose for John Kasich. Once it was accomplished, there was no need for him to continue his candidacy.

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Criticized, Trump Goes With Political Correctness

Leave it to "moderate" John Kasich, the scourge of workers (especially teachers), schoolchildren, and women in need of health care, to criticize Donald Trump for one of the few commendable things the Republican front-runner has said.  "Yesterday," Kasich stated in a litany of his rival's heresies, "he proposed punishing women who received abortions." (Imagine the nerve of contemplating punishment of someone for behavior the Governor wants outlawed!)

A Bloomberg writer offers this summary of the exchange from the taping at the MSNBC town hall Wednesday evening:

 Host Chris Matthews pressed Trump on his anti-abortion position, repeatedly asking him whether abortion should be punished if it is outlawed. “This is not something you can dodge,” Matthews said.

“Look, people in certain parts of the Republican Party, conservative Republicans, would say, ‘Yes, it should,’” Trump answered.

“How about you?” Matthews asked.

“I would say it’s a very serious problem and it’s a problem we have to decide on. Are you going to send them to jail?” Trump said.

“I’m asking you,” Matthews said.

“I am pro-life,” Trump said. Asked how a ban would actually work, Trump said, “Well, you go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places but we have to ban it,” Trump said.

Matthews then pressed Trump on whether he believes there should be punishment for abortion if it were illegal.

“There has to be some form of punishment,” Trump said. “For the woman?” Matthews asked. “Yeah,” Trump said, nodding.

Trump said the punishment would “have to be determined.”









Unfortunately, the remarks were later clarified in an attempt to retract them... or retracted in order to clarify them- and not once, but twice. The final statement read

If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman. The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed — like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.

It's a pity. Donald Trump tried on the cloak of political incorrectness in the interview and was pummeled by both pro-life and pro-choice advocates. "Trump's abortion comment rankles just about everyone," in the words of a Houston Chronicle headline.   It is, however, a line of questioning a candidate should have expected because this is a signature issue of Chris Matthews, one he raises periodically with supporters of forced birth. The notion that abortion can be prohibited without penalty applied to the woman who seeks, procures, and pays for a procedure thought to be killing and condemned as "murder" is intellectually indefensible.

It is, unfortunately, strategically defensible, even wise, as indicated by the panic which must have set in with the campaign once it dawned on them that Trump had committed a cardinal sin by violating a major tenet of the anti-abortion rights crowd. This will be a confirmation of what the "lamestream" media (in Sarah Palin's words) is all about as it ignores this fundamental contradiction.  And now Donald Trump's about-face has exposed what Charlie Pierce recognizes is

the logical end to all anti-choice arguments and all anti-choice philosophy, but one that causes anti-choice politicians to hide behind the drapes out of sheer political cowardice. (You have to love a movement that is brave enough to shoot doctors from ambush, but chickens out on the obvious legal ramifications of what it says are its unshakable beliefs?) 









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Three Peas In A Pod

Upon hearing of the murders in Brussels, Ted Cruz took to Facebook and, after expressing sympathy for the victims,  politicized the attacks, maintaining "Radical Islam is at war with us. For over seven years we have had a president who refuses to acknowledge this reality."

More ominously, he later issued a statement which read in part

We need to immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al Qaida or ISIS presence. We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.

We need to secure the southern border to prevent terrorist infiltration. And we need to execute a coherent campaign to utterly destroy ISIS. The days of the United States voluntarily surrendering to the enemy to show how progressive and enlightened we are at an end. Our country is at stake. 

The Texas Senator's declaration "our country is at stake" is a long step backward from President Roosevelt's declaration "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." He conflates terrorism and immigration and advocates a path to dividing Americans by religion, a clear rebuke of the First Amendment.

When the crafty Cruz issues his prescription for terrorism- take two anti-immigration pills and go to bed scared- it bears a similarity to the immigration policy laid out by the officially designated "moderate" in the race. With Marco Rubio gone, John Kasich has become the media's favorite as the reasonable alternative to the blustery, belligerent Donald Trump.   He didn't disappoint Establishment centrists last weekend, stating on Fox News Sunday

My position has not changed. The idea that we're going to go into communities and yank people out of their homes and leave their kids on the porch crying, that's not what we're going to do. That's -- that's just -- that's more promises that will never happen, and the people will become more cynical. I don't make promises, by and large, that I can't keep. I try to keep what I say. And I - I'm not deviated from this position at all.

How compassionate not to leave kids on the porch crying. Yet, the Ohio governor maintained also

We should have a guest worker program. And for the 11.5 million who are here illegally, if they've not committed a crime since they've been here, I would give them a path to legalization where they pay a fine, back taxes, delay in any kind of benefits they get. I think is a reasonable approach, but not a path to citizenship.







They get to obey our laws faithfully  (which is more than many citizens do) pay back taxes, pay a fine, and be denied (for a time, maybe longer) benefits, and their reward is to be denied citizenship.   They are entitled, moreover, to be treated like second-class citizens- or rather, not as citizens at all.

And so is the immigration plan of the right-winger in moderate sheep's clothing akin to the terrorist control policy, an adjunct to his immigration policy, of extremist Ted Cruz.

There is no better way of creating terrorists from among Americans than to convince them that they are not Americans, or at least are not so considered.  And there is no better way to do that than to designate some neighborhoods or towns as "Muslim" and to impose a regimen of surveillance and policing devised specifically for them. Donald Trump says he supports the Senator's notion "100%."

Immigrants, most from central America, are unlikely to be terrorists, which Republicans conflating terrorism and immigration are loathe to acknowledge. Still, a path to legalization without citizenship is a formula for creating a two-tiered socio-economic system and wealth inequality second to none. Fortunately for those immigrants, most are from south of the border and able to return home when the price of being "legalized" grows greater than the value of having some minimal employment in the USA. For the others of inferior social status (legalized) the inability to achieve citizenship would prove devastating for them- and ultimately for the nation. So much for the American dream of mobility- if born outside the country, there is no need to apply.

The proposals of Kasich and Cruz are analogous.  Further, front-runner Donald Trump has proposed establishing an inventory of Muslims in the USA and building a border wall, higher and higher in the style of the Tower of Babel.  A leader in hiring illegal immigrants and exploiting guest workers, Trump would be all in on the Cruz-Kasich approach were he to be elected President.  For the remaining GOP presidential candidates, Mexicans, Muslims, and other individuals foreign-born can remain. They can be in the country, but not of the nation, and not truly part of the nation- not ever, no way.










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The Trump, Kasich, Fox News Partnership

“I will say this," Donald Trump told reporters on March 11, then added

I think we’ve had enough debates. We’ve had 11 or 12 debates. I did really well on the last one. I think I’ve done well in all the debates. I mean, according to Drudge and everybody else, I have won the debates. But I think we’ve had enough how many times can the same people ask you the same question? So I was very surprised when I heard that Fox called for a debate. Nobody told me about it. And I won’t be there, no.

The answer to the question, if Trump is allowed to have his way, is: zero (0). And if he's looking for a wing man, he need look no further than Columbus, where Governor John Kasich holds forth.

Fox Wednesday morning issued a statement reading

This morning, Donald Trump announced he would not be participating in the debate. Shortly afterward, John Kasich’s campaign announced that without Trump at the debate, Kasich would not participate. Ted Cruz has expressed a willingness to debate Trump or Kasich — or both. But obviously, there needs to be more than one participant. So the Salt Lake City debate is cancelled.

Trump stated that he would be speaking in Washington, D.C. at the annual conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Council, which runs from Sunday through Tuesday, on March 21. There is no report at this time as to whether the front-runner might have been able to re-schedule his speech for Sunday evening, which presumably would have allowed him to attend the debate in Utah on Monday.

According to CNN Money, the event "had been penciled into the calendar in February," whatever that means. In this under-reported story, there is no indication whether Trump had been informed earlier that there would be a debate on March 21.  Perhaps he had been made so aware, given it would be an obvious case of malfeasance if no one at the network had earlier gained the candidate's agreement to appear on that date. Clearly, Trump is "scared of debate," as Cruz told Megyn Kelly Wednesday night.

Fox News may have maneuvered the situation so as to give Trump an out.  Ted Cruz has been overtly lusting for an opportunity to go one-on-one with the frontrunner (Cruz after Trump pulled out of an earlier debate, video below).  It is counter-intuitive for a candidate in the position of Kasich, who cannot be nominated on the first ballot in Cleveland even if he were to win every single remaining delegate, to turn down an opportunity for going toe-to-toe with the other candidates. Yet, eager to run on a ticket with Trump, the Ohio governor declined to participate.

Fox reportedly offered a town hall meeting to Cruz- after the candidate, learning the debate had been canceled, made other plans. Alternatively, Fox could have held the semblance of a debate, with the three moderators posing questions to the Texas senator in that same format. That would have allowed for a cross-examination of the candidate with considerable follow-up, which might have made for riveting television. However, Rupert Murdoch of NewsCorp, owner of Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, has been warming to Donald Trump for a couple of months, and never has been a fan of Ted Cruz.

That might have proved embarrassing to Cruz (as it might to any candidate), but it would have been seen as a prime opportunity for a guy who has argued in front of the US Supreme Court.  Further, Fox could have set up two lecterns, those by which the other two candidates would have stood had they been willing to wrangle with the Texas senator. Even without those, it would have been great television, as well as an indication that the network was not to be trifled with.    Instead, Fox News has decided to do the bidding of Donald Trump, much as it (and its main star) did by refusing to back Megyn Kelly when Trump demeaned her at an earlier date.

The network may be transitioning into general election mode, in which it  will do everything to get the GOP  nominee elected. While viewers in Utah may be disappointed, neither Donald Trump nor the governor of Ohio, who hopes to be the other guy nominated in Cleveland, is complaining.

















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The Mental Health Dodge Has Come To A Republican Near You

John Kasich is the GOP's most rational presidential aspirant. He said he attended the wedding of a gay friend. (Perhaps he liked the reception hall- or the open bar.) At one point, he agreed he would prohibit sales of firearms to people on the no-fly list (though not on the Terrorism Screening Database).  The Ohio governor approved expansion of Medicaid (not afraid to accept free money from the federal government to insure your residents).   The bar has been set very low for Republican candidates.

Following the mass shooting in Kalamazoo on Sunday, Kasich was asked by Think Progress

how he would bridge the gap between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of gun control, Kasich pivoted to mental health, saying access to care was the real issue surrounding America’s mass shooting problem.

“You know, it’s another issue of mental illness,” Kasich said. “And frankly, I’m doing everything I can in my state to make sure we can take relief to those who, you know, who live on the edge like that."

Blaming firearm violence on mental illness is an easy way out. It allow the politician to steer clear of attack by the gun lobby, and the mental-health community won't compalin about the attention it gives to emotional issues. Sometimes reality intrudes, however, as in a study published in the February, 2015 issue of the American Journal of Public Health which found

little population-level evidence supports the notion that individuals diagnosed with mental illness are more likely than anyone else to commit gun crimes. According to Appelbaum, less than 3% to 5% of US crimes involve people with mental illness, and the percentages of crimes that involve guns are lower than the national average for persons not diagnosed with mental illness. Databases that track gun homicides, such as the National Center for Health Statistics, similarly show that fewer than 5% of the 120 000 gun-related killings in the United States between 2001 and 2010 were perpetrated by people diagnosed with mental illness.

We don't know yet to what extent mental illness and other factors were at play in the Kalamazoo massacre, though Uber driver Jason Dalton did not have a history of mental illness.  On the macrol level, however, we know that the proliferation of firearms is a more important factor than mental illness. The researchers explained

A number of studies suggest that laws and policies that enable firearm access during emotionally charged moments also seem to correlate with gun violence more strongly than does mental illness alone. Belying Lott’s argument that “more guns” lead to “less crime,” Miller et al. found that homicide was more common in areas where household firearms ownership was higher. Siegel et al. found that states with high rates of gun ownership had disproportionately high numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides. Webster’s analysis uncovered that the repeal of Missouri’s background check law led to an additional 49 to 68 murders per year, and the rate of interpersonal conflicts resolved by fatal shootings jumped by 200% after Florida passed “stand your ground” in 2005.56 Availability of guns is also considered a more predictive factor than is psychiatric diagnosis in many of the 19 000 US completed gun suicides each year.11,57,58 (By comparison, gun-related homicides and suicides fell precipitously, and mass-shootings dropped to zero, when the Australian government passed a series of gun-access restrictions in 1996.59)

On the matter of taste and integrity, the Ohio governor has the edge on his rivals. However, when it comes to jumping to conclusions about criminal behavior, John Kasich, PsyD is just as hard to beat.

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The News Organization Previously Known As NBC

This is not your father's NBC News.

To be clear, Tom Brokaw was not John Chancellor and Brian Williams, with his tortured relationship with the truth (and even before), has never been Tom Brokaw.

When Rachel Maddow hugged Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders after their recent debate, it was viewed- accurately- as unprofessional and giving the appearance of bias.  Howard Kurtz noted "the optics of Rachel Maddow embracing the two Democrats kinda made it look like they are on the same team."  

The "kinda" was actually fairly generous. Still, as Greta van Susteren pointed out, "People hug each other all the time and it is done between casual acquaintances." Unlike ignorance, insincerity, it appears, is a defense.

Maddow for her part tweeted "if/when GOP invites me to host a primary debate, rest assured I am definitely hugging those guys, too."  No one can be certain whether she was sincere (although she would be hard-pressed now to do otherwise) because she might have been issuing the Republicans a challenge: "Go ahead, I dare you to let me question your gang of extremists."

Had Megyn Kelly embraced Donald Trump and Marco Rubio after their recent debate, it likely would have rightly caused an avalanche of derision (no jokes accepted about who would ever hug that candidate from Texas).

Yet, after a day or so of criticism directed at Maddow and defense of her (barely defensible) action, the story disappeared, in part no doubt because she evinced no preference between the candidates. The shallow and superficial social hug, occasionally even in professional circumstances (as in that case), has become a part of the culture, especially on the East Coast, where the likes of Maddow and van Susteren work and live.

Thankfully, the "selfie" (itself a term indicating narcissism) isn't quite there, at least not yet. For this and other reasons, NBC News must suspend Savannah Guthrie.  Suspend her or it if she has no legitimate excuse, fire her (fat chance either will occur). But allowing a journalist, or even a quasi-journalist, to be seen in this context utterly screams bias.  It would be bad enough, and very bad, were she smiling with all the GOP presidential candidates (to draw an analogy to the Maddow hug).

Teachers often are derided for having tenure in their jobs. If a unionized were to do something analogous, however, the best lawyer hired by the National Education Association could not save him or her from punishment.  If the explanation is good enough, let Ms. Guthrie back after losing some of her income. If not, fire her.








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The Actions Which Don't Match The Rhetoric

It has been two days since the convention of the Republican Jewish Coalition, thus two days since Donald Trump was asked whether Jerusalem should remain undivided and the capital of Israel. He is said to have remarked "I don't know that Israel has the commitment to make it," spurring Zeke Miller to observe "you can hear a pin drop."

Context is everything, or at least a lot, so it's difficult to determine whether the crowd believed that Trump wanted Israel's confidence to flag or that he merely expected it to occur.  However, the thought process was clearer and less complicated when, as Scott Eric Kaufman wrote

Trump spoke about the infamous $43 million gas station in Afghanistan, asking the crowd, “How many of you think you could have done it for less?” His question was greeted with silence, so he moved on. “I’m a negotiator, like you folks,” he said while discussing what he considers to be the failures of the recent nuclear deal struck with Iran.






Rarely does a politician so explicitly reveal anti-Semitism (video, above), but then part of Trump's appeal always has been that of someone not a career politician.  Further, Jews in the USA do not face the constant danger that the State of Israel does, nor do they- unlike Israel- confront forces determined to annihilate them.

The GOP candidates have kept silent about Trump's lukewarm remarks about Israel before the RJC., odd given that their comments about President Obama's policy in the region have included (from the first, second, and fourth debates respectively):



The president can’t tell you what we got. I’ll tell you what the world got. The world has a burgeoning nuclear power that didn’t, as the Soviets, say “we might defend ourselves in a war.”

What the Iranians have said is, “we will wipe Israel off the face of the map, and we will bring death to America.” When someone points a gun at your head and loads it, by God, you ought to take them seriously, and we need to take that seriously. (M. Huckabee)

You know, we turned our back on Israel, our ally. You know, and a situation like that, of course Obama’s not going to be able to do anything. I would shore up our military first, because if you don’t get the military right, nothing else is going to work. (B. Carson)

The next thing I intend to do is instruct the Department of Justice and the IRS to start (sic) persecuting religious liberty, and then intend to cancel the Iran deal, and finally move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. (T. Cruz)

***********

As it relates to Iran, it’s not a strategy to tear up an agreement. A strategy would be how do we confront Iran? And, the first thing that we need to do is to establish our commitment to Israel which has been altered by this administration. And, make sure that they have the most sophisticated weapons to send a signal to Iran that we have Israel’s back. (JEB!)

If they don’t go with us, we slap the sanctions on anyway. If they fund these radical groups that threaten Israel and all of the West, then we should rip up the deal and put the sanctions back on. (J. Kasich)

On day one in the Oval Office, I will make two phone calls, the first to my good friend to Bibi Netanyahu to reassure him we will stand with the state of Israel. (C. Fiorina)

***********

In the groups — in the countries of the Gulf states of Bahrain, the Cleveland Clinic is opening an operation. Clearly we see the same with them. And in Israel, we have no better ally in the world, and no more criticizing them in public, we should support them. (J. Kasich)

His calculation in the Middle East is that he has seen what this president has done, which is nothing, the president has no strategy, our allies in the region do not trust us. For goodness sake, there is only one pro-American free enterprise democracy in the Middle East, it is the state of Israel.

And we have a president that treats the prime minister of Israel with less respect than what he gives the ayatollah in Iran. And so our allies in the region don’t trust us. (M. Rubio)



However, it seems that when it comes to action, support for the tiny nation flags, inasmuch as

Democrats say there’s only one reason that pro-Israel language is not included in the revival of the Export-Import Bank: Mitch McConnell.

The Senate majority leader has been wary of Democratic maneuvering around Israeli politics, and he's recently warned that the minority party might attempt to “get well” with the Jewish community after they backed the nuclear accord with Iran.

Now, senators and Democratic leadership sources say McConnell is taking out his frustrations by rejecting a popular provision that would express the Senate’s support for Israel’s economy and undercut the pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions campaign. The provision, which has bipartisan support, had been targeted for inclusion in a larger transportation bill.

The news was delivered to Reid in a meeting with McConnell on Monday to game out the end of the year. Reid was furious upon learning that the pro-Israel language was being jettisoned, people close to him said.

The McConnell camp denies the accusation but

Two other Democratic senators blamed McConnell for blocking the language, which would require the Ex-Im Bank to consider whether applicants for loans oppose “policies and actions that are politically motivated" and meant to inhibit "commercial relations specifically with citizens or residents of Israel."

GOP candidates frequently use questions about Iran, Syria, or ISIL to declare their undying love for Israel.  Of course, the uncompromising prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself probably is the object of their affection but the nation itself also garners their unequivocal support in public. That is, until Republican leadership has the opportunity to erode support for a rabidly anti-Zionist, (barely) arguably anti-Semitic, movement.   They then go silent, demonstrating yet again there is little substantial difference between Donald Trump and the rest of the pathetic GOP presidential field.








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Not Your Typical Republican Plea

It is in seriously bad form to compare Planned Parenthood to Nazi Germany, to commend Mein Kampf as a picture of the USA today, or to compare indviduals to Nazis or policies to Naziism. Do that enough and you'll find people comparing you to Dr. Ben Carson.

Not as bad is dredging up a Nazi-era quotation, reformulating, and applying it  to a political campaign.  Actually, it can be quite intriguing, as when a retired Colonel and Vietnam veteran, Tom Moe, did a little dirty, and somewhat poignant, work for Ohio Governor John Kasich on Tuesday. Speaking at a media availability in Columbus ahead of a Trump appearance in the same state, Colonel Moe remarked

You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with their government because you’re not one. And you might not care that Donald Trump says he's going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants because you're not one. And you might not care that Donald Trump says it’s OK to rough up black protesters because you're not one. And you might not care if Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists because you’re not one. But think about this: If he keeps going and he actually becomes president, he might just get around to you, and you better hope that there’s someone left to help you.

This brings to mind the famous quotation from Reverend Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran minister in Germany, who not long after the end of World War II remarked

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

For English poet and Anglican cleric John Donne it was don't ask"for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee" and for the Dalai Lama (in Memphis in 2009, below) it was  "Remember we are all one - all the same." Now  a Kasich supporter is saying much the same thing. Good luck with that, in a Party more partial to the idea "as long as the bell doesn't toll for me, I don't care."













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We Have A Winner!

After each debate, the "Politico Caucus," which Politico describes as a "bipartisan survey of the top activists, strategists and operatives in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada," declares "winners" and "losers."

On the whole, Rubio, Bush, Paul, Cruz, and Fiorina are perceived to have done well in Milwaukee and only Dr. Carson and, especially, John Kasich, to have laid an egg.  That's not surprising because of the ample time given the candidates to give their stump speech. Occasionally, a moderator would tell the candidate he or she went over the time allotted, after which the candidate would continue because, hey, no one wants to be Kellyed. 

Politico wrote

several respondents from both sides of the aisle who said Rubio had a good night also argued that while they saw him as the winner, it wasn’t a blow-out performance — other candidates also had solid showings.

“Several candidates had a good night, but Rubio had strong substance and presentation,” a South Carolina Republican said. “Jeb was probably good enough to stop some of his bleeding.”

Added a Nevada Democrat who selected Rubio, “Rubio, Trump, Bush, Paul and Cruz all seem to have held their own, but I wouldn't say there was a clear winner.”

The runner-ups for best performance, according to the survey, were Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina with 12 percent each, followed by Rand Paul with 8 percent and Ted Cruz and Ben Carson at 6 percent, according to Republican insiders.

“Jeb was most in need of a strong performance, and he was much improved,” a New Hampshire Republican said. “At a minimum, he has bought himself more time to reset and start advancing.”

Cruz was the favorite of several non-partisan participants, one of whom, from New Hampshire, called him the “most articulate” of all the candidates, and another, from Nevada, called him “always focused, on message.”

Really,  now, let's be objective. The real winner was Maria Bartiromo, who stayed on message throughout.In an interview with Politico sometime prior to the debate, the Fox Business Channel host stated

After that [CNBC] debate, I realized, I knew my marching orders. It was clearer than ever what my marching orders are, and that is to help the viewer, help the voter better understand what each candidate’s plan is; is it a realistic plan, can it work and how is it different from the next guy or gal, and that’s what I plan to focus on.

Marching orders? After she let the cat out of the bag, Bartiromo cleaned it up a bit- but.marching orders?  Some of the conservative talking points (in asterisks; comments beneath) she added to her questions:

Today the national debt is at record highs and growing unsustainably. Interest will be the fastest-growing part of the federal budget, tripling over the next 10 years. Social Security, the lifeline of millions of American seniors, is rushing toward insolvency...

The national debt is not growing unsustainably and the deficit has declined by two-thirds since Barack Obama took office (chart below by OMB via Politico).  Social Security, with its dedicated source of funding, has nothing to do with the national debt (or deficit) Inasmuch as (according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, its chart below, from OECD statistics) "After 2034, even if policymakers took no further action, Social Security could still pay three-fourths of scheduled benefits, relying on Social Security taxes as they are collected," Social Security is not "rushing toward insolvency."

Senator Cruz, the International Monetary Fund recently cut its expectations for economic growth. Many economists expect a recession to hit the U.S. within the next year due to the weakening of manufacturing. The next president will have to deal with it.

No doubt many of the thousands of economists in the USA believe a recession will hit within a year. However, this past summer, The New York Times

asked leading forecasters from economic consultancies, financial firms and universities for their predictions on where key economic variables will stand on Nov. 8, 2016 — Election Day. The 17 who participated replied with a relatively strong consensus.

They said they believed that unemployment would be the lowest it has been during an election since George W. Bush and Al Gore faced off in 2000, when it stood at 3.9 percent. The median forecast for the unemployment rate when voters go to the polls in November 2016 was 4.8 percent (which would be down from 5.3 percent last month). They saw only a 15 percent chance of a recession starting by next Election Day. Interest rates, inflation and gasoline prices should all be a bit higher than they are now, they said, while staying quite low by historical standards.

Moreover, early in the year, the chief economist of the National Association of Manufacturers explained (NAM's chart, below)

Respondents to the latest National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)/IndustryWeek survey continued to be mostly upbeat in their assessments of the economy, but the challenges discussed above have dampened some of that enthusiasm. In this report, 88.5% of manufacturers said that they were either somewhat or very optimistic about their own company's outlook.

Almost 40 percent of Americans are without a job and are not looking. Many have given up. That’s what the participation rate tells us....

Uh, no, Maria, The unemployment rate is down to 5.1% and approximately 40% of those individuals have given up looking for work. That would total around 7%, slightly less than 40%.


Mr. Trump, a federal appeals court just dealt a blow to the Obama administration’s plan to prevent the deportation of 5 million people living in this country illegally. The White House is appealing to the Supreme Court....

Ms. Bartiromo refers to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which pertains to young people who were under the age of 16 when they arrived, generally with their parents.  Such specificity, however, would have conflicted with the meme. People, even some Republicans, sympathize with children.


We go back to Facebook. Dewayne Wesley Cato asks on Facebook, how do we get rid of regulations choking our businesses? Ms. Fiorina?

Those "regulations choking our businesses" somehow have not prevented unprecedented corporate growth under the Obama Administration. Fourteen months ago- when the economy was a little weaker than it is today-  this Forbes contributor argued that the nation under Obama has enjoyed the highest private sector job growth in its history and "economically, President Obama’s administration has outperformed President Reagan’s in all commonly watched categories."


Specifically, under the president’s Affordable Care Act, employers with 50 or more employees are required to offer health insurance, or be fined. Many are opting to pay the fine. Others are cutting back employee hours to duck the law altogether. What specific ways will you alleviate the pressure on small business?

Early this year, Ben Casselman of five thirty eight reviewed the Current Population Survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistica and found

the share of part-timers working just below 30 hours a week has been rising for roughly the past two years, while the share working just over 30 hours has been falling. (The share working exactly 30 hours has risen a bit too, but that’s harder to interpret since people who work 29 or 31 hours might round to 30 when they answer the survey.)

,,,,even focusing just on the most affected workers, the impact has been small. In 2009, before the Affordable Care Act was passed, 9.7 percent of part-timers worked between 25 hours and 29 hours and 7.7 percent worked between 31 and 34. In 2013, those numbers were 11.1 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively.

Further, as the chart below from the BLS reflects

The Congressional Budget Office, in a report before the law had fully taken effect, estimated that millions of Americans would voluntarily shift to part-time status once they no longer needed to work full-time to qualify for health benefits.9 It’s hard to know exactly how many have already done so. But there has been a marked increase in recent months in the number of people reporting they are working part-time by choice. It’s possible, a sliberal economist Dean Baker has suggested, that this rise reflects the effect of the health law.

The GOP candidates are so concerned about the American worker that three of them definitively came out against any increase in the minimum wage while one, John Kasich, noted that he had signed into a law a "modest increase.""  

Kasich did not address the idea of increasing the national minimum wage, recognizing that was too hot for the audience to handle. Later, he allowed that he would consider the plight of individual investors if a bank were to fail.  He was, of course, booed and was considered the big loser of the night. In a debate in which one of the moderators told us beforehand that she would hew to the Fox/GOP party line, that only made sense.








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No Politics Here

On Thursday, Ed Morrissey of the influential conservative Hot Air wrote

In the last 24 hours, we’ve seen Democrats screaming about the politicization of four Americans killed more than three years ago in a woefully unprotected consulate in the middle of a failed state created by the policies of a Democratic president and their leading presidential contender, and at almost the same time the leader of the Democratic Party demanding we politicize a shooting that just ended without bothering to wait for any facts at all.

Morrissey is appalled that Democrats would be critical because the second leading GOP member of the House and favorite to become the next Speaker told Sean Hannity "everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”

Mission accomplished.   Four months ago, Kevin Drum asked "How many metric tons of evidence does it take for them to admit that it was a tragedy but not an act of treason?"  We now know evidence was the last thing concerning the GOP, but it has succeeded in sowing considerable doubt about the Democratic presidential front-runner, whose favorability numbers have been tumbling.

Politics is what politicians do.  Responding to the mass shooting, Dr. Donald Trump, PsyD., who has examined Christoper Harper-Mercer three times fewer than three, explained  "absolutely a terrible day... it sounds like another mental health problem."

That was only GOP boilerplate, however, virtually a knee-jerk reaction until congressional Republicans can go back to threatening to shut down the government, blocking appropriations for, among other things, mental health centers.  By contrast, the response of John Ellis Bush was quite intriguing.  When he was asked to clarify his comment "Things happen all the time. Things. Is that better?" Bush remarked

Tragedies.  A child drowned in a pool and the impulse is to pass a law that puts fencing around pools. Well it may not change it. Or you have a car accident and the impulse is to pass a law that deals with that unique event. And the cumulative effect of this is, in some cases, you don’t solve the problem by passing the law, and you’re imposing on large numbers of people burdens that make it harder for our economy to grow, make it harder to protect liberty.

A swipe at regulation might have been a slick comment for a Republican primary, yet another nod to the Party's corporate wing by a candidate who was (initially) its favorite. But not for John Ellis Bush, for it turns out

as governor of Florida in 2000, the now-White House hopeful had signed a bill into law that imposed penalties for residents who did not add extra safeguards when installing pools.

"The new law requires Floridians who install pools or hot tubs after Sept. 30 to install one of four safety measures: fencing directly around the pool, safety covers, door alarms or self-latching doors. Failure to comply could carry a 60-day jail term or a $500 fine," the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported at the time.

The law was named the Preston de Ibern/McKenzie Merriam Residential Swimming Pool Safety Act. De Ibern hit his head and fell unconscious into a pool while Merriam drowned in her family's pool, the Sentinel reported. Both were young children.

What Carly Fiorina is to lying, John Ellis Bush may be to hypocrisy, although Fiorina's self-righteous dishonesty represents an exceedingly high bar.  For sheer pandering- firearm division, John Kasich is a formidable competitor. Informed in an interview of the incident in Oregon, the Ohio governor was asked "you have an 'F' rating from the NRA because you support gun control. How come we can't break this and find some change?"

He could have said "You have just told me about this horrible tragedy, so it wouldn't be right for me to comment" or "let's not rush into anything in haste and instead carefully consider the facts and arguments." But having failed to receive the "let's not say or do anything impulsive"memo from Morrissey and other conservatives, Kasich replied

I've always received an "A: rating since I've been governor because, look, one thing you can learn is you can strip all the guns away but the people who commit crimes or have problems are always going to have the guns. And I think more and more people are thinking "I'd like to protect myself."









Kasich forgot one of the golden rule of politics: don't let on that it's all about yourself when you can invoke "family" as in "And I think more and more people are thinking 'I'd like to protect my wife and children.'  But he was deft enough, as the video above indicates, to waste no more than 2.5 seconds to assert his pro-gun credentials.

President Obama has challenged news organizations to "tally up the number of Americans who've been killed through terrorist attacks in the last decade, and the number of Americans who've been killed by gun violence, and post those side by side on your news reports."  But the appeal gather information and to reason does not hold a candle to the pandering , disingenuousness, or ignorance required for a Republican presidential nomination.






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Impressively, He Loves God, Family, And Faith.

A smart politician knows how to sidestep a question, turning it to his or her own advantage. Ohio governor John Kasich is a smart politician. At Tuesday night's debate in Cleveland, GOP TV's Megyn Kelly asked "The subject of gay marriage and religious liberty. Governor Kasich, if you had a son or daughter who was gay or lesbian, how would you explain to them your opposition to same-sex marriage?"

After Kasich avoided the question by stating  "Well, look, I'm an old-fashioned person here, and I happen to believe in traditional marriage. But I've also said the court has ruled ... Kelly repeated

How would you -- how would you explain it to a child?

Good follow-up, Megyn, but every Repub running for president knows he or she may be asked that. This applies especially to Kasich, who was asked (video, below) a variation of the "gay marriage feelings" question earlier this year. Thrown that 80-mph fastball in Cleveland, Kasich responded by stating

Wait, Megyn, the court has ruled, and I said we'll accept it. And guess what, I just went to a wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay. Because somebody doesn't think the way I do, doesn't mean that I can't care about them or can't love them. So if one of my daughters happened to be that, of course I would love them and I would accept them. Because you know what?









That was followed by applause, which everyone in America except Salon's Luke Brinker knew it would be because.... family. Whenever asked a tough question, invoke family. It's why Senator Rob Portman (also of Ohio) and Dick Cheney, both right-wing politicians, have been able to neutralize their support of same-sex marriage- Portman's son, and one of Cheney's daughters, is gay.

After more applause, Kasich added "That's what we're taught when we have strong faith."  When in doubt, invoke faith.  Evangelicals love it, not realizing that the speaker has avoided saying "religion" or "Christianity"  for a reason. Recognizing the omission, the media loves it as do most agnostics and atheists because everyone has "faith" in something. Kasich concluded by adding

So the issues like that, issues like that are planted to divide us. I think the simple fact of the matter is, and this is where I would agree with Jeb, and I've been saying it all along, we need to give everybody a chance, treat everybody with respect, and let them share in this great American dream that we have, Megan. So, look, I'm going to love my daughters, I'm going to love them no matter what they do. Because, you know what, God gives me unconditional love. I'm going to give it to my family and my friends and the people around me.

No one ever lost a vote by saying he loves his family- and if it's daughters, better yet.  And everyone, Christians, non-Christian monotheists, and even some people who don't believe in God believe God loves them unconditionally (no, really).  It feels like an affirmation that no matter what I believe or what I am, it's really o.k. with the guy upstairs.

When the governor of Ohio gives such a slick answer, it's easy to understand why he's so popular back home- which, in this case, was the locale for the interview. And all that was done, not coincidentally, without answering the question "how do you explain to (your offspring) your opposition to same-sex marriage?"



Next up: Trump got a hanging curveball. He responded with a check swing.


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