Worse Still, She's A New York Mets Fan

There are more important issues than Kelly Ripa's quarrel with ABC, and more important persons than Kelly Ripa. However, in the wake of Ripa's sudden departure from "Live with Kelly and Michael" for a few days after she was suddenly told that Michael Strahan was being reassigned, Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams believes the female host (photo from Reuters/Danny Moloshok) "leaving the show is as feminist as it gets."

Ripa is "not some petulant amateur," Williams contends, but "a 45 year old adult we’re talking about here, a person with a lengthy and proven television track record."   And given there is no male equivalent of "diva," Williams correctly points out that Ripa should not be accused of "classic diva-like behavior" and "having a diva-like fit of pique."

Still, if you're told immediately before broadcast on a Tuesday of a major decision, then on Wednesday call in "sick" without explanation and remain out of work for a few days, there seems no more adequate description than "petulant."

Taking a stand is so much easier when one has a bank acccount which reflects an annual salary of $20 million, presumably earned because of her value to the network. The popularity of the celebrity Williams calls "America's sweetheart" allows her the uncommon luxury of taking a few unscheduled days off unannounced.

Somewhere in Oklahoma today there is an unmarried woman working three jobs, two of them at minimum wage.  In Minnesota, a married woman leaves her husband, drastically reducing the income available to take care of herself and her children, because she is being physically abused by her husband.   In Pennsylvania, a woman is offered a very lucrative job requiring additional time from home, but remains working as a teacher, a social worker, or a speech therapist so she can spend more time at home with her children.... or to volunteer in a fire house, nursing home, or church.

Workers throughout this nation are given little or no warning when their co-worker is transferred by the company, as Strahan has been.  Rumor has it that a worker can be summarily dismissed, sometimes for no more reason than she is no longer needed by the employer.  Some of them are an ethnic minority, some not, but none of them protected by "white privilege." Most of them do not have a full-time job requiring only four days of work a week, as has Ms. Ripa.

She may be an unmarried woman in Oklahoma working three jobs, two of them at minimum wate. Perhaps it's in Minnesota, where the unmarried woman leaves her husband,drastically reducing the income available to take care of herself and her children, because she is being physically abused. Or maybe in Pennsylvania, where a woman is offered a very lucrative job requiring additional time from home, but remains a teacher, a social worker, or a speech therapist so she can spend more time at home with her children- or volunteering in a fire house, nursing home, or church.

We can be certain that Ms. Ripa- unlike so many of other women- will land on her feet. She will not have to wait anxiously at her mailbox for a workmen's compensation, or unemployment compensation, check. Her current employer will be patient with her, and she will be quickly hired somewhere if she chooses to leave the corporation.

There are countless courageous deeds- frequently selfless- committed everyday by feminists and other women.  They often are heroic actions taken by very vulnerable women. Inform Ms. Williams: Kelly Ripa does not qualify.

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Bathroom Bill A One-Off

On April 9, I slammed Bruce Springsteen (his house in Beverly Hills, below) who had announced that he had cancelled the concert his E Street Band was due to hold in North Carolina. The legislature had passed HB 2, which rescinded a recently-passed ordinance in Charlotte extending some rights to transgendered individuals. In addition, it rendered invalid ordinances granting rights to LGBT persons in other municipalities.

I noted that Springsteen was due to perform on April 12 in the capital of a state whose governor, a major candidate for President, had less than two months earlier enacted legislation which effectively defunded Planned Parenthood.   Cancelling that appearance, as unlikely as it would be, would strike a blow in support of women's health.

Health care would have been a great place to start or to demonstrate that outrage is not selective. Vox's Emmett Rensin, writing a piece in which he argued that the land is beset with smug liberalism, remarks

The rubes noticed that liberal Democrats, distressed by the notion that Indiana would allow bakeries to practice open discrimination against LGBTQ couples, threatened boycotts against the state, mobilizing the considerable economic power that comes with an alliance of New York and Hollywood and Silicon Valley to punish retrograde Gov. Mike Pence, but had no such passion when the same governor of the same state joined 21others in refusing the Medicaid expansion. No doubt good liberals objected to that move too. But I've yet to see a boycott threat about it.

And he won't, either.  Nor would he if Springsteen, soon to embark on a European tour, had anything planned in Indianapolis. But be comforted his concert in Columbus, Ohio was a smash hit:

Rethinking or retooling an album once it is released is far less likely than regretting it.

Though few artists would regret releasing an album such as Bruce Springsteen’s fifth release, 1980's “The River,” whose 20-song double album raised eyebrows for its length and sprawling themes, the Boss revisited the entire album, song-for-song, in Value City Arena on Tuesday night. The tour supports “The Ties That Bind: The River Collection,” a multi-CD reissue....

When he performed romantic songs such as “Drive All Night,” which testified maybe a bit too long, and “I Wanna Marry You,” he sounded like the familiar romantic of his earliest days. When he rocked out in tunes such as “Cadillac Ranch” and others, he sounded like the party boy of old.

He's the party boy of the new age, too, willing to put it on the line to protest a bad law in North Carolina while worse atrocities go on elsewhere.   At some point, Hollywood and Rumson, NJ may hear the cries of poor people without health care or of women who need STD testing, HIV testing, reliable contraception, and cancer prevention and treatment, but don't bet your $429 on it.









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Most Blacks Voted For Clinton. Period.

The nomineee for this week's Whine of the Week goes to the

influential group of Democrats is piling on Bernie Sanders for portraying Hillary Clinton's Southern victories as a product of a conservative region that is out of step with the rest of the country’s thinking.

When asked about his delegate deficit against Clinton, Sanders has on several recent occasions tried to explain away her lead as the result of wide margins of victory in deep red Southern states that rarely vote for Democrats in general elections. Those dismissals have irritated Southern Democratic Party leaders who insist their region is a growth opportunity for the national party, especially in the age of Donald Trump. And some are acutely sensitive to the racial dimension of Sanders’ remarks, since Clinton’s victories in the Deep South have been powered by her landslide margins among African-American voters.

Sanders was asked by Dana Bash a standard, worthless question in the debate in Brooklyn, "Do you vow to take this fight to Philadelphia no matter what?"  He should have complemented "That is the most conservative part of this great country" with "and the voters there rejected our more aggressive approach to income inequality, the role of big money in politics, and endless wars." Instead, he added "But you know what? We're out of the Deep South now. And we're moving up."

This is, at worst, a minor slight. Nevertheless, Politico's Gabriel Debenedetti continues,

In a stern, roughly 800-word letter sent Wednesday via post to Sanders’ Burlington, Vermont, headquarters, a high-profile group that includes the Democratic Party chairs of South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi expresses its concern about his characterizations of the South, which they contend “minimize the importance of the voices of a core constituency for our party”: African-Americans.

Perhaps the group would have preferred Sanders acknowledge "we lost in the south because of black voters."  It is unlikely, however, that its members would have defended Sanders for his forthrightness as his political career and (ironically) credibility went up in flames.

It is an impressive letter. The group threads the needle between implying that the south actually is fairly liberal and noting that southern Democrats need national Democrats to be supportive in their effort to surmount GOP opposition to expanding Medicaid, improving infrastructure and increasing education spending.  The portrait painted is a contradictory one, but the contradictions are effectively explained away.

Nonetheless, the group is exposed when it argues

In contrast, Hillary Clinton has spent her entire career trying to help people all across the South. She saw a region full of families and children of every color, and instead of diminishing them, she worked to build them up. She is committed to a long-term strategy of rebuilding our state Democratic parties, to assist candidates up and down the ballot, and to serve as a voice for the voiceless.

She saw also "super-predators" we need to bring to heel."The signatories support Clinton's candidacy, which probably sparked the letter.  The group includes a former South Carolina governor, former DNC chairperson, and the chairpersons of five southern states, which over the past few decades entered the 20th century. Still, one of them is Mississippi, whose voters decided earlier this year to keep flying over its statehouse in Jackson this flag (photo by Encyclopaedia Brittanica/UIG/Getty via MSNBC via MSNBC):

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Minor Flaw

For the good of the country, we should only hope that Michael Lind is prescient when he writes

Whatever becomes of his bid for the presidency, Mr. Trump exposed the gap between what orthodox conservative Republicans offer and what today’s dominant Republican voters actually want — middle-class entitlements plus crackdowns on illegal immigrants, Muslims, foreign trade rivals and free-riding allies. Other candidates less flawed than Mr. Trump and more acceptable to the Republican establishment, like Ted Cruz, are likely to bring Republican policy positions and Republican voter preferences more closely into alignment, by moving somewhat to the left on middle-class entitlements and somewhat to the right on immigration and trade.

Skepticism of "free" trade is usually considered on the left, but Lind views it as "right." No matter, because as Steve M. explains here, Lind (regrettably) probably has it all wrong. Unfortunately, he is accurate when he emphasizes the centrality of identity politics in the Democratic Party and, more arguably, that the youthful supporters of Bernie Sanders will grow up and remain "socially liberal, but with new concerns about government spending, now that they were paying taxes and mortgages."

"Socially liberal" (which should be culturally liberal) typically includes support for illegal immigrants (or as required, the "undocumented").  And so Lind, arguing that Mrs. Clinton has dragged Sanders to the left on criminal justice and immigration, remarks "Having told Ezra Klein of Vox last July that open borders is 'a Koch brothers proposal” that 'would make everybody in America poorer,' Mr. Sanders recently criticized Mrs. Clinton for opposing drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants in 2007. "

It is pushed by the Koch brothers, but never mind. Perhaps Hillary Clinton opposed drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants sometime in 2007 but not when it counted, at least to her campaign.  Consider the following transcript from the Democratic presidential debate held- appropriately- on Mischief Night, October 40, 2007. The mischief, fairly, was brought by Senator Chris Dodd, aided by moderator Tim Russert:


MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, Governor of New York Eliot Spitzerhas proposed giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. You told the Nashua, N.H., editorial board it makes a lot of sense. Why does it make a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a driver’s license?

MRS. CLINTON: Well, what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is fill the vacuum left by the failure of this administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform.

We know in New York we have several million at any one time who are in New York illegally. They are undocumented workers. They are driving on our roads. The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others is just a matter of the odds. It’s probability. So what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is to fill the vacuum.

I believe we need to get back to comprehensive immigration reform because no state, no matter how well intentioned, can fill this gap. There needs to be federal action on immigration reform. ...

After an exchange between Mr. Russert and Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, Mrs. Clinton jumped in:

MRS. CLINTON: I just want to add, I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do it. And we have failed——

MR. DODD: Wait a minute. No, no, no. You said, yes, you thought it made sense to do it.

MRS. CLINTON: No, I didn’t, Chris. But the point is, what are we going to do with all these illegal immigrants who are driving?

MR. DODD: Well, that’s a legitimate issue. But driver’s license goes too far, in my view.

MRS. CLINTON: Well, you may say that, but what is the identification if somebody runs into you today who is an undocumented worker——

MR. DODD: There’s ways of dealing with that.

MRS. CLINTON: Well, but——

MR. DODD: This is a privilege, not a right.

MRS. CLINTON: Well, what Governor Spitzer has agreed to do is to have three different licenses — one that provides identification for actually going onto airplanes and other kinds of security issues, another which is an ordinary driver’s license and then a special card that identifies the people who would be on the road.

MR. DODD: That’s a bureaucratic nightmare.

MRS. CLINTON: So it’s not the full privilege.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I just want to make sure what I heard. Do you, the New York Senator Hillary Clinton, support the New York governor’s plan to give illegal immigrants a driver’s license? You told the Nashua, N.H., paper it made a lot of sense.

MRS. CLINTON: It——

MR. RUSSERT: Do you support his plan?

MRS. CLINTON: You know, Tim, this is where everybody plays gotcha. It makes a lot of sense. What is the governor supposed to do? He is dealing with a serious problem. We have failed, and George Bush has failed.

Do I think this is the best thing for any governor to do? No. But do I understand the sense of real desperation, trying to get a handle on this? Remember, in New York we want to know who’s in New York. We want people to come out of the shadows. He’s making an honest effort to do it. We should have passed immigration reform  










As Russert pointed out, Clinton initially was in favor of drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants. In this debate alone, however, she defended the decision to grant them, then equivocated on her support, then opposed it, supported it, finally defending it while saying it is not "the best thing."

If Mrs. Clinton had done this in a general election, it would have made John Kerry's infamous "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it" an example of resolve worthy of Winston Churchill.

Before that debate, Hillary Clinton was the prohibitive favorite to be the Party's presidential nominee; after it, she still was the favorite but her armor had been pierced and doubts crept in. Conventional belief notwithstanding, Clinton's indecision in debate played as great a role in her failure to capture the Democratic nomination as Kerry's remark had played in his loss in the general election four years earlier.

Lind accurately notes "on the social and racial issues that are important to today’s Democratic base, it is Mr. Sanders, not Mrs. Clinton, who has had to modify his message," though it is far less his views than emphasis.    The contention that Clinton opposed drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants is arguable, but Micheal Lind has identified the Democrats' priorities, simultaneously responsible for much of the Party's strength at the national level and weakness at the state level.

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Belligerent, Newly Defined

Genghis Khan has returned. This time, however, he is a she, ethnically European rather than ethnically Asian, and wants to massacre Palestinians rather than Chinese.

And she goes by the name "Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Ben Norton of Salon condemns Hillary Clinton's "Fighting oppression,inequality and injustice on Passover," posted in "a right-wing pro-Israel website."  She

told the Biblical story of Exodus and stressed that lessons should be drawn from it for today.

With hawkish right-wing rhetoric, Clinton steadfastly defended the Israeli government. She conflated the Jewish religion with the state of Israel and condemned critics of the government as anti-Semitic.

Clinton's piece referred to "anti-Semitic" or "Semitic" exactly zero (0) times.

It didn't stop there, however, as Norton accused Clinton of "doing what can only be described as 'goysplaining' — or, as a non-Jew, condescendingly accusing a Jew of betraying his own people for criticizing Israel."

Norton can be excused for not fully explaining what "goysplaining is," a term of which even the Urban Dictionary is unaware.  It does, though, sound bad, as is intended. He cannot, however, be easily excused for claiming Clinton was "condescendingly accusing a Jew of betraying his own people for criticizing Israel."  She spent virtually the entire article emphasizing her own support for Jews and for Israel, stopping only to issue what Norton apparently believes was a blistering attack:

Protecting allies and partners like Israel is one of the most solemn duties of any Commander-in-Chief. Yet others in this race suggest we must remain “neutral” in order to negotiate. But Israel’s safety is simply non-negotiable. And it would be a grave mistake for the United States to cede the mantle of leadership in the peace process to anyone else. For the security of Israel and the world, we need America to remain a respected global leader, and be ready and able to block any international effort to isolate or attack Israel.

That is what for Norton constitutes condescendingly accusing a Jew of betraying his own people.  Yet Clinton therein criticizes not Bernie Sanders personally but his position on Israel. Sanders has argued the USA should adopt "an even-handed role trying to bring people together and recognizing the serious problems that exist among the Palestinian people." The reference an even-handed role is similar to Donald Trump's stance; hence the reference to "others in this race."

The Vermont senator has not stated whether he would oppose an international effort to "isolate or attack Israel," which is a more significant issue, given that neutrality or "an even-handed role" between the two sides is rather abstract. It's not clear, moreover, how a President Sanders would respond to a move made against Israel by the United Nations, the European Union, or any other force, the international effort his rival pledges to block.

"For the security of Israel and the world," the former Secretary of State emphasized, "we need America to remain a respected global leader, and be ready and able to block any international effort to isolate or attack Israel."  This, Norton maintains she "belligerently" added, thereby giving a new and expanded meaning to the word "belligerent,"  which now includes defending the notion of Israel's security and the USA's role as a global leader.

For some reason, Norton finds relevant the Jewish scholars who have stated "there is no evidence whatsoever that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt," which is an arguable notion.  He makes it no better when, in a generous mood, he contends the "likely fictitious" Exodus "story may have religious and symbolic significance."

Fiddle faddle.  Theological scholar Richard Elliot Friedman, who with a skeptic's eye believes there was a limited departure from Egypt at the time, explains

My rabbi used to tell me as a child that even if we could prove that biblical events were not true, the Bible still contained great lessons.

Over time, though, I’ve come to the opposite conclusion. History matters. 

History does matter.   And it is the history not only of the Israeli occupation or even of the Holocaust. It includes centuries of violence, officially sanctioned or otherwise, of Muslims against Jews.  It includes, additionally, Israeli support of the Palestinian economy and its decision not to pursue regime change in Gaza when nearly in its grasp, despite the threat Hamas poses to its existence.

Israel is not always right, as Hillary Clinton no doubt is aware. However, her perspective is far less clouded than those of her critics who couldn't be less interested in even-handedness.

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Giving Us Another Chance

In her closing statement at the Democratic debate in Brooklyn, Hillary Clinton asked

for your support again in the primary on Tuesday to continue that work together, to take what we did in New York and to take those New York values to the White House, and put them to work on behalf of all of our people, to knock down the barriers that stand in the way.

You know, of course we have economic barriers. I’ve been fighting against those trying to even the odds most of my adult life. But we also have racial barriers, gender barriers, homophobic barriers, disability barriers.







There was nothing new there, and that's what makes this statement significant. Commenting on the analysis in the Atlantic by David A. Graham of the debate, Atlantic Senior Editor for Politics Yoni Applebaum wrote

It’s an argument aimed at the heart of the contemporary Democratic Party. Sanders has consistently stressed the primacy of economic questions—solve those, he argues, and other forms of discrimination will diminish. But Clinton has stressed the persistence of other prejudices, and called for addressing them directly, as she did tonight. Young voters—even young minority voters—tend to think Sanders has the better of the argument. But older voters disagree, and Sanders can’t win without them.

It is an argument aimed at the heart of the contemporary Democratic Party because that Party is a collection of interests- ethnic minorities, disabled persons, gay people, public sector union members, unmarried women.  They're very worthy interests and constitute the dreaded "special interests" no more than do other Americans.

It comes as no surprise to voters that while Senator Sanders has not ignored the interests of people who are disabled, gay, female, or of minority status, he has tried to draw attention to the economic concerns and interests of all individuals, whether or not they identify with any of these groups.Bernie Sanders would not be able to draw attention exclusively to the status of the 99% as the 99% if he wished, which he most assuredly does not, and never has, from his days as a civil rights activist through his tenure in the United States Congress and his campaign for President.

In a myriad of ways, Democrats at the state and national level have been trying to level the playing field for the individuals disadvantaged by gender, sexual preference, disability, race, or employment status (the last, to a declining degree).   Sanders has not asked any of these individuals,or the ones who care about them, to forego their identity or their efforts to gain the rights or benefits they need.

Still, a  little balance is in order. Those groups (except for the latter) and their allies have successfully chipped away at discrimination and other barriers preventing full participation in American life. There is, however, one group which has been stymied, and in fact has lost ground.  That is, as variously described, the poor and middle class, the 99%, even the 99.9%. It has been largely ignored by the Democratic Party and pummeled by the Republican Party.   Usually, with age comes wisdom. Not in this case, in which young people have noticed what their elders haven't.

In 2007-2008 John Edwards suggested the quaint notion of "two Americas." Voters didn't much care, with their attention diverted to two bright, shiny objects, one becoming a president who hasn't met a job-killing trade deal he doesn't like.  The other has returned, and we know where her focus is not.

In his new book, Listen, Liberal, or What Ever Happened to the Party of the People, Thomas Frank described the "entrepreneurs first" doctrine dominating the "innovation economy" which has taken hold in the Democratic stronghold of Massachusetts.He lamented (from excerpt in Salon)

The answer is that I’ve got the wrong liberalism. The kind of liberalism that has dominated Massachusetts for the last few decades isn’t the stuff of Franklin Roosevelt or the United Auto Workers; it’s the Route 128/suburban-professionals variety. (Senator Elizabeth Warren is the great exception to this rule.) Professional-class liberals aren’t really alarmed by oversized rewards for society’s winners. On the contrary, this seems natural to them — because they are society’s winners. The liberalism of professionals just does not extend to matters of inequality; this is the area where soft hearts abruptly turn hard. 

Franks points out "When you press Democrats on their uninspiring deeds — their lousy free trade deals, for example, or their flaccid response to Wall Street misbehavior — when you press them on any of these things, they automatically reply that this is the best anyone could have done" (photo below from Salon, which credits the AP and two photographers). However, it was not the best we could have done eight years ago, and Bernie Sanders is around to remind us it's not the best we can do now.

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Still Obama's Woman

Bernie Sanders is up against it.

In the debate in Brooklyn, the Vermont senator told Mrs. Clinton "I know you keep referring to Barack Obama all night here, but you in Syria, you in Syria talked about a no-fly zone, which the president certainly does not support, nor do I support....

Advocating a sort of 'donut' reform to Social Security, Sanders argued in a smilar vein, noting Obama "called for lifting the cap, which is now higher- it's at 118- and starting at 250 and going on up."

Throughout the campaign, the guy Brooklyn, NY by way of Burlington, Vermont is facing a steep uphill battle to convince voters that he is the one to build on the successes of the Obama presidency and extend the Obama legacy.

Clinton, arguably, embraced the President even more in this debate than she had previously in the campaing.   "Starting in 2009," she maintained,

as your Secretary of State, I worked with President Obama to bring China and India to the table for the very first time, to get a commitment out of them that they would begin to address their own greenhouse gas emissions.

I continued to work on that throughout the four years as Secretary of State,and I was very proud that President Obama and America led the way to the agreement that was finally reached in Paris with 195 nations committing to take steps to actually make a difference in climate change.

Continuing the theme, she later contended

Well, let's talk about the global environmental crisis. Starting in 2009 as your Secretary of State, I worked with President Obama to bring China and India to the table for the very first time, to get a commitment out of them that they would begin to address their own greenhouse gas emissions.

I continued to work on that throughout the four years as Secretary of State, and I was very proud that President Obama and America led the way to the agreement that was finally reached in Paris with 195 nations committing to take steps to actually make a difference in climate change.

A few days later, Barack rose a man from death.

Of course, her admiration for the President wouldn't stop Clinton from throwing Obama overboard when convenient.  Suddenly, she was merely a bit player. Confronted about the apparently failed Libyan policy, the former Secretary of State charged "And what we did was to try to provide support for our European and Arab allies and partners. The decision was the president’s."

Still, the predominant impression conveyed to Democratic voters of the four years of the Obama-Clinton presidency was that of a loyal servant to a very successful leader on the world stage.   It's a powerful message, given that the incumbent's approval rating among members of his own Party is approximately 81.3 (graph below from the Huffington Post; final figures from current month).   Clinton is clearly distrusted by Americans, but in the matter of devotion to the President, Sanders simply cannot compete.

Clinton's support for Obama and service in his Administration are daunting obstacles in Sanders' way. Considering the pivotal nature of the African-American vote in the Democratic race and the President's popularity among blacks, they may ultimately prove the primary reason(s) for the failure of the Senator to overcome the (former) Secretary of State.

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