So Very Reasonable

In an otherwise good paragraph in an otherwise good post, Steve M. makes a minor, yet telling, mistake when he writes

In other words, the audience was the contemporary Republican electorate. Why do you think Governor Sununu chose not to run for Maggie Hassan's Senate seat last year? It was probably for the same reason Charlie Baker of Massachusetts -- also a moderate Republican governor with strong support from Democrats -- didn't run for reelection last year: he might not have survived his own party's primary.

I thought it was bad enough when last June former Chris Christie and Donald Trump strategist Bill Stepien characterized a group of Republicans as "Team Normal."  It's questionable whether a few Republicans these days are "normal"- but they certainly aren't "moderate."

And so it was that Jen Psaki (video below) on Sunday interviewed the relatable New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu,  who is one of many Republicans reportedly considering running for President. Sununu is no fire-breathing demagogue, surely would be considered among the "normal," and was labeled a "moderate" by Steve M.

When asked, Sununu stated that he would not sign a bill outlawing abortion nationwide, preferring to leave it to states to establish their own policies, presumably pro-life in some jurisdictions, pro-choice in others.

Sununu maintained that "with training," teachers should be allowed to take firearms into schools and in 2014 vetoed a bill which would have barred firearms on school property He stated "I believe the way the laws are now are pretty good."

Sununu declined to agree to any cuts in defense spending when Psaki turned the interview toward debt reduction. When she mentioned Social Security, he Governor contended it's "really about creating up other opportunities, options for the individual in terms of how they invest their dollars." That's privatization, at least partially, while avoiding the toxicity of the term.

Sununu mentioned "fiscal discipline"- Republican talk for cutting the taxes of the wealthy and slashing the safety net- and remarked "I don't mind increasing the debt limit as long as there are some cuts." He likes Kevin McCarthy's hostage-taking.

The most important pressing issue is lifting the debt limit to pay off bills already accrued. Spending has been approved and appropriated, and we need the money to pay the bills. In October, 2021 . As explained in October, 2021

The debt limit is a ceiling imposed by Congress on the amount of debt that the U.S. Federal government can have outstanding... 

It is also important to note that the debt limit is not a forward-looking budgeting tool that reveals what policymakers think are ideal levels of spending and revenue. Rather, it reflects the spending and revenue decisions debated and enacted in prior years by prior Congresses and Administrations;

If the debt ceiling is not raised, government services would be slashed, unemployment might skyrocket, interest rates would jump, and the stock market might plummet.

Social Security can be gutted, the USA could become a deadbeat nation, and school shootings can continue unabated as long as John Sununu can continue his 90%+ rating with the National Rifle Association. Failing to identify anything he disagrees with Donald Trump on, Sununu can argue only that the 45th President could not be elected again. This is today's "moderate Republican."

When my Master Card bill comes, I'm going to call the bank, advise that I will do as a Republican by imposing fiscal discipline upon myself in the future without paying the current bill. That will go well.

 

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Make It a Positive

From the world of mathematics: -3 X +3= -9;  -3 X -3= +9.

Beginning at 1:06 of the tweet/video below,  Anderson Cooper states

Now, many of you think CNN shouldn't have given him any platform to speak and I understand the anger about that- giving him the audience, the time- I get that. But this is what I also get. The man you were so disturbed to see and hear from last night? That man is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President and according no polling, no other Republican is even close.

Once CNN announced it was going to hold a town hall with former President Trump, many people complained that he was offered any airtime at all. However, following the performance- uh, er, event- the nature of the criticism shifted.

Cooper continues

That man you wee so upset to hear from last night, he may be the President of the United States in less than two years. And that audience that upset you? That's a sampling of about half the country and they are your family members, your neighbors, and they are voting. And many say they are voting for him.

I'd like to believe that if Cooper had proofread or, prior to airing the segment, had read aloud his commentary, he would have realized how absurd the third sentence immediately above is. (Hopefully, that's what Sullivan was applying the adjective "silly" to.)

It was not "a sampling of about half the country." It was a sampling- presumably, that- of the roughly half the country which will vote for Trump or seriously consider voting for him. It was not representative of the country, which includes the nearly 50% which would walk over burning coals before rather than vote for him. CNN selected Republicans and Independents for its audience while omitting Democrats. Some cross-sample.

Concluding, Cooper remarks

Now, maybe you haven't been paying attention to him since he left office, maybe you've been enjoying not hearing from him, thinking that can't happen again, some investigation is going to stop him. Well, it hasn't so far. So if last night showed anything, it showed it can happen again. It is happening again. He hasn't changed and he is running hard. You have every right to be outraged today and be angry and never watch this network again. But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?

Anderson surely knows this is silly and illogical. There are many ways to cover Trump responsibly. That debacle — no. https://t.co/EZPeaogUkN

— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) May 12, 2023

It won't make him go away. We all know that because we've all been paying attention to him since he left office as he is in the news every (every) day. Moreover, we all realize that he may be elected President again because we know he is the odds-on favorite to win the nomination of his decadent party. And a couple of days before the townhall event, we learned from The Washington Post, which teams with ABC News on its surveys

When asked who they would support in 2024, 44 percent of voting-age adults say they would "definitely" or "probably" vote for Trump while 38 percent would definitely or probably vote for Biden. The remaining 18 percent are either undecided or gave another answer.

The typically reliable New York Times noted "critics of the poll disparaged it for including all adults in its sample of 1,006, rather than just registered voters."  The typically unreliable CNN and MSNBC (probably also Fox News, though I wouldn't know) omitted from its breathless headline and explanation the four words "of voting-age adults."  The poll was trash and obviously so, yet bolstered the credibility of the leading candidate, whose detractors have argued that unlike other possible GOP nominees, he cannot possibly be elected.

Cooper addressed the opposition of some individuals- overtaken in the aftermath of the event itself- to Trump being given any platform. However, as details about the event trickle out afterward, it should become clear that the problem lay not in the platform but in the nature of the platform. Ever since these "town halls" became a thing, candidates and other politicians have been able to manipulate the forum for their own advantage. The CNN occasion was particularly bad because, unlike most of these shows, opponents of the official were deliberately excluded and the audience was given special instructions. Salon explains

Republican political consultant Matthew Bartlett told Puck's senior political correspondent, Tara Palmeri, that while many members of the audience applauded the former president, "there were also people that sat there quietly disgusted or bewildered," estimating that the audience was split in half.

"The floor manager came out ahead of time and said, Please do not boo, please be respectful. You were allowed to applaud," Bartlett said. "And I think that set the tone where people were going to try their best to keep this between the navigational beacons, and that if they felt compelled to applaud, they would, but they weren't going to have an outburst or they weren't going to boo an answer."  

Nonetheless, there is a possible silver lining to the CNN travesty. Before there is a general election season, there is a primary season.  Aside from Trump, there currently are three candidates- Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, and Vivek Ramaswamy- for the GOP presidential nomination. Each of the three should be given the same courtesy as was given the ex-President. Each could be granted a town hall meeting with Republicans and Independents; no Democrats need apply. The ground rules should be the same, including Kaitlan Collins as the moderator and booing discouraged. As more candidates emerged, they should be extended the same privilege by CNN.

If this were to transpire, one or more of the candidates would benefit more than Donald Trump did or could have hoped to. Trump is a known commodity. The cake is baked, with virtually everyone having a strong opinion of a fellow  whose floor is high and ceiling, low. Not so with the other candidates, who would be given a chance to shine (or flame out).

Two wrongs, some would say, do not make a right. In this case, multiplication of negative numbers is a much more applicable analogy. A negative number is a negative number, yet when it is multiplied by another negative number, a positive number results.

Give them all (and every declared Democratic presidential nominee) a shot. CNN's Chris Licht may decide not to do this and instead declare that he has learned from his error(s) or give another other excuse for not doing what is right. But beware. As he has done for one, he must do for all or face the charge- justified- that he's in the tank for Donald J. Trump.

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Trump Taking a Cue from an Ex-President

At the Wednesday night televised town hall, Donald Trump was nothing if not Donald Trump. And

When asked who he thought would win the current war, he told his interviewer, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, “I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying. Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”

When asked how he would stop the war in 24 hours he said “I’ll meet with Putin, I’ll meet with Zelensky, they both have strengths and they both have weaknesses and in 24 hours it will be done.”

Pressing him, Collins asked repeatedly, “But you won’t say you want Ukraine to win this war?” Trump ignored the question, saying “I want Europe to put up more money" ...

When asked whether he supported sending more weapons and aid to Ukraine (Washington has already allocated over $113 billion, and of that, has now sent nearly $37 billion in weapons as of this week) “We’re giving away so much equipment, we don’t have ammunition for ourselves right now,” he said. “We don’t have ammunition for ourselves we’re giving away so much.”

Having seen the ex-President give an unsurprising thumbs-up to Vladimir Putin, a couple of Republicans would have none of it. It was a rare show of  lack of cowardice among Republicans as

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called former President Donald Trump a “coward” and a “puppet of Putin” for refusing to say that Ukraine should win in its war against Russia....

“I think he's a coward and I think he's a puppet of Putin,” Christie, a Republican weighing a presidential run, told radio host Hugh Hewitt. “I don't know why, to tell you the truth, but I can't figure it out, there's no other conclusion to come to."

In a phrase I've never uttered and may never do again- credit Chris Christie. Also, declared presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson, who decried Trump's remarks about Ukraine and Russia. Vying for the Profiles in Cowardice trophy, Nikki Haley, who has posed as the neocon's neocon, has as of this moment said nothing.

Understandably, none of the GOP presidential candidates directly addressed the most clever and least intriguing comment about the  war. Trump remarked "I’ll meet with Putin, I’ll meet with Zelensky, they both have strengths and they both have weaknesses and in 24 hours it will be done.”

Fifty-five years later, we heard much the same in that 

As more and more of the Nixon tapes are brought to light - underscoring what a suspicious, vengeful, plotting turn of mind the man possessed - I'm reminded of presidential candidate Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to get the United States out of the Vietnam War if elected in 1968.

It was at a private session with a half-dozen surprised and skeptical editors in the spring of his campaign that Nixon unveiled his get-out-of-the-war plan. Among these Midwest editors were those who had watched Mr. Nixon closely during the cold-war years. They viewed him as a basically hard-line communist-hater who, as president, could be counted on to take a "you can't trust the communists" line.

They could hardly believe their ears, therefore, when Nixon said that, upon becoming president, he would (1) arrange a summit meeting with the Soviet leaders to gain their help in ending the Vietnam War, and (2) seek to "de-Americanize" the Vietnam conflict. About the latter, an editor told me that Nixon clearly was indicating he had a plan to phase out US troop involvement in the war.

We know now, of course, that there never was a summit with the Soviets. Nor was any plan to "de-Americanize" the war a visible part of Nixon's approach to that conflict after he became president.

Indeed, in speeches and statements, Nixon continued to give the "hawks" in this country reason to believe he would carry on the war - perhaps even, as they hoped, stepping up our involvement. Not surprisingly, they fully backed him.

And yet here was Nixon, appearing to share with these Midwest editors a plan to get out of the war. I later heard that he continued to talk along this same line in "background" sessions with other liberal-minded editors during the months before the election. Behind the scenes, he was reaching out to the "doves."

My memory of this was jogged recently at a Monitor lunch, where Nixon's defense adviser in the '68 campaign, Melvin Laird, said flatly of a Nixon pre-election intention to gradually pull US troops out of the war: "He had no such plan."

Mr. Laird, who was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee back then and later was Nixon's secretary of defense, told us that the only Vietnam phase-down plan he knew about was one that was "being developed in the Pentagon." He said Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey heard about it and rejected the idea. "I think that Humphrey would have won if he had accepted and run with that plan," Laird said.

So what was Nixon up to with these "private" end-the-war disclosures? I think he was merely seeking to mute or tone down criticism of his candidacy among dovish-minded editors. And it was from these "off the record" briefings that a story began to circulate among those who wanted the US out of the war: that Nixon had a "secret plan" to bring the boys home. He doubtless was able to win some dove votes from those who felt Humphrey had been too closely tied to President Johnson's acceleration of the war.

The "secret plan" story got around and was a factor in the election. But it simply wasn't true. Nixon had been "playing a little politics." It was a good example of the devious, crafty Nixon at his best - or, more aptly, at his worst.

Richard Nixon, the tough-guy anti-Communist essentially promised "peace in our time" and was elected President in 1968, Yet, on his way to re-election, he increased the bombing of North Vietnam, increased American troop levels and was re-elected in 1972. Eventually, troop levels were wound down and a surrender was finally negotiated by the Administration- by America- in March of 1973. In a tragic, preventable, failure of the media and the political class, the end of the war was not portrayed as the national defeat it was.

Nixon had no plan but Donald Trump, also promising to end a war quickly, does. Similarly devious and crafty (albeit cruder), the ex- President claims "in 24 hours it will be done." It is his own "secret plan" because "within 24 hours," he asserted, "that war will be settled. It'll be over."

It probably wouldn't be over in only 24 hours. The Ukrainians will go on fighting, unsuccessfully, because it's their country and they're not going to give it up without doing all they can to stop the Russian advance.. But it will eventually be over with a Russian victory because as Trump subtly implies, he will be telling  Volodymyr Zelenskyy that we're done and- at best- giving him no further assistance.

It's a page from the Nixon playbook, though more than a half century later, updated for the 21st century. Promise an end to foreign entanglement without offering details.  Like Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope, a non-plan plan is difficult to attack. It worked once and Donald Trump is betting that it will again.

 

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GOP Con Job Continues

Nancy Mace was first elected to the House of Representatives in November, 2020. Two months later, she voted against the impeachment of Donald Trump for his role in the attempted coup of January 6, 2021. Now: 

“Look, if a former president can be investigated, so too can a current president.”

— Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) claims there are “potential multiple smoking guns” in the investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. pic.twitter.com/o4YmEgFOU1

— The Recount (@therecount) May 9, 2023

When during July, 2019 he testified before Congress

former special counsel Robert Mueller noted that part of his decision to refrain from considering an indictment of President Donald Trump was attributed to a long-standing Justice Department policy: According to the agency’s Office of Legal Counsel, a sitting president cannot be charged with a federal crime.

“We, at the outset, determined that, when it came to the president’s culpability, we needed to go forward only after taking into account the OLC opinion that indicated that a sitting president cannot be indicted,” he said.

The OLC policy itself is relatively straightforward: Most recently reevaluated in 2000, it argues that the executive branch would be incapacitated by a criminal prosecution:

The indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.

That was, and remains, in terms Joe Biden would understand, malarkey. There was no constitutional or statutory impediment to prosecuting a sitting President for a criminal offense. Mueller chose not to state explicitly that President Trump had appeared to have committed a crime because he was a Marine who didn't want to create additional controversy.  However, he did state that the President could be charged with obstruction of justice once he left the office. 

Moreover, as The Hill reported at the time, "hundreds of former federal prosecutors and DOJ officials have signed on to a letter saying that they believe Trump would have been charged with a crime were it not for the guidance" of a policy memorandum from the Department of Justice."  (It shouldn't have stopped prosecution, but it did.)

This is not a hard-and-fast rule. Nevertheless, it was one which a Justice Department in a Democratic Administration followed when it investigated a Republican president. Nonetheless, Nancy Mace wants us to believe that the reason Donald Trump wasn't charged was not because he was a sitting President but because there was little reason to believe he had committed a crime. The Biden Justice Department gave President Trump a break, and now a fairly prominent Republican is trying to gaslight the public in return.

Today, someone who was fine with an American citizen trying to overthrow the federal government is telling the DOJ "to get off their ass.

“The DOG — DOJ — needs to get off its ass … If these allegations — any of these allegations — are proven true, then someone with the last name Biden needs to be charged, prosecuted, and maybe spend a little time in prison.”

— Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) on Biden family probe pic.twitter.com/s2oDt0eXpr

— The Recount (@therecount) May 10, 2023

Representative Mace wants Joe Biden undermined and Donald Trump, the probable 2024 GOP presidential nominee, elected President/ She is never lumped in with bomb-throwing colleagues such as Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, or Paul Gosar. She is among those Republicans considered by the center-left media to be a "moderate" and "normal," demonstrating once again that such an animal is now virtually extinct.

 

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For Mental Health Except When They're Not

I was not even a teenager when the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed in September of 1963, although I do know that the thoughts and prayers of fellow congregants did not stop a crime which killed four young girls. 

The thoughts and prayers of fellow Christian congregants did not stop a crime which killed four young girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in September of 1963. I was not even a teenager at the time and do not recall what the public sentiment was in response but, whatever it was, Sherilynn Ifill has a valid point:

We are reaching an inflection point, which is when they try to wave you away from the fight. She sounds like the white ppl who said stop marching after the Birmingham Church bombing that killed the 4 girls. “It’s not working.”Trying to make us responsible for their intransigence. https://t.co/HA9SH8dM3H

— Sherrilyn Ifill (@SIfill_) May 7, 2023

Megyn Kelly does not question the wisdom of gun safety legislation, instead throwing up her arms and effectively arguing that opponents of murder throw up their arms in futility. Following last month's school shooting in Nashville, Kelly pulled out the "mental health" diversion. She remarked

There's something wrong with our society and I for one (apparent profanity deleted) am sick of the knee jerk "it's the guns, it's the guns." We have 330 million guns, maybe over 400 million by some accounts, in America. They're not going away. We could do an assault weapons ban tomorrow. They're not going away, alright?

We have to take a serious, honest look at what's wrong with us. And I for one think we need to take a really hard look at, yes, mental illness here and also institutionalization. Institutionalization. We need to make it easier to civilly commit people who are showing signs- red flags- that they may be the next school shooter.

 

It's not only school shooting and Kelly's comments on Sunday came in wake of the murder of eight people at a mall in Allen, Texas. School shooting incidents shock the conscience more than any other but a massacre may be coming to a mall, church, at a place of employment, or anywhere. Anywhere.

There are severe constitutional and budgetary reasons why the institutionalization advocated by Kelly will not take place and is even less likely than modest, incremental gun safety measures. Once upon a time, at tremendous financial cost, common cruelty, and disappointing results, individuals deemed to be mentally ill were institutionalized. After two Supreme Court decisions, in 1975 and 1999, severe restrictions were placed upon placement of individuals into in-patient mental health facilities. Decarceration, or what is commonly referred to as deinstitutionalization, resulted.

 

Without going as far as Kelly, Texas governor Greg Abbott has emphasized the alleged role of mental illness in mass shootings.  After the massacre in Allen, he stated "People want a quick solution. The long-term solution here is to address the mental health issue."

After the mass shooting at Robb elementary School in Uvalde, Texas a year ago, he had argued "We as a state, we as a society need to do a better job with mental health. Anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health challenge. Period. We as a government need to find a way to target that mental health challenge and to do something about it."

Abbott recently had cut mental health funding in Texas, which already was ranked last in the nation in support of mental health services. Which is to say: the mental health excuse is just that.

Other countries have mentally ill people. None but the USA has more firearms in private hands than there are residents of the country. Megyn Kelly wants us to "take a serious look at us." Most of us have, and realize what is wrong with us is Kelly, Abbott, and the others who are fine with the slaying of men, women, and children.

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Childish in Vermont

If it is always wise to take what politicians say with a grain of salt, it is wise to take whatever Tulsi Gabbard says, especially on Fox News, with a pitcher of the stuff.

A public elementary school just announced it will stop using “boy” & “girl” and instead use "person who produces sperm" & "person who produces eggs.” This seems like a prank, but it’s real. By rejecting the existence of objective truth, they’re conditioning us to accept the truth… pic.twitter.com/5DleRhSZvI

— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) May 6, 2023

Alas, it turns out that Gabbard was not making it up because

On the heels of national backlash, some parents in the Essex-Westford School District let their school board know how they feel about the new sex education policy in one of their schools. And now the governor is weighing in, too.

Tuesday night was the first board meeting since the district announced it is changing how it teaches puberty and reproductive health at Founders Memorial School.

Last month, parents of fifth graders received a letter explaining that educators will now use the phrases “person who produces sperm” or “person who produces eggs” in place of male or female.

The district insists the policy creates a safe and inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ students.

More than a dozen parents spoke at Tuesday’s meeting. The majority agreed with the new policy.

“I am so disappointed in the anger that has erupted in our community over what amounts to space for gender nonconforming students to feel safe and free and express their identity,” said Mary Brodsky, an Essex-Westford parent.

“I am so grateful my boys that go to school here. They are so much more wiser, knowledgeable than I was at their age. I am so grateful of the education they’re getting to understand the breadth and depth of humanity,” said Alexis Dubie, another parent.

Only two speakers raised concerns about the new policy. One said this concept could be confusing for students so young, while another said it discounts biological facts.

It’s not clear if students at other schools in the district-- at A.D. Lawton and the Westford School-- will be using person-first language in their sex ed classes.

Only be advised that the binder which will be available in the main office for review will not be, as Mitt Romney would have put it, "whole binders full of women" but instead "whole binders full of persons who produce eggs." And if a "person who can get pregnant" is asked what the sex of her person before infancy is, she can say "person who produces sperm" or "person who produces eggs." Alternatively, she can use clear language without making a political statement.

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A Racist Lynching, or What We Call Something Before We Know Exactly What Happened

This is an utterly despicable tweet by a member of "The Squad."

He was 30 years old.

Black men deserve to grow old—not be lynched on a Subway because they were having a mental health crisis.

Jordan deserved better. Accountability now. pic.twitter.com/aX5qcryrbx

— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) May 4, 2023

Black men certainly deserve to grow old. So do black women, white women, and white men. So do all others, regardless of gender/sex and ethnicity.  (They don't deserve to die violently on a subway nor after eating at Subway, a reference suggesting Ayanna Presley never has ridden on the first).

Reacting to the black lives movement of the second half of 2020, a few whites would express the notion that "All Lives Matter." They were typically derided and mocked as being racist.

The tweet by Pressley, an educated and accomplished individual, may as well have been posted to justify that slogan. Here is a United States congresswoman who could have easily stated "young people deserve to grow old." But, no, when attempting to stoke racial resentment, nothing works quite as efficiently as limiting your wish to "black men." It leaves out a whole lot of people, as it is intended to do.

And of course, the death of Jordan Neely wasn't a lynching, as a member of the United States Congress should know, as she does. A black woman is no more (nor less) justified in using strategically, and dangerous, language  The imagery of a lynching is especially gruesome, however, thus particularly effective at stirring anger. The following were Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in 1930 in Indiana. I'll say their names. Pressley won't.

Were the congresswoman aware of this post, she might complain that as a black American, she would know more about lynching than I do. It is at that point I'd note that as a white person, I can assure her that there may be no more enduring stereotype of African-Americans than that of a smiling black guy cutting a rug like no one's business. Congratulations to Representative Pressley for reinforcing that puerile image.

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