Be Not Proud Of Heart

It is Sunday, a day for a Sunday-style post.

A few months ago, Trivago magazine listed eleven gay pride parades "where you can be loud and be proud" (also, Warsaw).  On Friday, Red State's Brandon Morse maintained of the "Straight Pride Parade" being planned for later this year in Boston

You can have a parade for all sorts of reasons, and having one to celebrate heterosexuality isn’t a horrible reason to have a parade. A lot of people are straight and like being straight. They may want to celebrate the idea of two members of the opposite sex coming together to form a union that has the potential to create life. It’s a common phenomenon, but it’s still pretty amazing when you think about it.

Therefore, it might- but shouldn't- surprise you that Morse maintains "I don’t care if someone legally organizes a parade around being homosexual. As long as I’m not forced to attend it or promote it, then have at it."

So Morse is down with both a gay pride parade- now  commonly known as "pride parade" ("gay" being redundant, apparently)- and with parades boasting heterosexuality.

Wrong on both counts, guy.

Until a few years ago, there existed a common- and largely winning- argument that gay people should not be denied the rights of straight people because sexual orientation was not a choice. Virtually no one chose to be gay any more than one chose to be straight.

Now we apparently are to believe otherwise.  Being "proud" of a sexual orientation- homosexual or heterosexual- one did not choose but had imposed upon him or her belies the concept of pride.

One can be generally proud of a son, a daughter, a parent, or any relative upon whom he or she has had an impact. And it is legitimate to be proud of personal accomplishments such as earning a college degree, being promoted at work, scoring 40 points in a basketball game, or losing the weight the doctor recommended.

But if you are proud because of the way you were born or, as Jeremiah had it, as you were formed in the womb (best anti-abortion rights argument; not good enough), you are distorting the concept of pride.

Endorsing an Old Testament proverb, James, probably the brother of Jesus and son of Mary, asserted "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." But now we are to credit an individual, a mere mortal, with being gay or alternatively, with being straight. Our sexual orientation, most scholarship confirms, is a status assigned to us by biology, or to many Bible-believing Christians, God.  It is not a choice or decision, thus rightfully denying us grounds for pride.

Unsurprisingly, Morse believes "straightness" is "just a sexual preference." However, "preference" is the "power or opportunity of choice." But I no more chose to be straight than participants in any of those eleven (or more) pride parades chose to be gay. 

If they did, then they should celebrate their accomplishment while straight men and women can celebrate their own. Otherwise, there is no cause for pride- or shame- on the part of either heterosexuals or homosexuals.

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Deeply Religious On Wednesday

Nate Silver tweets "it's kinda weird for left-wing pundits to drag Biden for flipping toward the positions they wanted him to adopt."

So let me say: good for Joe Biden to reverse his position on the Hyde Amendment. As a fine reporter with (virtually) no vowels in her surname has recalled

Biden voted against a 1977 compromise that allowed Medicaid to fund abortions that included exceptions for victims of rape and incest in addition to concerns for the life of the mother. While the rape and incest exceptions passed in that case, Biden voted in 1981 to again remove them, in what was the most far-reaching ban on federal funds ever enacted by Congress.

On Wednesday night, campaign co-chairperson Cedric Richmond told Chris Cuomo

I think the Vice President (has) been very consistent over his career in the sense since 1976 when the Hyde Amendment became law that he is a deeply religious man- I think everyone knows that- and he's got it by his faith. And his position on the Hyde Amendment has been consistent.

In 2012, V.P. candidate Joe Biden maintained "I accept church rule personally, but not in public life."  By stating the candidate "is a deeply religious man" and "he's got it (opinion of the Amendment) by faith," Representative Richmond was accurately transmitting the Biden stance toward abortion rights.

Although the Church's position has evolved toward a more hostile view of abortion rights over the centuries, it has in the recent path taken a fairly consistent position toward of abortion rights. It has variously been seen ungenerously as anti-woman- or extremely generously as promoting a "seamless garment" reflecting a "consistent life ethic."

However the Church is viewed, if a politician maintains (as does Biden) that he or she is  personally pro-life, it suggests a conviction that the fetus is worthy of protection against a woman's decision to end its life. 

As of Thursday night, in Joe Biden's case, not so much. Twenty-four hours after Richmond attributed opposition to the Hyde Amendment to the candidate's religious faith, Biden pleaded "If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone's ZIP code."

Conventional wisdom and the law of parsimony would have it that Biden's epiphany smacks of opportunism. It may indeed but, counter-intuitively, that may be overly generous to the former Vice-President.

It could be something else, which few would be so ill-mannered as to dare broach. If Biden's view of abortion were informed by his religious faith, that faith seems to have dissipated in the course of approximately 24 hours.

Perhaps it was not his faith after all, but by something else. It may have been the instinct of a man who has through much of his political career believed that touching a woman (occasionally a man) whenever he wishes was his natural right. Or it simply may have been from ideological conviction, as it is with many people.

We cannot perfectly discern Biden's motivation, then or now, and his newfound faith in a woman's right to choose should be welcomed.  But we can question motivation when someone's stated opinion changes abruptly, especially when the individual has in the past attributed his feelings to religious faith. If we do not, we trivialize religious faith- in this case, Roman Catholicism- as much as Joseph R. Biden inadvertently has done.

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"Never Send A Marine To Do A Hit Man's Job"

Like any would-be fascist, Donald Trump can sense weakness.On Monday, Michael Wolff, author of "Siege- Trump Under Fire," told Lawrence O'Donnell (in the first part of a two-part interview) that President Trump

thought from the beginning he could take Robert Mueller.  He says I know this guy.  I know this kind of guy.  You know, he`s too separate as I said, he said he`s got no game.

And I think he sensed that.  He sense this had as a weakness in the special prosecutor.  He sensed that he could be – you know, by saying a witch hunt, witch hunt, witch hunt, he could be the person that Robert Mueller was essentially would say, you know, this is a crazy man and how to predict what a crazy man will do.  And that`s a scary thing.

Asked by O'Donnell about Steve Bannon, Wolff replies

And he says never send a marine to do a hit man`s job.  I think he sees this as Steve understood, you know, Robert Mueller is there as to – as an institutional guy to protect an institution.  And Donald Trump is perfectly willing to destroy an institution.

Robert Mueller played right into the President's game. The next evening, Ari Melber reported that according to "Siege," the Special Counsel's office had investigated whether the President could directly (as well as indirectly) fire the Special Counsel and whether he could dismiss the Special Counsel if the purpose were to impede an investigation. The staff concluded that the President could do either or both.

Wolff had told O'Donnell

What happens to the work product they ask if they are fired?  Well, the chances that it could be – the possibility is it could be completely destroyed.

They go through one of these one after another of these contingencies, nothing with a positive result.  And one of the things that I think happened here or one of the things that I feel might well have happened here is Robert Mueller looked at this and said, you know, this guy, Donald Trump could bring the house down,  could bring the temple down.

Describing the Special Counsel as an institutionalist concerned with the house burning down is fairly generous. The intrepid, courageous Marine was intimidated by a President who realized that was his only way to head off a report that would lead to removal from office, if not prosecution. As Elie Mystal explained to Melber

It's like the old Mike Tyson thing, where he would win the fight before he got into the ring because people were scared of him. Mueller- and I think this gets to this institutionalist aspect of Mueller's investigation- he was more concerned with the institution, with his own part of the store, than he was with the rest of the house burning down.

 Mystal noted that Mueller had forgotten the advice traditionally given to football players by their coaches: "stop worrying about what they're going to do to you and start worrying about what you're going to do to them." Instead, Robert Mueller was cowed by a President who knew only intimidation of the Special Counsel stood between him and report which would lead to his removal from office and/or prosecution. "Mueller," Melber recognized, "clearly played the game not to lose." In so doing, he made sure Donald Trump would win, and the suspicion grows that that was no accident.

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Whatever Flies

As Jacobin's Branko Marcetic wrote shortly before Joe Biden officially became a Democratic candidate for President, Joe Biden's record on reproductive freedom has been decidedly mixed.

This has been manifested continuously On Wednesday, The Hill reported

As a senator from Delaware, Biden once voted to let states overturn Roe v. Wade. He also supported the Mexico City Policy, which bans federal aid to foreign organizations that provide or promote abortions.

Biden now says he would consider codifying Roe v. Wade into federal law in case the ruling is overturned by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. His campaign also said he would overturn the Mexico City Policy, which was reinstated in 2017 by President Trump.

Yet in 2005, Biden voted for an amendment which would have "nullified" President Bush's reinstatement of the Policy.

Recently, the former vice-president has ramped up his "on the one hand, but on the other hand" approach.. During a rope-line exchange in early May in South Carolina, Biden told an ACLU activist that he opposes the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion, except in cases of incest, rape, or the life of the woman.

This comment was made almost 47 years after Biden was first elected to the United States Senate and a decade after being elected Vice-President. It came decades after the Senator had voted for the Hyde Amendment, for extending it to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, for barring the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program from funding abortions for federal employees,  and against the existing exemptions in cases of rape and incest..

Nearly five weeks later after the South Carolina moment, the candidate (according to a campaign statement) "has not at this point changed his position on the Hyde Amendment."

"At this point" is intended to demonstrate that the candidate is malleable and flexible or, as is most likely, without discernible principle. And so it is that the campaign added “Given the current draconian attempts to limit access to abortion, if avenues for women to access their protected rights under Roe v. Wade are closed, he would be open to repeal."

Biden's people would not clarify what "closed" means, nor has it explained what "open" means.  The candidate has, however, continued to support Roe v. Wade, a court decision seemingly unable to check the punitive restrictions placed upon abortion access in various states.

Yet (or maybe because) Roe remains popular with the American people, as does the Hyde Amendment. And perhaps that, rather than claimed devotion to Roman Catholicism, that is the the key to understanding Joe Biden's schizophrenic views and actions to reproductive freedom. It may turn out that Biden's devotion is to no ideology or principle, save the commitment through the years to an ambition driving him to become President.

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A Long History

Interviewed by Axios' Jonathan Swan, President Trump's son-in-law refusedto concede that birtherism is racist. Then asked "has Trump ever said anything racist?" Jared Kushner responded  “Absolutely not. You can’t not be a racist for 69 years then run for president and be a racist.” (Presumably, inclusion of the double negative was a slip-of-the-tongue.)

Objection: assumes facts not in evidence. There are the usual suspects, including when

In 1973, Trump Management was accused by the Justice Department of violating the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by discriminating against people of color; when the suit was settled, the D.O.J. called the decree “one of the most far-reaching ever negotiated,” and the Justice lawyer who argued the case called it a “clear government victory,” according to the Washington Post. More recently the president has railed against immigrants from “shithole countries” like Haiti and African nations; last month Slate reported that the administration is plotting a “backdoor travel ban” on people trying to come to the U.S. from those places (unlike its front-door travel ban against Muslims, which Kushner sidestepped when asked if it was religiously bigoted).

However, that's not it.a smoking gun. Racism, Merriam-Webster understands, is "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."

So the argument is not proven even by candidate Trump's remark "look at my African-American over here" because Trump may believe he owns everyone, not only blacks. However, Trump may once have said, as former Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino President John R. O’Donnell charged, that Donald Trump once maintained "laziness is a trait in blacks."

That classically racist remark combined with Trump's past and present of ethnic hostility dovetails neatly with a belief in eugenics. Trump biographer Mike D'Antonio once remarked “The family subscribes to a racehorse theory of human development They believe that there are superior people and that if you put together the genes of a superior woman and a superior man, you get a superior offspring.”

 Such as in

Trump's obsession with his genes is so weird. pic.twitter.com/8zIOHURuPU

— Erin 🔥🏃🏻‍♀️🍳 Ryan (@morninggloria) July 20, 2017

A little weird, but a lot telling. A good reporter must, and will, ask and probe, as Swan did.  Nevertheless, it is now less interesting to probe whether the President is a racist- which answer is obvious- than what sort of human mind it takes to support Barack Hussein Obama one year and a brazen, transparent bigot four years later.



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Gillibrand Proves Warren's Point

Elizabeth Warren was right, though it took another candidate- Kirsten Gillibrand- to prove it.  On May 14, Senator Warren defended herdecision not to bolster Fox News' bottom line and give the network cover against advertisers queasy about a far-right network in Donald Trump's pocket. She

used a series of Twitter messages to accuse the network of giving “a megaphone to racists and conspiracists” and providing cover for corruption. She also returned to one of her campaign’s central themes, framing the channel as the sort of corporate “profit machine” she has railed against.

  

“Hate-for-profit works only if there’s profit, so Fox News balances a mix of bigotry, racism, and outright lies with enough legit journalism to make the claim to advertisers that it’s a reputable news outlet,” Ms. Warren wrote. “It’s all about dragging in ad money — big ad money.”

“A Democratic town hall gives the Fox News sales team a way to tell potential sponsors it’s safe to buy ads on Fox,” she continued. “I won’t ask millions of Democratic primary voters to tune into an outlet that profits from racism and hate.”

Refusing to perform (and it is a performance) at a town hall must have been a difficult decision because nobody has failed to come out smelling like a rose in this venue since President George Herbert Walker Bush repeatedly looked at his watch while debating Bill Clinton in 1992. It's set up that way, and no politician fails to charm the audience.

So Warren's position was an outlier, for which the Massachusetts senator has faced some criticism. Yet if not earlier, it became clear what the objective of these affairs is when

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) challenged Fox News’ coverage of abortion during a town hall event on Sunday, accusing the network of peddling disinformation to the chagrin of host Chris Wallace.

Gillibrand, the latest Democratic candidate among a crowded field to appear on the network for an hourlong Q&A session, used a question about late-term abortions to pivot toward Fox News’ coverage of the issue. Just over 1% of abortions across the country are performed at 21 weeks or later, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but such procedures get outspoken criticism by groups against reproductive rights.

“What we’ve created, unfortunately, is a false choice and a false narrative. Chris, I want to talk about the role Fox News plays in this, because it’s a problem,” Gillibrand said in response to the question. “I can tell you before President Trump gave his State of the Union, Fox News talked about infanticide. Infanticide doesn’t exist.”

Wallace quickly cut the senator off, saying that the network had invited her there as a guest and had thus far been treating her “fairly.”

“I understand, maybe to make your credentials with the Democrats who are not appearing on Fox News, you are going to attack us,” Wallace said. “I’m not sure, frankly, it’s not very polite when we’ve invited you to be here.”

Gillibrand said she would address her concerns politely, and continued on.

She continued (inserting criticism of Fox News), passionately defending her position on abortion while avoiding answering the actual question asked. That was satisfactory to the Fox News host because these events aren't really about information, anyway.

We don't know Senator Gillibrand's view of late-term abortion specifically, but we do know that these "town halls" are a charade, with the intent to normalize an extreme cable "news" network among advertisers. We know that as long as Fox News can host good little boys and girls who participate in the charade by avoiding criticizing Fox News, everyone wins.

Thus far, Gillibrand, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Bernie Sanders have appeared, with Julian Castro due later this week and Bill deBlasio negotiating. Those who have or will show up know what the deal is. It's not necessarily with the devil, but it is in return for the inevitable applause, good optics, and favorable news coverage. However, with Warren's emphatic refusal and the decision of Kamala Harris not to participate, we're learning which candidates aren't going to play ball with Trump TV and the expectation that candidates show deference to it.

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Back To Helsinki

In his own passive-aggressive manner, Robert Mueller on Wednesday said he believes that President Trump committed obstruction of justice. It would be "unconstitutional," the Special Counsel contended, to charge the President while in office with a federal crime and thus charging him was "not an option we could consider." Therefore, Mueller explained, " if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime."

It was sufficiently clear that Mueller had outed a criminal that Trump was panicked that he had anything to do with the Russian effort to install him as President:

Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax...And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media,.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2019

Oops! Can't let that stand, so less than an hour later, Trump in an interview outside of the White House an hour later, claimed "Russia did not help get me elected. You know who got me elected? I got me elected. Russia didn’t help me at all. Russia if anything helped other side.”

Vladimir Putin begs to disagree. Famously, he was asked at the Helsinki summit last July, with Trump standing next to him, "President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?"

When the Russian President said "yes," it was widely interpreted that he wanted President Trump to win the election.

However, Putin was asked a two-part question:

a) did you want President Trump to win the election?

b) did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?

Putin did not answer "yes." Feeling particularly invulnerable, He answered "yes, I did. Yes, I did," which suggested that he directed officials to help Trump win the election.

In a bizarre twist, no one has asked the Russkie whether these officials acted independently or in concert with Trump campaign officials, though the implication was the latter.

So we know Ronna R. McDaniel is lying when she tweets, as she did Sunday, "Despite Democrats promising evidence of collusion, @realDonaldTrump was totally cleared.The American people want the collusion delusion to end.  She's lying about the American people wanting the investigation (whatever their opinion on impeachment) to end; and lying about Donald Trump being "totally cleared." He was not only totally cleared, Mueller did everything but say "guilty! guilty! guilty!"

McDaniel probably doesn't care that people realize she is making things up because President Trump barely cares, and lies promiscuously, by tweet, on the White House lawn, and elsewhere. Instead, her major concern is that Donald Trump doesn't hear people calling her by her previous name: Ronna Romney McDaniel.

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