Zealots, Far More Deadly

No one can possibly get this question wrong. Is Michael Moore correct or invoking moral equivalence here?

American film makes Michael Moore on the current situations of #Afghanistan. @MMFlint #Afganistan #sundayvibes #MondayMorning #IGotVaxxedDidYou pic.twitter.com/tSYgKNVml7

— 🚷 (@multiversism) August 15, 2021

Moore is correct. The Taliban are religious nuts and we have our own. And he is invoking moral equivalence.

Actually, not religious nuts. Far more seriously, they're religious fanatics. Sexist, murderous, religious fanatics. We in the USA have our own religious "nuts."  They, too, are fanatics- the most extreme of Christian evangelicals; Opus Dei among Roman Catholics; Lubavitcher Chasidim, arguably the most radical of Orthodox Jews.

They are different from the Taliban..  They don't require men to pray continuously and wear a beard or else submit to a beating. They don't prevent girls from being educated or some women from pursuing certain occupations. They don't torture women for leaving their home without a suitable male escort nor enforce a dress code with violations punishable by death. Collaborating with the enemy in any fashion may lead to execution.

Taliban collapses with laughter as journalist asks if they would be willing to accept democratic governance that voted in female politicians - and then tells camera to stop filming. “It made me laugh” he says.pic.twitter.com/km0s1Lkzx5

— David Patrikarakos (@dpatrikarakos) August 17, 2021

They are radical Islamists. They are not normal Muslims and differ dramatically from other Muslims. But they are religious extremists in the East, and there are Christian (to a lesser extent, Jewish) religious extremists in the West.

That's where Moore, who recognizes that we have religious extremists in the developed world, is wrong.  Ours don't regularly walk around with rifles and shotguns intending not only to intimidate the majority who don't agree with them, but who also intend to use those firearms to exterminate their enemies.

They're religious nuts and we have our own,  MIchael Moore maintains.  But tomorrow I will still be alive after criticizing religious extremists and you will be alive even after reading about it. It's a claim many Muslims in Afghanistan cannot make about the radical Islamists who are will shed a lot of blood in an effort to remake their country into their own image.

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Not Afghanistan

A guy who describes himself as "retired C.I.A.":

Thought keeps popping in my head: I hope one of our folks has the American flag from the US embassy. I do not want it falling in Taliban hands. This matters to me for some deep spiritual reason. It just does.

— Marc Polymeropoulos (@Mpolymer) August 14, 2021

We shouldn't fight wars for reasons of national pride, nor resist ending them because of fear of humiliation. If we choose to continue a military presence abroad, there needs to be a better reason, even from someone with such a great surname.

President Biden also may fail to recognize the stakes. Biden in 2010 had told Richard Holbrooke that the USA was not in Afghanistan to preserve womens' rights and earlier this year told CBS' Margaret Brennan

There are a thousand places we could go to deal with injustice. I can think of ten countries where women and/or children and/or people are being persecuted or being hurt. But the idea of us being able to use our armed forces to solve every single problem that exists throughout the world is not within our capacity.

The question is- is American's vital self interest at stake or are the vital self interests of one our allies at stake. And the fact that they have a system in parts of Afghanistan, as they do in parts of Pakistan, as they do in parts of other countries, that we're going to send troops because there is not- human rights are not being valued the same same degree that we are, that's a different story about sending combat troops....

I still find this @margbrennan exchange the most illuminating/honest in how Biden thinks about Afghanistan
“Don’t you bear some responsibility for the outcome if the taliban ends up back no control & women end up losing the rights—-“

“No I don’t!”

pic.twitter.com/vxMV8J0YnV

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 8, 2021

After eight years during of a President not prioritizing the interests of our allies and four years in which a President actively undermined them, it is encouraging to have one who is vitally concerned with the self-interest of allies. (Presumably, Biden was unaware that when he said "women and/or children and/or people," he was suggesting women and children are not people.)

Biden correctly notes that the issue is whether the interests of our nation or of our allies is at stake. Brennan had helpfully asked Biden about Holbrooke's belief that the American military must remain in Afghanistan to safeguard the rights of women.  Biden then, credibly, noted that human rights are lacking in numerous countries across the world.

But of course the issue is not human rights or, more specifically, the rights of women. A much broader concern must be terrorism.  In light of the stunningly rapid deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan, a range of politicians, retired members of the military, and other pundits have sounded an alarm about Al Qaeda.

This has come about rather suddenly- about as sudden as the Taliban's recent march through Afghanistan.  From the time Biden announced on April 14 the decision to withdraw from the country until the collapse begun last week, there were few warnings about the possibility of Al Qaeda resuming its operations in Afghanistan as a staging area. Then-President Trump had declared the Middle East ISIS-free, and that was that, aside from an occasional article in the print media. Now, alarm.  

The dire predictions that Afghanistan now will become a hotbed of terrorism and- more importantly- a sort of homeland for terrorism may or may not become reality.

That is why it is so difficult to assess accurately the consequences of the withdrawal.  Womens' rights, left to radical Islamists who distort Islam to their own end, will deteriorate dramatically and Afghanistan probably will end up even worse off than when the American military invaded in 2003.

But no one cares. No one, except possibly the Iranian government and Jimmy Carter, cares about Afghanistan. The issue is the future of terrorism and no one can determine definitively what that is, other than the geniuses saturating the airwaves of cable news the past several days.

 

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A Live Possibility

Keith Naughton, the co-founder of Silent Majority Strategies, is convinced that South Carolina senator Tim Scott, whom he lauds for "charisma and savvy," is a shoo-in for the GOP vice-presidential nomination n 2024.  However, in a column in The Hill, Naughton cautions

Scott’s main priority should be to stay out of the Trump orbit. Anyone who gets drawn into Trump-world inevitably is expected to toe the Trump line, whatever that is on any given day. Whether his various vendettas, impulsive endorsements or spurious election-theft complaints, Scott would be saddled with all the Trump baggage — and never treated as anything but a useful appendage by Trump.

Nevertheless, he argues "an (sic) popular minority candidate could be just the ticket to put a Republican over the top in 2024." Therefore

the vice president slot would be an easy score for Scott, provided he does not make the mistake of running for president. Unlike in the Democratic Party, where pushing aside the female minority Kamala Harris as the next presidential nominee would be politically impossible, Republicans have no such qualms. Nobody is going to step aside for Tim Scott. In addition, only once has a GOP nominee selected a former primary opponent for VP.

For Scott, the shrewd move would be to stay out of the presidential primaries and carefully position himself for the number two spot. Other than Scott, only Nikki Haley offers helpful identity politics credentials, but her criticisms of Trump, followed by pleading to get back in his good graces has damaged her significantly. That leaves Scott, by far, in the best position.

Naughton is on to something. Tim Scott is not likely to be the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2024, yet only because there are dozens of other prospects- governors, Senators, figures in private industry, even celebrities. The logical selection may be a woman, or an individual who has been a more vociferous, or by contrast less loyal, supporter of the former President. He (less likely, she) could be someone deemed more likely to help the ticket secure its base or instead deliver to the GOP a swing state's electors.  (Obviously, South Carolina is locked up for a Republican presidential candidate.)

Moreover, it's a long way to the 2024 Republican National Convention. Nonetheless, Tim Scott already checks an important, though generally overlooked, criteria for a Republican candidate.

He has positioned himself as a victim. In his rebuttal to President Biden's State of the Union address of April, 2021, the Senator claimed

I have experienced the pain of discrimination. I know what it feels like to be pulled over for no reason. To be followed around a store while I’m shopping. I remember, every morning, at the kitchen table, my grandfather would open the newspaper and read it — I thought. But later, I realized he had never learned to read it. He just wanted to set the right example.

I’ve also experienced a different kind of intolerance. I get called “Uncle Tom” and the n-word by progressives, by liberals. Just last week, a national newspaper suggested my family’s poverty was actually privilege because a relative owned land generations before my time.

The last statement is inaccurate, given that the subject of this charge responded by noting "not in any way did I ever suggest in the piece that Scott's great-grandfather lived a privileged life."  Still, Scott's attack was savvy.  As the 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon warned in a sentiment first expressed by Thomas Swift,  "It is well said in the old Proverb, ‘A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.’"

According to Scott, he has been "pulled over for no reason"- though to maintain support on the right, he excludes the phrase "by police."  He has been "followed around a store" while shopping. He is (frequently, by implication) "called 'Uncle Tom' and the n-word by progressives."

Have no pang of conscience, lost sleep, or doubt about American exceptionalism. Not to worry - Tim Scott is so sure that America is not racist that he asserts "Hear me clearly. America is not a racist country."

The last statement may be valid. it could be that Tim Scott is an anomaly, one of very few people followed around in stores, regularly condemned by a racial epithet, and stopped by police simply because he is black. Maybe innumerable others have been similarly stereotyped but there are so many redeeming qualities of racial brotherhood regularly exhibited  that "racist" is too broad an accusation. Or perhaps he holds to the traditional view of racism (as do I) that it refers only to a belief in the inherent inferiority of a race rather than the garden variety of hostility and bigotry.

Although a sense of decency should compel Scott to explain how the USA is not racist if in light of what he (claims he) has undergone, the betting here is that the juxtaposition of sentiments was calculated and strategic. Scott wanted Republicans everywhere to know that he is on the America, Best Ever team, and that his teammates can remain unapologetic. Simultaneously, he'll play the victim and better yet, the victim called the n-word by progressives and liberals. Grabbing the chance to whine without blaming conservatives and the other usual suspects is a win-win. 

Tim Scott lays out a pattern of being profiled without acknowledging its persistence in society nor offering any solutions. He has pronounced America not racist but can offer conservatives and Republicans the opportunity to boast of voting for a man who has felt the "pain" of being black in America.

At this early date, there are dozens of viable prospects to be the GOP vice presidential nominee. Tim Scott, as a phony extraordinaire, is one of them.

 

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Do Not Ignore The King

India Walton can do us all, if not herself, a favor.

On June 22, 2021 Walton defeated incumbent Byron Brown in the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo, seemingly ending Brown's bid for a fifth term. The Intercept's Akela Lacy then wrote of the union organizer and activist

As the Democratic nominee in a heavily Democratic city without a Republican contender, Walton will all but definitely win Buffalo’s general mayoral election in November. A former member and representative for 1199 SEIU (the union that endorsed her opponent), and backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, the Working Families Party, and the Buffalo Teachers Federation, Walton will be the first mayor in the U.S. identifying as a socialist in more than half a century.

However, a few days later, Brown announced that he would mount a write-in challenge in the heavily Democratic, mid-sized Rust Belt city. And now

If the Buffalo mayoral election was held today, a majority of likely voters say they would vote for incumbent mayor Byron Brown over Democratic nominee India Walton, according to an exclusive WIVB/Emerson College poll.

Brown has a 10-point lead in the poll, with 50.2 percent of respondents supporting the mayor in his quest for a fifth term versus 40.1 percent who said they’d vote for Walton. 7.9 percent of respondents said they were unsure and 1.9 percent said they supported someone else.

Asked whether their opinion of the two candidates is favorable or unfavorable, opinions of Walton were mixed while Brown was viewed very favorably. Moreover, a plurality expressed an unfavorable view of socialism, responding to a question that may as well have been planted by Brown, who has claimed residents "have said to me that they do not want a radical socialist occupying the mayor's office in Buffalo."

For balance, the pollsters might have asked whether they have a favorable or unfavorable impression of the real estate industry- reportedly backing the incumbent- or of the rights of renters, given that Walton, according to Lacy, has "focused on strengthening tenants' rights." 

Alas, there was no such question which would have provided needed balance. But Walton has the advantage not only of being the only candidate on the ballot, but also of being the Democratic nominee.

The challenger must maximize that advantage.  She can do so by requesting the endorsement of arguably the second most important Democrat in the nation and most influential Democrat-President Biden included- electorally.

A few days after the elections, in which Democrats underperformed, House Majority Whip James Clyburn denounced the slogan "defund the police," remarking

We saw the same thing happening here. We can’t pick up these things just because it makes a good headline. It sometimes destroys headway.

As an example, Clyburn cited the defeat of South Carolina US Senate hopeful Jaime Harrison, who ended up beaten comprehensively by the incumbent Republican Lindsey Graham in a race many had hoped he would win after he turned a longshot campaign into a real contest.

“Jaime Harrison started to plateau when ‘defund the police’ showed up with a caption on TV, ran across his head,” Clyburn said in a separate Sunday appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press.

“That stuff hurt Jaime. And that’s why I spoke out against it a long time ago. I’ve always said that these headlines can kill a political effort.”

These headlines can kill a political effort.  It appears that Clyburn is deeply concerned with the strength of the Democratic Party and getting Democrats elected. And he is no ordinary Democrat, nor an ordinary African-American Democrat. He is a kingmaker, as Bernie Sanders, and more recently Nina Turner, have found out.

So let's put the South Carolinian to the test. The Democratic Party nominee for mayor of a major American city, albeit one in decline the last several decades, is in danger of losing a race no Democrat should lose. India Walton should contact Jim Clyburn and ask- plead, if necessary- for his help.

Clyburn has made it clear that he is no socialist and has little patience for the most outspokenly progressive members of his caucus. He is aligned with the moneyed interests which dominate the establishment wing and still holds most of the power in the Party. But he has immense influence among Democratic voters and politicians, particularly in the African-American community. He also is a Democrat- or so he fervently maintains- and his support might make the difference for the candidate Democratic primary voters opted for in a free and fair primary.

 Clyburn is likely to decline, as India Walton probably realizes. But we don't know that, and neither does Walton. For the good of her Party and herself, she should give him a chance to call her bluff.

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If Only We Could Vaccinate Masks

No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.

                                                                                                     -H.L. Mencken, 9/18/26

 

Even eight years of Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6) and of George W Bush and four years of Donald J. Trump did not convince me that Mencken was right. However, now

Parents of school-aged children are supportive of some, but not all coronavirus restrictions as kids gear up to return to the classroom this fall, a poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation released Wednesday shows.

A majority of parents — 58 percent — don't want their child's school to require COVID-19 vaccinations. The results were split along party lines, with 66 percent of Democratic voters supporting vaccine requirements compared to just 13 percent of Republican voters, but even among Democrats the rate was lower than the 82 percent who have age-eligible children who have already received the vaccine.

The question was premised on the FDA fully approving the use of a Covid-19 vaccine in children. Yet

.... most parents do support mask requirements for students and staff who remain unvaccinated, though it's not clear what percentage backs masking for those who have received their shots.

If respondents are being honest, parents would rather their children wear masks throughout the school day (other than, presumably, while eating) than to have them vaccinated. 

This is barely comprehensible and suggests H.L. Mencken's perspective would apply today. Mencken referred to "intelligence." But whether "intelligence" or "common sense" or some other word most accurately describes the American people (at least the ones in this survey),  something is seriously awry.

However, thinking is far more awry, and dangerous, among residents of Franklin County, Tennessee, who have taken displeasure at wearing masks to a frenzied extreme:

The pandemic is going to last far longer than it has to because millions of parents in this country are irresponsible guardians for their children. https://t.co/QZURZAAZSp

— Pé (@4everNeverTrump) August 11, 2021

 

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McConnell Forgot To Say "Guys, Don't Do Anything Stupid"

This is hard to believe. En route to approving a budget resolution as the first step in passing a $3.5 trillion "soft infrastructure" bill by budget reconciliation

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) tried to offer a nonbinding change to the budget related to opposing defunding the police.

"The far-left rally cry of defund the price is not just D.C. rhetoric, they're actually acting on it," Tuberville said from the Senate floor.

Actually, they're not. Article after article trumpets the decision (or attempt) to cut funds from police departments. Typically, those municipalities have redirected funds from law enforcement needs to social service needs. But there is no recorded instance of a town actually defunding the police. So recognizing a hanging curve when he saw it

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who has been involved in police reform negotiations, gave an energetic rebuttal — urging every senator to "sashay" to the center of the chamber and vote for the amendment.

"I am sure I will see no political ads attacking anybody here over defund the police," Booker quipped.

As the New Jersey senator realizes, there still will be some ads while the ranks of Democratic members of Congress who support actual defunding of the police run the ideological gamut from Cori Bush to Rashida Tlaib, or from A to B. But few others want police departments eliminated, and fewer still are rising to the chant of "defund the police," heeding the warning of House Majority Whip James Clyburn.

Tuberville should have realized that; Mitch McConnell evidently does because

After Democrats supported the amendment, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) office blasted out a press release entitled "Democrats Are Still The Party Of Defunding The Police." And Tuberville's office sent out a press release characterizing the vote as Democrats pouncing "at the chance to distance themselves from 'defund police' rhetoric.

When you have to say "my opponent still is," the war may not be lost but the battle is. And when the Senator who (successfully) sponsored the amendment concedes his opponents (Democrats) eagerly accepted the "chance to distance themselves," the message is clear: they did.

Booker has reason to gloat. Senator Tuberville's amendment  "to establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to decreasing Federal funding for local jurisdictions that defund the police." If the Alabaman had chosen not to grandstand, he could have moved "to establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to decreasing Federal funding for local jurisdictions that endanger public safety by reducing spending for law enforcement and/or police." That would have put most Democratic senators in a bind, with a vote in favor leaving them open to criticism from much of their base, a vote against a liability in a general election.

But he chose not to do so, thereby enabling Democrats to stand side by side with Republicans in supporting police and public safety by merely rejecting an idea that no Democratic member of the Senate and very few in the House want to be associated with, anyway.  That may be only fitting; Republicans like to portray themselves as godlike, and Tuberville's move seems like a gift from heaven, a veritable act of grace.

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Staggering Contrast

I was going to say that, three days after Cori Bush was confronted on CBS about supporting defunding the police while enjoying private security, she had no answer on CNN's Reliable Sources. (Full transcript of this segment is below.)

Cori Bush was not confronted about being hypocritical Instead, Dana Bash merely diplomatically asked whether her comments the congresswoman made, the focus of attack ads against her fellow Democrats, might be harmful. A couple of minutes later, the congresswoman still had not addressed that concern.

Criticism against Democrats for being sanctimonious supporters of defunding the police (largely unjustified) are likely to be more effective, more determining, in swing districts than in Bush's own urban district in the St. Louis area.  Unconcerned with members of her own Party, she is selfish, hypocritical and consumed with herself.  "My job is to save lives," boasts Bush, equal parts police officer, firefighter, and heart surgeon.  

Dana Bash asks Rep. Cori Bush to explain comments she made endorsing defunding the police while also talking about having private security for herself pic.twitter.com/OQqbnAAUCG

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 8, 2021

But then Andrew Cuomo resigned.   Immediately, his critics eased up, recognizing that, while investigations must continue, he is deserving at least of a little credit for realizing that it was in his own, and the state's, interests to go relatively promptly and quietly, maintaining a modicum of dignity.

Of course I'm kidding.  Within minutes, Cuomo was being castigated while denunciation of Cori Bush is abating.  She is still in the US Congress, grandstanding, with no Democrat willing to take her on for anything. Yet, Al Franken, Eliot Spritzer, Anthony Weiner, Katie Hill, and now Andrew Cuomo, all resigned, albeit the latter's transgressions clearly the worst. Their colleagues, some of them even supporters, fled like rats from a sinking ship.

Perhaps it's because those four committed sexual improprieties or (at least in the case of Franken) alleged sexual improprieties, while Cori Bush advocates leaving communities defenseless from violent crime. Still, it's stunning that they all fell on their sword and Cori Bush is unrepentant and openly defiant. There may be a lesson in that for Democrats.

BASH: Congresswoman, I want to ask about the criticism that you're facing about comments you made in an interview this past week.

I want our viewers to listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I'm going to make sure I have security because I know I have had attempts on my life. And I have too much work to do, there are too many people that need help right now for me to allow that.

So, if I end up spending $200,000, if I spend 10 more dollars on it, you know what, I get to be here to do the work. So, suck it up. And defunding the police has to happen. We need to defund the police.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, I know you have seen that Republicans are pointing to the fact that you said you have your own security, while, almost in the same breath, advocating for defunding the police.

Now, I do want to emphasize I understand you have security protection because you have received multiple death threats. But the clip that I displayed is being used in attack ads against not you, but -- not just you, but other Democrats.

So, could those comments end up being harmful to your fellow Democrats, politically speaking?

BUSH: I think what we have to look at is the fact that I made it to Congress in 2020, I was elected to Congress, and we are still fighting this same fight. We're still fighting to save black lives.

That was not -- that work was not done before I got here. This is the reason why I ran, was to save lives, to save my son's life. It was because Michael Brown, who we're fighting for, and still trying to get justice for. It's because he didn't get justice, and Vonderrit Myers didn't get justice, and Kajieme Powell didn't get justice, and so many others. That is why.

And because that was not -- that was not fixed before I got here, to then come at me and say you're the reason why we have these problems, no, the reason why we have these problems is because those that were in power and could have fixed this problem before now didn't and cost -- it cost lives.

And so now that I'm here, I -- we just -- we just introduced the People's Response Act to make sure that we are looking at the money that -- the money that should be going to social safety nets to make sure that our community members who are living with mental health issues are able to function and live in society... BASH: So...

BUSH: ... the way that anyone would ask to.

So, I don't believe -- as far as my -- as far as my colleagues, I absolutely empathize. I empathize. But you know what? The same thing that the Republicans will do, which is figure out how to work with this on the comms spaces, that's what we have to do.

My job is to save lives, the lives of my community, because, when we're when we're talking about every single year increasing the budget for police, and then the budget for, like, Health and Human Services continuing to shrink, and St. Louis being number one for police violence year after year after year, number one, number two for homicides year and year, after year...

BASH: Congresswoman...

BUSH: So, when we're adding more money to the police, but we're still dying.

BASH: Congresswoman, I...

BUSH: So, something has to change.

BASH: Congresswoman, I -- yes. And I hear what you're saying. But I also heard you say that you think it's a comms problem.

Is it that? Because...

BUSH: No, I'm saying that we can also -- that that's another way that you can tackle this.

You have to tackle it from more than one place. We have to work on what we want to say, what is our message, but then we also have to understand that we have to save lives too. St. Louis can't keep being put on the back burner. And I'm here to stand up for my community.

[09:40:12]

BASH: Congresswoman Cori Bush, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

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