Category Archives: Poltiics

Make Trump Eat a “Truth Sandwich”

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At this moment, a few hours before Donald Trump takes yet another chunk of free network airtime to, most likely, shamelessly lie about a World War Z-like horde of terrorists laying siege to our southern border Twitter, the pundit class and TV executives are debating how to handle this.

In the good old days, before talk radio cynics dictated terms to Presidents of the United States, this was a pretty easy call. Whoever he was, POTUS got on the network tube and made his case. Times had changed though by the time Barack Obama was denied free time in 2014 … to talk about immigration issues choking government function. (Obama. Immigration. So boring. Can’t interrupt “The Bachelor”!)

But — startling news flash — there’s nothing ordinary, or usual or traditional about Donald Trump, and giving him another ten minutes to stoke rage and hysteria over a problem (the hordes of terrorists) that doesn’t exist, comes damn close to allowing a fool/madman shout “fire!” in a crowded theater. Nevertheless, very much like local news outlets, network executives are (still) extraordinarily worried about being called names by rabid Trumpists for not playing fair with their leader, the great flabby white hope of their foundering low-information sub-culture.

What to do?

I’ve long thought there was everything to gain by putting any Trump speech on a five-minute delay and then running a fact-checking banner under him as he preened and bellowed.

For example: “I was only given a small loan by my father. Maybe a million dollars.” [In fact, Trump was given over $400 million dollars by his father, most if not all through extremely suspicious tax avoidance schemes now under investigation.]

Like that. It’s pretty easy.

At Vox today, Sean Illing, a reliably intelligent character, interviews George Lakoff, professor of linguistics and cognitive science at UC Berkley. Lakoff  adds another layer to how to handle shameless, pathological liars practicing mass distortion. He calls it “The Truth Sandwich.”

Fundamentally, Lakoff believes the media should spend more time ignoring Trump than reacting to every coarse, corrupt, stupid and illegal thing he says. But journalism circa 2019 is a Twitter-based activity with no ability to resist herd activity and group-think.

So Lakoff recommends “the truth sandwich” for purely theatrical, cynically political stunts such as Trump slinging bullshit tonight.

“Journalists could engage in what I’ve called ‘truth sandwiches’, which means that you first tell the truth; then you point out what the lie is and how it diverges from the truth. Then you repeat the truth and tell the consequences of the difference between the truth and the lie. If the media did this consistently, it would matter. It would be more difficult for Trump to lie.”

I don’t about making it “more difficult” for Trump to lie. He will lie as long as he has a pulse. But it would certainly mitigate the networks’ problematic decision to give him (more) free airtime.

Basic concept: Assert the truth first. Then let Trump lie.

It would be valuable, for example, for Lester Holt to appear on our screens two minutes before Trump and say something like, “The President tonight is likely to refer to the influx of terrorists through the southern border as a rationale for building a wall he promised his supporters Mexico would pay for. Now, having never negotiated with Mexico, he insists American taxpayers must pay for the wall, which polls show only 25% of the public believes is necessary. If taxpayers don’t pay Mr. Trump will continue the government shut down he himself ordered and about which he has said, and I quote, “I will own”. The shutdown currently affects 800,000 mostly middle-class Americans — some of them TSA agents now calling in sick because they aren’t being paid  — and soon to affect thousands more landlords, vendors and contractors as effects spread out. For the record, a report by Mr. Trump’s government says that only six people attempting to cross the Mexican border in the last six months matched names on terrorist watch lists, and we have no accounting whether they were actual terrorists or were simply caught in bureaucratic error. Either way, six is not the same as 4000 as Mr. Trump, Vice-Present Mike Pence and others in his administration have been claiming in the most alarming tones. Moreover, 41 people were stopped at the Canadian border. But no one in the Trump administration has ever said anything about building wall to keep Canadians out. Finally, while Mr. Trump is demanding $5.7 billion to re-open the government, he was given $1.3 billion last year for ‘border security’ and has to even bother to spend the bulk of that money. Now … the President of the United States.”

Illing goes on to argue that Trump’s base — aka Gooberus Americanus — is so completely sealed off from objective news reporting they’ll never eat a “truth sandwich” even if NBC, ABC and CBS serve one up on avocado toast.

He then asks:

Sean Illing

Why do Republicans seem to be doing much better in terms of framing the debate?

George Lakoff

A lot of Democrats believe in what is called Enlightenment reasoning,and that if you just tell people the facts, they’ll reach the right conclusion. That just isn’t true.

People think in terms of conceptual structures called frames and metaphors. It’s not just the facts. They have values, and they understand which facts fit into their conceptual framework. You can’t understand something if your brain doesn’t allow it, if your brain filters it out in terms of your values.

Democrats seem not to understand this, and they keep trying to employ reason as a persuasive vehicle. I wish Enlightenment reasoning was an accurate model for how most people think and judge, but it isn’t, and we better acknowledge that fact.”

Enlightenment thinking. On the great evolutionary scale, not everyone is there yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since We’re All Adults Here, Let’s Remember Everything about Bush 41

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The eulogies for Bush 41, (the father of W*, y’know), are getting a long run this week, to be capped by Wednesday’s state funeral in D.C.. And as usual with passing leaders, the reflections are heavy on hagiography.

In general I won’t quibble with the assessment that 41 was a decent guy (mostly), unfailingly polite to friends and foes (until his people weren’t), respectful of government traditions (as far as that goes), prepared to take a hit to correct a problem before it turned into a crisis and a far (far) better role model for the country’s youth than the shameful vulgarian currently squatting in the Oval Office.

In other words, as the Republican presidents of my lifetime go, he was up there with Dwight Eisenhower in terms of competence and ethics. But hagiography is a lazy, mush-headed exercise in any situation and certainly when the deceased has been a major international leader. As an adult no longer guided by fables and fairy tales I believe it’s better for all concerned to roll the warts, the blunders and the occasional hook-up with sleaze merchants into the historical narrative.

I’m always amused at how the media’s fulminating “small gummint conservatives” seem never to recall a Republican in the White House since St. Ronald of Hollywood. Until he died this past week how many times in the past year have you heard any pundit or politician even mention the name(s) of either George H. W. Bush or his son? It’s like they never existed. There was only Ronald, who should be on Mt. Rushmore, (perhaps carved over Abraham Lincoln) and then we jump to … well, most of them are still pretending Trump is a closet Democrat.

But here’s a shocker. I had no time for Reagan. Him launching his 1980 general election campaign with a speech lauding “states rights” (i.e. white nationalism) at the Neshoba County Mississippi fairgrounds, seven short miles from where the Ku Klux Klan murdered three civil rights workers barely a decade earlier, would have been disqualifying enough, if he hadn’t already played the feckless toady during the House Un-American Activities hearings on The Hollywood Ten. After that you can move on to his presidency. Refusing to lift a finger to control the AIDS epidemic, (that gay crap don’t play with the “states rights” crowd, so bleep ’em). And then jump to Iran-Contra and the usual Republican legacy of an astonishing run-up of debt and gutting of social services.

Reagan was a doltish tool for the ruling class who could read a script and tell a joke. Hence: The Great Communicator … to the Neshoba County-like, “states rights” base.

My regard for Bush 41 would be different today had he not preceded Reagan’s “states rights” strategy by renouncing his support for civil rights legislation being pushed by Martin Luther King (and Lyndon Johnson) in an effort to win votes in Texas in 1964. Playing the racial animus card for personal political game is always and forever a bridge too far. You want to change your attitude on taxes or pothole repair? Knock yourself out. But no truly moral human being ever … ever … inflames racial antipathies to get elected to a better job.

But then comes the 1988 campaign, which starts out with selecting … Dan Quayle, a Sarah Palin-like cipher — as his VP choice. (I was there at that moment next to the levee in downtown New Orleans.) Dude, you and John McCain … you lose serious points from the get-go for really bad, un-presidential judgment.

And it gets worse in ’88 by hiring on the D.C. “lobbying” firm of Charles Black, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Lee Atwater, and giving them a long run of leash to pull every sleazy, race-baiting trick they could think of against Mike Dukakis, including Lee Atwater’s notorious “Willie Horton ad”.

The retch-inducing shamelessness of that was, like Bush 43’s attack on John McCain as the illegitimate father of a black child during the South Carolina primary in 2000, all too typical of how the brahmin-like Bushes campaigned. Naked, cynical attacks on the street level under-girding a lofty, statesman-like pose from the podium.

That of course has been and still is from page one the Republican playbook, ever since “states’ rights” resentment-mongering guaranteed them white “working class”/”silent majority” votes over 50 years ago.

So yeah, in a very imperfect world where no human is ideal, and where as Bob Dylan says, “behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain”, Bush 41 was better than others. Maybe though just by being less reckless with the truth and less indecent than what we’re enduring now.

All that says though is that the bar is pretty damn low.

 

 

 

To Remain On Top, Minnesota Needs To Up It’s Voting Game

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It’s official.  During the recent 2018 elections, about 64% of Minnesotans voted, including 73% in the third congressional district.  That’s the best rate of voter participation in the nation, a familiar spot for Minnesota.  Local  massage therapists are reporting record-breaking business as smug Minnesotans seek relief following vigorous self back-patting.

Good for us, again. But here are a couple important things we need to do in the next legislative session to up our game, so we can hold onto that top spot.

 

Automatic Voter Registration

First, we need to remove bureaucratic hassles from the voter registration process.

Like most states, Minnesota still has “opt in” voter registration. Under this approach, an eligible voter must proactively find and fill out a voter registration application. It’s a bit of a pain, particularly if you’re a young adult who hasn’t yet built up a tolerance for paperwork or knowledge of the workings of government.

Under the automatic voter registration model that should be adopted in Minnesota, citizens are proactively registered to vote unless they “opt out.”  As of October of this year, 14 states are using various forms of automatic voter registration.

Just as an example, Oregon seems to have a good system. In that state, the DMV automatically shares voter registration-relevant data with the election agency.  When computers determine that age, citizenship and residency requirements have all been met, the election agency mails out a registration notification card.

On the card, the resident has three choices:  a) Choose a party affiliation and mail the card back; b) Check a box on the card to opt out of registration; or c) Do nothing, and after three weeks become automatically registered to vote as “unaffiliated.”  That’s it.  It makes democracy as easy as it should be.

To be sure, being registered to vote obviously doesn’t guarantee participation.  Far from it.  But it at least removes that initial barrier. Whether automatic voter registration leads to more participation or simply makes a needlessly cumbersome process more user-friendly and efficient, Minnesota needs to do this.

Vote By Mail

Second, Minnesota needs to make the process of voting much more convenient.

In a modern society, we can do just about everything without leaving home, such as hold meetings, shop, and fill out government paperwork .  But we still require citizens to leave their homes to vote in person, unless they proactively go to the trouble of securing an absentee ballot. That makes voting more difficult than it needs to be, especially if you’re old, sick, hurt, disabled, in a remote location, or lacking transportation.

We can do better.  In case you’ve missed this news, we have something called a mail system.  That means we can mail all registered voters a ballot, and let them study issues and candidates at home and mail it back at their convenience, within a set election period.

Variously called “vote by mail,” “vote at home,” or “all mail elections,” this is lot like the tried-and-true absentee voting system, with one obvious advantage: You don’t have to request a ballot.

The ballot just arrives in all registered voters’ mail at the beginning of an election period, without having to request it. In terms of convenience, it’s sort of like the difference between having to physically go to a utility office to hand over a payment in person versus having a utility bill mailed to you so you can pay by mail without leaving your home.

If that much convenience is objectionable to you, or you’re one of those many traditionalists, fine, we’ll still have a smaller number of physical locations for some of you holdouts.  Enjoy your time in line.

Vote-by-mail is obviously more convenient than voting in person, and it breaks down barriers to voting. The nonpartisan National Council on State Legislatures (NCSL) notes that research finds “turnout increases by single digits for presidential elections and more in smaller elections.”  That alone is enough reason to make the change.

But wait, there’s more! Vote-by-mail also is about 40 percent cheaper for taxpayers than traditional elections, according to a 2016 Pew study of Colorado’s experience.

Fraud, you ask? All election systems, including the current system, carry the possibility of fraud, as would vote-by-mail. But as the National Vote at Home Coalition (NVAHC) notes:

“Oregon has mailed-out more than 100 million ballots since 2000, with about a dozen cases of proven fraud.” That’s a 0.00000012 percent rate of fraud.”

Importantly, vote by mail also has a huge anti-fraud advantage.  Voting by mail leaves a trackable, auditable paper trail, which cybersecurity experts tell us is the surest way to thwart hacking and ensure election integrity.  In that very important way, vote by mail is much less prone to fraud than the current election system, particularly where voting machines are in use.

As an aside, I wish we could do online voting to save some trees.  But cybersecurity experts say online voting would be too prone to hacking. So vote by mail is the next best thing.

Minnesota legislators don’t like to be trailblazers, but we don’t have to go out on a limb on this one.  Oregon has been successfully using vote by mail this for 18 years, and 22 other states have followed their lead.

So while we Minnesotans are justifiably celebrating our civically engaged selves, we shouldn’t rest on our laurels.  If we want to maintain our top spot and strengthen our democracy, we’re going to need to take these steps to break down more of our remaining barriers to voting.

Cohen Pleads, Deutsche Bank is Raided, Witches Darken the Skies!

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As blessed as we are to live in interesting times, today is more interesting than most. Why? Because from the get-go everyone following the Trump Criminal Farce has been saying, “Follow the money”. And what do we have today? Glad you asked. Today we learned that authorities have raided Deutsche Bank in Germany on the (extremely) probable cause of having engaged in long-term, widespread international money laundering.

I know, you’re as shocked as I am.

Put bluntly, the only bank on the planet, (not chartered in Moscow or floating on a sea of Russian money), that was willing to loan money to Donald Trump received 170 unwelcomed guests this morning, most of them wearing badges. We already know that Robert Mueller had subpoenaed records from bank, where Trump is rumored to still owe as much as $480 million, a number roughly equivalent to the amount of the fraudulent tax scam handouts he received from his father before going bankrupt … several times.

But that is just a coincidence, I’m sure.

Serious people who have followed Trump’s finances long ago relieved themselves of any doubt that his real estate “empire” is based on decades of money laundering, and that a good deal of it has come via Russian gangsters. (Incoming House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff mentions money-laundering every time he’s interviewed, which is a lot.)

Moreover, Deutsche Bank is very likely the most prominent player in the entirely unsophisticated fraud Don Sr. and the Trump siblings have been living off for the last 20-odd years. (Cherubic multi-tool statesman Jared Kushner reportedly owes the same German bank $285 million. His records have also been subpoenaed.)

What’s always been even more interesting is that Trump wasn’t getting money from the normal commercial lending arm of Deutsche Bank, but rather the company’s bank-within-the-bank, its “private bank”, where the identities of actual depositors (dare we speculate that they might be very large-scale international criminals?) are hidden from prying eyes.

So … Deutsche Bank has been raided, simultaneous with Michael “I’ll take a bullet for Mr. Trump” Cohen pleading guilty after telling Mueller everything he knows about how Trump was planning to build/finance “the tallest tower in Europe” in Moscow … as he was campaigning for the [bleeping] White House in 2016.

So yeah, all in all, a very interesting day for everyone still capable of being gobsmacked by the total, flagrant corruption of this hapless crowd.

But … maybe the most interesting thing about this raid on a gargantuan international bank is that it happened at all. I mean, in my advanced addled state I may have forgotten the time 170 agents raided Lehman Brothers, Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns or Citigroup back in 2008 (or ever.)

While the astonishing frauds revealed in the Panama Papers is reported to be at the root of today’s episode, you gotta believe the German authorities had dead certainty that their case was made before they charged through the doors. (Likewise, I assume Deutsche Bank’s top executives made certain they had a firewall around their reputations. I see two lower level bankers have been ID’d as scapegoats for sacrifice.)

Outside of the Kremlin itself (or the House of Saud) giant banks are the most impervious institutions the world has ever seen. Fantastic sums support fantastic legal and lobbying firepower that few governments dare risk taking on in a frontal attack.

Trump’s handler, Mr. Putin, is of course a central character (albeit a step or two removed) in the Panama Papers. And there’s no indication that Mueller’s investigation has any role in this business.

But, the possibility that Mueller’s team — of career financial fraud experts, who have been pouring over Deutsche Bank records for months — may have something to do with this is way too tantalizing to dismiss as another crazy notion.

The end game approaches. Look up! The sky is full of witches in panicked flight.

 

 

 

 

 

Our Boy Donny, Now Wearing the Scent of a Loser

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As of dawn Wednesday November 7 we entered the “Donald Trump is unequivocally a loser” phase of this tragi-comic farce. You and I have known this for a long time, going back to his multiple-bankruptcy days in Jersey casinos. But now it gets more interesting. A lot more interesting. Because now his world leader peers and heretofore gutless Republican leadership have hard evidence that the guy is not only the fool they always knew him to be, but a toxic fool teetering on the brink of what is likely an extremely fast and inevitably crushing downhill slide.

Even Trump knows this, I truly believe.

Look at it this way: he’s a character, a “brand”, built almost entirely on gross exaggeration, absurd misrepresentation and outright fraud. He’s never been what he claimed to be, only what some of the media and public wanted him to be. (The serious New York and national press have been fitful at best in assessing their responsibility in the co-creation of the Trump myth over all his years as a ubiquitous, gaudy socialite.)

Not being utterly stupid, Trump — as we know from his estranged biographer — has always been keenly aware of being stiff-armed by New York’s truly wealthy and (somewhat less flagrantly) corrupt. His thin-veneer aristocratic stylings far too gauche for the city’s truly wealthy and well-bred. Everything about him, his self-baked celebrity status, the licensing of his name, his TV career has been dependent on his “brand” of being “a winner.”

But “a winner” he is not anymore, and everyone can see that. The only crowd clinging to the myth is he himself, his family (maybe) and his base, i.e. MAGA Goober Nation. Deep within FoxNews and Rush Limbaugh world, I suspect even they know what’s gone down.

This is new. We haven’t been here before. Republicans, for example, had no choice but play along as long as he was demonstrating an ability to drive goobers to the polls and win elections. But politics, especially among the most craven and cynical, which describes Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan to a “T”, is absolutely merciless when your mojo evaporates and you lose the scent of a winner. Friends can’t abandon you fast enough.

And in Trump’s case, combined with what may end up a 38-39 seat Democratic wave in the House and Senate losses in Arizona, Nevada and Montana, the scent of loser is settling on him like a wool coat downwind from a Nebraska feedlot.

International leaders — political animals all of them — are as familiar with a loser’s scent as anyone here in the States. Where until last week they had to play along and patronize Trump the Fool as America’s guy at the table, not knowing how long the clown show was going to last, they now know Robert Mueller and House Democrats are going to lay siege to the Trump Myth and expose it for the unsophisticated fraud it has always been. That reality makes Trump not only eminently ignorable as a peer, but a rich target for moral opposition, as France’s Emmanuel Macron did in his anti-nationalist speech — to Trump’s face — last weekend.

Most importantly, and worrisome, Trump himself now knows the jig is up. His behavior in the past week, at that press conference, outside the White House under the chopper blades, tweeting about California’s wildfires and blowing off WWI memorial events in France screams of a guy in the throes of a humiliation that he is defenseless to stop from consuming him … like a wildfire, you might say.

His Republican “friends”, having seen what playing cozy with Trump did for them in every precinct with a population density greater than 10 cows per square mile, have no reason at all to take any more bullets for him or block juggernaut investigations, even if they could.

Point being, until now we haven’t seen Trump-backed-into-a-corner recklessness. We soon will.

All Trump has today is the right-wing media and his base.

And both of them will drift away as they get sick of all the losing.

 

 

Farewell Mark Dayton, The Un-Politician

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As we count down Mark Dayton’s final days as Governor of Minnesota, it’s worth reflecting on one of the more peculiar figures in recent Minnesota political history.

If mad political scientists had set out to create the perfect politician, rest assured it would look nothing like Mark Dayton.

In a profession where optimism sells, Governor Eeyore came across as perpetually gloomy.

In a job where gregariousness and charm are needed to build winning coalitions, Dayton wasn’t very willing or able to glad-hand with legislators or other power brokers.

In a business where glibness is an invaluable asset, Dayton was often difficult to understand and unpersuasive in his speaking style. (Some of this may have been due to an underlying health issue, but the political challenge remains.)

In a grueling endeavor where energy and stamina are needed, Dayton’s chronic health issues have slowed him in his job and on the campaign trail.

And in a job where charisma often wins converts, Dayton possessed all the charisma of a lump of lutefisk.

Poor Governor Dayton. He lacks the hard-wired optimism of Hubert Humphrey, charm of Tim Pawlenty, glibness of Norm Coleman, energy of Paul Wellstone and charisma of all of the above.

But somehow, some way, Mark Dayton became a successful Governor.

He raised taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans and increased the minimum wage without crashing the economy, as his conservative critics had promised would happen.

He expanded Medicaid and faithfully implemented the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which led to Minnesota having the best rate of health insurance coverage in state history, and one of the best in the nation.

He paid back millions that Pawlenty had borrowed from schools, and increased investments in them.

He refused to use the budget gimmicks Pawlenty employed to avoid tough choices, which helped end Minnesota’s long run of budget shortfalls, and allow Minnesota to earn a coveted AAA bond rating, which will save taxpayers millions in future years.

While implementing these progressive policies, Minnesota’s economy has boomed, outperforming the national economy and the economy that conservative Governor Scott Walker built in neighboring Wisconsin.

It also should be noted that Dayton’s family inheritance made it possible for him to self-fund his rise to political power. Ordinary people with Dayton’s political disabilities could not have achieved what Dayton did in his career.  That’s a problem for our democracy.

But the fact remains, Dayton achieved all of this without a lot of political talent. He mostly accomplished those things due to his decency, candor, policymaking expertise, disciplined focus, and commitment to doing the right thing for vulnerable Minnesotans and our common good.

In the end, I’d take those things over all the optimism, glibness, gregariousness, energy, stamina and charisma in the world. Somehow, Dayton the un-politician made it work.

A Few Mostly Kind Words About Pat Reusse

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I don’t usually bother writing anything about sports, or sports writing. That’s because as marketplaces for hot takes and punditry go sports is at least as glutted as politics … but without the saving grace of relevancy to something more important than mere entertainment and distraction.

That said, I do like sports. And follow them. Always have. Baseball in particular. (The play-off series between the Red Sox and Astros should be the best of all of them this year.) And, I like pro football, something I say somewhat ashamedly, given everything we all know about the NFL. On the other hand, I know next to nothing about hockey and only kick into basketball gear in March when the Kansas Jayhawks, recipients of thousands of dollars of Lambert tuition cash, make a run at a title.

All that said, for many years I have been a regular reader and fan of Star Tribune sports writer Pat Reusse. Especially the cranky, pissed-off, had-it-up-to-here Reusse we can read this morning as he rakes Timberwolves superstar Jimmy Butler and coach Tom Thibodeau over the coals for Butler’s pre-meditated, maximum media exploitation tantrum at a recent practice session. (Bottom line to that little drama: Butler doesn’t want to play for the Wolves anymore.) What I (and many others) like is that Reusse both has and regularly deploys a license few other columnists on any beat enjoy in this town.

For the record, Reusse and I have crossed paths over the years, but that’s it.

He came to mind often as I inhaled the latest book by New York Times writer, Mark Leibovich. Normally encamped in DC reporting and commenting (acidly) on the vanities, delusions and perfidy of our ruling class (both government and media), Leibovich cadged a book deal to check out the NFL at the highest levels. The result, “Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times” is a unique, delicious and frequently hilarious vivisection of a class of bizarre-to-dysfunctional characters, namely NFL owners and NFL management, constantly obsessed over and “reported” on by literally thousands of professional writers. (There are a lot of good reasons why “Big Game” has not been mentioned on any NFL telecast.)

Journalism has long been divided into two camps. 1: Beat writers who rely on regular access to sources in order to feed news (or “nuggets” as Leibovich likes to call breathless sports minutiae) to their editors and readers. And 2: Columnists who are charged with applying something like accountability to pretty much the same stories, usually by writing cranky, dyspeptic things about failing coaches and athletes. The twain does not often meet, and truth be told, most mainstream publications, print or on-line, are still highly reluctant to print everything a writer knows for damn certain about the characters they cover. It’s a game of mutual benefit, you see.

Truth be told, most sports and just about all business writing can be filed under the heading of “Service Journalism”, where the intended effect is to sustained a comfortable, symbiotic relationship between source and publication.

Reusse’s decades of service to the local sports scene and his deep entrenchment in the culture, from obscure utility infielders to high-profile owners gives him unusual sway over nervous editors. He can say things no one else can. That relative lack of managerial fetters is essential to his standing with intensely skeptical readers who know — from first-hand experience how watered down, neutered and homogenized most “coverage” — in sports, business and media — really is.

As my old pal David Carr used to say when I asked him about the new world of access that opened for him when he signed on with The New York Times, “Shit, everyone returns your call when your last name is ‘New York Times’.”

So it was with Leibovich, who not only has his calls/e-mails to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, superstar quarterback Tom Brady and dozens of owners returned, but goes on to spend significant time with them. On the sidelines, in (one of) their multi-million dollar mansions and occasionally even while they’re in the company of their latest 14 year-old girlfriend, they talk to Leibovich. (“Fourteen” is not an accurate number when describing Patriots owner and major Trump supporter Robert Kraft, but you get the idea.)

The great, satisfying beauty of Leibovich’s writing is how he fully exploits the rare access he’s been allowed and doesn’t hesitate to drop the accountability hammer. Hell, he relishes it. (Garden variety writers and editors accept the neutered, half-a-story-is-better-than-none access protocol, because they’d be shut out of executive suites and clubhouses — and all those revealing post-game interviews — if they actually told the public what an asshole, fool or drunk so-and-so really is.) But then Leibovich doesn’t have to worry about coming back to cover jock world probably ever again.

Not that Reusse has had unimpeded free reign, mind you. His most fully-formed perspective of Zygi Wilf and the NFL’s shakedown of Minnesota politicians during the run-up to building our billion-dollar sports temple (U.S. Bank Stadium) didn’t appear in the Star Tribune, which, notoriously, was constantly boosting the project/taxpayer giveaway through every channel available to it. Reusse’s most, uh, “acute” commentary was quarantined over on his KSTP radio blog.

To let Reusse, arguably the paper’s most influential columnist in terms of shaping public opinion, rail on, Leibovich-like, right there in the Star Tribune’s own pages was unthinkable. Fully informing the public and lacerating the NFL for its ham-fisted extortion threats, local politicians for their comical, beyond parody, star-struck jowl-rubbing with Goodell when he made a rajah’s visit to Minnesota would have seriously undercut the paper’s Prime Directive. Namely, to build a stadium at whatever the cost and thereby guarantee the presence of a team — the Vikings — that drives the sale of millions of copies of the Star Tribune each and every year. (Reusse may have concurred with the quarantine, I don’t know.)

We can all live with the standard, fawning, half-the-story access reporting when the issue at hand is just some ego-crazed ballplayer ranting at teammates. But it sets (really) serious when that kind of coverage assists in sucking millions of taxpayer dollars away from other far, far more relevant services to build a stadium for, as Leibovich says, a sports league as rich and unchecked as any international cartel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It Comes Down to Whose “Angry Mob” is Bigger

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It’s been a dispiriting few days for everyone who believes (knows) Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath during his confirmation hearings. But anyone aware of the raw, animal power of grievance knew it was going to be tough-to-impossible to win both Kavanaugh and the November election. It was always one or the other. Never both.

Partisans of every persuasion are motivated by grievance  — the outrage over being cheated out of something — and can be counted on to dependably rally to the next opportunity to stick it to their offenders. Had Kavanaugh been defeated the right-wing fever bubble — talk radio, FoxNews, Breitbart — would be on fire from now until November 6 with howls of indignation and demands for vengeance.

Oh, but look! The howling and lust for vengeance is going on anyway.

While liberals and professional Democrats generally prefer to project reasonableness and fact-based arguments, conservatives and professional Republicans simply want to win, and win by whatever means possible. Facts and fairness don’t muddle their strategic planning.

And those qualities are appropriate given each side’s base. Republicans of the Trump era are deeply, profoundly invested in a self-defeating nihilism that is indifferent to whether the candidates it supports — Trump, Kavanaugh — ever do anything to improve their lives. A primary objective, possibly even the primary objective, is simply “sticking it to the libs”, the class forever in the bullseye of their roiling animosities and grievances — racial, economic, whatever. (The amount of time and energy that crowd puts into monitoring “lib” reaction to their lunacies is truly bizarre.)

So now, Trump and Republicans are ranting about “Democrat mob rule”, (all those angry women taunting Republican senators in office hallways). The calculation being that this will sustain the current spike in right-wing grievance enough to neutralize the swelling grievance and the left, mainly within the #MeToo movement.

But like modern news cycles, the life-span of most grievance spikes gets shorter every month. It’s tough sustaining committed anger. Grievance is a beast that requires regular infusions of novelty reaccelerate rage, preferably as close to election day as possible. Even the 11-days prior Comey Letter is now too far out to be a reliable anger-driver. It was so 2016.

Mitch McConnell may be one of modern history’s most cynical and reprehensible actors, but McConnell isn’t stupid. He knows that his new base — the Trumpists who went to the ballot box for the first time in 2016 — will need a fresh grievance probably within 72 hours of election day. And — my prediction — Mitch, coordinating with FoxNews, talk radio, Breitbart, et al (still after 30 years a messaging ecosystem liberals can only dream of) — will deliver something.

Motivated women, grievance-stoked liberals and everyone appalled at the racism and corruption of Trump must be prepared for that inevitability.

More to the point of mob anger, liberals need to perform a gut check at this moment and dispense with the hand-wringing over their Kavanaugh tactics. What else would have been “reasonable” or “appropriate”? I saw the author Walter Isaacson on TV this morning tut-tutting about liberal over-reach and the way it had riled-up the Trump base  … as though there was another, better way to respond to Kavanaugh, even without the sexual assault allegations. And why should we think “riling up” the Trumpists is the thing we need to avoid most?

Here’s the real thing: raging grievance is as natural to the Trump base as breathing. Liberals may be embarrassed about it, and wish we could all just enjoy a feisty rose together. But for 30 years the Republican media eco-system has reduced politics to team sport. Them/us, good guys/bad guys, saints/sinners. No nuance is required or needed. In fact, nuance is counter-effective.

Keep it real simple: Sound the alarm. Play the fight songs. Return to battle.

Liberals have to stop worrying about how their indisputably righteous anger over Trump and Trumpist degradation of America’s reputation for moral leadership “fires up the Trump base.” You’re embarrassed by the all the yelling and name-calling. Duly noted. Now get over it. Suck it up and play the game to win.

This is a (for the moment) non-violent form of civil war. Mob anger comes with the game, as the game has been designed by conservatives and is being played today. Self-recrimination is dispiriting.

Trump is a disgrace bordering on tragedy. Kavanaugh would not have been on The Federalist Society’s list of prospects if he wasn’t first and foremost a reliable partisan conservative warrior, as he proved during the Ken Starr “investigation” and the Florida recount. Trumpists are a revolting stew of easily manipulated ignorance, authoritarian phobias and irrational group-think. Those are realities.

What comes next is committing anger to action and driving more of our mob to the polls in November.

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s Move to The Avenatti Model

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As promised and on schedule Michael Avenatti has dropped another bomb on Brett Kavanaugh’s crater-filled road to the Supreme Court. Regularly tut-tutted over and dismissed as an ambulance-chaser non pareil Avenatti’s latest client — who is not anonymous — is prepared to tell the most lurid story yet of the young and entitled Mr. Kavanaugh’s sexual misadventures, in this case gang rape.

Avenatti popped up on Rachel Maddow’s show a couple of nights ago hinting at what was to come and vowing he would deliver “within 48 hours”, which he did. Again.

Mainstream, Big “J” journalism’s aversion to Avenatti is understandable, in normal times. Who hasn’t rolled their eyes and endured the righteous (righteous, I tell you!) indignation and oozing self-promotion of well-paid lawyers … performing in front of a TV camera? But at some point the bona fides of even the worst self-aggrandizer build up to the point where guys like Avenatti have to be taken seriously.

When you’re right, you’re right.

I mean, come on. TV in particular is clogged with regular players who either A: Have nothing new or significant to say, or B: Parrot whatever the network in question wants to hear, (so they’ll be asked back), or C: Are so far past their expiration date they’re like a straight-to-video sequel to “Weekend at Bernie’s”, (eg: Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum).

So someone — Avenatti — who is demonstrably in on the action and accurately forecasting what’s coming next should have much higher standing, credibility-wise, than “the usual suspects.” And he does, if you just count CNN and MSNBC, where it seems he has a cot in the corner for easier access to the pundit desk.

But, Big “J” journalism? Not quite so much. Avenatti’s Monday night vow on Maddow’s didn’t create much more than a rustle in big city newspapers, caution toward self-aggrandizers being a primary default for “serious journalists” and anxious politicians, normally for good reason. But after a good year on the scene and a batting average Ted Williams could only dream of, it seems Avenatti is still on a “wait and see” with the self-proclaimed adults in the room.

I think of Avenatti every time I hear someone ask (in solemn theological tones) what Democrats should do if they regain power in DC?

Should they go full payback on Republicans, pulling every foul and miserable trick Mitch McConnell, Devin Nunes, Chuck Grassley and on and on and on have been pulling for the last 20 years? Or, should they hew to the proper course of, you know, “regular order” and follow time-honored (and now regularly violated) standards of civility toward the opposition while seeking to “reach across the aisle?” (Personally, I’ve reached the point that whenever I hear or read someone urging any liberal to “reach across the aisle” I stop listening or reading … right after I gag.)

Implicit in the question is that there is only a binary choice. Democrats can either adapt all the ham-fisted, nefarious, nakedly bullshit tactics McConnell, Nunes and crew have resorted to, or they can be the same earnest chumps they’ve been played for since  Republicans decided winning is “the only thing” and dialed nefarious to 11.

That’s dim thinking.

The Avenatti Model, if we dare call it that, is not nefarious, illegal or unconstitutional. But it is shamelessly aggressive. You isolate a key weakness (illegality) in the opposition and you zero in on it with full prosecutorial energy and zeal. You make the opposition pay a very high public price for nefarious activity. You use every tool at your disposal, which means exploiting Big “J” journalism, punditry and the entertainment industry. And you keep at it until the offense the opposition has committed becomes a permanent stain on their brand. In other words, you make them own their deviousness and bullshit.

(If the concern is you could over-play your hand — like McConnell et al — you’ll hear about it fast enough from the liberal base.)

No matter what happens during Thursday’s hearings, The Avenatti Model would move Christine Blasey Ford and every other woman prepared to speak out against Kavanaugh up to the next level of the court of public opinion. Namely, a coordinated series of TV interviews with — oh I don’t know, Oprah, “60 Minutes” or any of the gal hosts of the morning chat shows — and let the public get a full sense of who these women are and the credibility of their stories.

The effect would be to set the stain on Kavanaugh and his Republican handlers so deep it won’t how Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins eventually vote.

Oh! Not polite and collegial?

Screw polite.

 

 

 

 

Discuss: Why Would She Lie?

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Since we’re all adults here, let’s have a common sense discussion. The topic? “Why do people lie?”

Books have been written on the subject, a topic with which every human has direct experience. But without going into deeper-than-necessary psychology, let’s agree that people generally lie to make things easier if not better for themselves. To protect themselves. We lie to avoid conflict, shame and punishment. Not getting spanked as a child or jailed as an adult is a better option than a whupping from dad or bunking in a 10 x 10 cell with Dirty Louie. People lie to get what they want. Money, sex, status. We’ve seen it thousands of times. It’s been a staple of popular fiction since the first storytellers gathered around a cave fire.

But who lies knowing things will only get worse for themselves?

Even people who lie as a strategic tactic — in society, business or politics —  usually do it in a way that protects them from exposure and possible consequences. Self-preservation is as basic an animal instinct as breathing. You avoid situations that might lead to injury or death.

Which obviously brings us to Brett Kavanaugh v. Christine Ford. One of them is lying.

If Kavanaugh is lying it it’s easy to understand why. Everything about his reputation and status and ambition for authority/power is on the line. So, accused of sexual assault as a drunken teenager, he categorically denies it (lies) … as an adult. His life will be immeasurably better if the lie holds up. He will get what he wants. He will ascend to a level of influence held by only a handful of other humans and remain there until he dies.

That’s not hard to understand.

But Christine Ford? How does lying — as she’s being accused by the worst of Kavanaugh’s defenders — make her life better? More to the point, how would she ever see it it being better by making the accusation in the first place?  An accusation, by the way, we know she made weeks before Kavanaugh was revealed as Trump’s choice for the Court?

If she was too naive to know, with near absolute certainty, how her accusation would affect her, the first lawyer she contacted and, guessing here, the first staffer in Diane Feinstein’s office would have walked her through the grueling horror of the absolutely inevitable out-of-control hyper-partisan reaction. She would be vilified and threatened. Her professional career would be imperiled, if not terminated. She would need expensive legal advice and protection for a long time to come. She might not even being able to return to her own home. (She is now in hiding.)

So why would she lie — or even say anything at all, even if “mistaken”, as Orrin Hatch says — if she understood any of that? Nothing about her life was going to get better. Everything was going to get worse, certainly in the short-to-intermediate term. (If her accusation derails Kavanaugh she’ll earn “atta girl” points in liberal history books.)

Common sense, the experience of any rational adult, tells us that Ford only wades into that level of horror, that level of epic, negative disruption of her life, if she is telling the truth. Or at least believes she’s telling the truth.

And as for Kavanaugh’s categorical denial: as many of have noted, you can’t walk back something that emphatic. Once you say, “This never happened.” You can’t then undo a lie by conceding that you were, A: a stupid kid, B: blind drunk, and then C: issue a (very) belated apology.

If Kavanaugh has lied about this attack, he hasn’t destroyed his reputation as a drunken teenager, he’s destroyed it as a sober adult.

If Ford has lied, she could be clinically diagnosed as “recklessly unstable”, which of course is already happening … by no one with a clinical degree.

 

 

Next Up for Must-See TV, Kavanaugh v. Ford

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The so-called “Golden Age of Television” will get another turbo-charging next Monday if both Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Prof. Christine Ford show for their close-ups. Along with all the seismic shift changes since Clarence Thomas v. Anita Hill in 1991, the fact the media universe has quintupled, septupled … whatever … since then means this will be an instant, blockbuster TV classic.

The one unequivocally sane and rational suggestion for this latest battle of The Culture War is that there should be, you know, an actual investigation. Not another variation of the archaic farce these confirmation hearings always are. An actual investigation. With professional investigators. People not controlled by the Judiciary Committee’s fossilized Republican membership. Something other than — Orrin [bleeping] Hatch, or Chuck [for bleep sake] Grassley and Ted [are you bleeping kidding me?] Cruz — parceling out data for the aid and comfort of Mr. Kavanaugh.

Likewise, some independent entity like, uh, the FBI, would relieve the Committee’s Democrats/presidential aspirants of the need for splashy, empty theatrics. (Here’s looking at you Spartacus Booker.)

Personally though, I’m not inclined to expect anything rational to happen in D.C. ever again. But that’s just me.

Until Prof. Ford put her name on the accusation against Kavanaugh I was of the mind that CBS honcho Les Moonves was #MeToo’s biggest scalp to date. A vaguely recognized background character to most of the country, Moonves was a bona fide, no doubt about it titan of industry, as thoroughly protected by vast, thick layers of money and legal talent as any executive in the country. But #MeToo took him down.

Now though, if #MeToo, embodied by Prof. Ford, can chop block Brett Kavanaugh it will have a far, far more significant scalp. And we all will know for certain that this revolution not only has legs, but granite-like pillars. And if that happens — and the likelihood becomes more possible with each passing day — it will be a very good thing.

At this moment Kavanaugh v. Ford  is quintessential “he said, she said” with both camps of supporters deeply, emotionally invested in their player, pretty much regardless of any verifiable facts.

But here are the point(s) of separation for me.

Based on her reluctance to go on record until this past weekend, Prof. Ford seems to be fully aware of the shitstorm about to land on her … forever. Stepping up like she already has, much less after everything accelerates next Monday, her life has taken at least a 90 degree turn, never to return to its previous, peaceful, anonymous course.

Who does that if they’re lying?

A tatted-up, gum snapping, meth-head, maybe. But a 50-something career college professor? If she were as whacked and deluded as she would have to be to fake something like this I kinda think she’d have struggled (badly) in the notoriously pissy, petty world of academic politics.

But then there’s Kavanaugh. I very much agree with former Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold’s view in this morning’s Huffington Post. Sirens and flares went off in my head with the first words Kavanaugh said accepting the nomination at the White House — with Trump looming inches away.

Said Kavanaugh, “No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination.”

And to be clear, that is Donald “Can’t read a bleeping book, much less a bleeping daily intelligence briefing and is uniformly regarded as a bleeping moron by everyone with a bleeping post-grad degree” Trump he’s talking about.

I mean, really. You’re expecting the country to take you seriously as an avatar of supreme (quality) judgment and that’s the first impression you decide to make? To publicly engage in a kind of verbal fellatio? WT[bleeping]F?

Feingold goes on to remind anyone who cares — not Grassley, Cruz, Hatch or John Cornyn — that Kavanaugh has pretty obviously already lied twice, (we call it perjury in this courty thingy job he’s up for) during this round of hearings,. Lying being something we’ve come to shrug off from politicians we can vote out of office, but plays juuuuust a bit different when a guy is getting a mega-powerful, lifetime gig.

As must-see TV, I’m loving the thought of Ted Cruz, formerly the most repugnant personality in D.C., interrogating Prof. Ford at this moment atop the still rising wave of #MeToo and while he’s facing a truly serious challenge from a progressive Democrat back in Texas. Likewise, I can’t wait for the line of questioning from Orrin Hatch, long one of the most walled-off from reality dinosaurs of Jurassic-style conservatism.

Talk about turbo-charging the “enthusiasm” of educated, suburban women.

Again, I don’t know if Prof. Ford’s story is true. But nothing about it is implausible given the nature of privileged, (i.e. entitled) teenaged boys partying hard at elite prep schools. (And that truly weird list he produced in a nano-second of 65 women he didn’t try to rape? Again, WTF?) In fact, after reading the stories of Les Moonves literally jumping his (bleeping) doctor as well as prominent actresses and producers in private meetings (because he couldn’t control himself, you see — but also because he felt entitled, and was insulated by layers of lawyers), my thought was, “Jesus, dude. I’ve seen drunken frat boys with smoother moves and more impulse control than that.”

And now one of those boys it seems is poised to join legendary deep-thinker, Clarence Thomas, on the Supreme Court.

 

If You Like TrumpCare, You’ll Love JohnsonCare

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Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson (R-Plymouth) is crying foul over an Alliance for Better Minnesota television ad that says Johnson’s health care proposals would take health care away from Minnesotans who need it.

But the Alliance’s ad is accurate. Without question, the health care “reform” approach candidate Johnson is promoting during his campaign would take health care away from Minnesotans who need it.

Let’s break down the proposed JohnsonCare plan, piece-by-piece.

Johnson Eliminating ACA Protections

Johnson wants to make the Affordable Care Act (ACA) a thing of the past in Minnesota, via a federal waiver granted by the Trump Administration. More specifically, Johnson wants to eliminate the ACA approach that has:

  • Protected Record Numbers of Minnesotans. Under the ACA framework, Minnesota achieved the highest rate of health care coverage in state history.
  • Made Previously Unaffordable Protections Affordable. For lower and middle-income Minnesotans who don’t get coverage through their employer, the ACA has provided hundreds of millions in financial assistance to reduce or eliminate premium costs.
  • Strengthened Minnesotans’ Protections. The ACA also banned the hated preexisting condition denials, insurance payment limits, and dangerous junk coverage.  Because fewer Americans are no longer living one illness or injury away from being crushed by a mountain of bankrupting medical bills, personal bankruptcies have decreased by 50 percent during the time the ACA has existed.

If Johnson eliminates the increasingly popular ACA protections in Minnesota, that all goes away.  So yes, in several different and dramatic ways, Johnson absolutely would take health care away from Minnesotans who need it. The ad is correct about that.

Johnson’s False Claims

Johnson’s criticism of his opponent’s health care proposal is also utterly ridiculous.  Johnson says claims opponent Tim Walz “wants to eliminate private health insurance and force all Minnesotans onto one government program.”

The reality is, Walz supports a MinnesotaCare buy-in option. Under that approach, Minnesotans would have the option of either buying private plans or buying into the MinnesotaCare program, which is a government program operated by private health insurance programs.

In other words, Johnson’s claims that Walz wants to “eliminate private health insurance” and “force all Minnesotans onto one government program” are flat wrong.

If Walz is proposing a government-run single payer plan in the short-term, I’m not aware of it. Even if that were true, Johnson’s inference that eliminating private insurance in favor of government run health care would hurt Minnesotans is also wrong.  After all, Medicare, a government-run health plan, is popular and effective.  Medicare is helping Minnesotans, not hurting them.

Moreover, government run health plans are used in many other developed nations. Compared to the United States, consumers in those nations have 1) universal comprehensive coverage, 2) lower overall health costs and 3)  better overall health outcomes.

JohnsonCare and TrumpCare

Instead of the ACA, Johnson wants to back a high risk pool program that was very expensive for both consumers and taxpayers when it was used pre-ACA. Minnesota Public Radio reported:

Craig Britton of Plymouth, Minn., once had a plan through the state’s high-risk pool. It cost him $18,000 a year in premiums.

Britton was forced to buy the expensive MCHA coverage because of a pancreatitis diagnosis. He calls the idea that high-risk pools are good for consumers “a lot of baloney.”

“That is catastrophic cost,” Britton says. “You have to have a good living just to pay for insurance.”

And that’s the problem with high-risk pools, says Stefan Gildemeister, an economist with Minnesota’s health department.

“It’s not cheap coverage to the individual, and it’s not cheap coverage to the system,” Gildemeister says.

MCHA’s monthly premiums cost policy holders 25 percent more than conventional coverage, Gildemeister points out, and that left many people uninsured in Minnesota.

Johnson also wants to promote “junk,” “short-term,” or “skinny” plans, which are cheap because they don’t cover basic protections.  Promoting junk plans to reduce health care costs is like promoting cheaper cars lacking seat belts, airbags, crumple zones, safety glass, and anti-lock brakes. They look good if you’re only considering the price tag, but they’re a disaster when you and your family are in dangerous situations and desperately need those life-saving protections.

On health care, as with so most other issues, Jeff Johnson is aping Trump. President Trump is obsessed with eliminating Americans’ ACA protections in favor of a skimpy TrumpCare replacement. Trump insists that TrumpCare will cover everyone and cut costs, while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office finds that 23 million Americans would lose their protections, and millions more would pay higher premiums.

So Minnesotans, if you like TrumpCare – and only 17% of Americans do – you’re going to love JohnsonCare.

Full-On Crazy Time Has Arrived

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Among the very few things we don’t have to worry about — as we move toward the inevitable total meltdown of The Trump Farce — is whether the anonymous author of the instantly legendary essay about calculated insubordination in the White House really is a “senior administration official.”

Bank on it. He/she is.

Unlike Trump, The New York Times is not in the habit of doing things in half-assed, reckless ways. The Times has been at the game of vetting information a lot longer than Trump or any of his fever-addled swamp critters. Publishing an anonymous column lie that is, in straight-laced Big “J’ journalism terms, waaaay out there. And knowing full well that the author’s identity will be ferreted out sooner rather than later, the Times would not consent to the “senior official” business if he/she were anything less than someone with regular, direct access to and interaction with our paranoid, buffoon in chief.

The paper’s credibility would take a brutal hit if the author was revealed to be some relatively non-descript third-tier bureaucrat at, for example, the National Council on Agriculture. Also, as was pointed out by one pundit last night — actually Natasha Bertrand of The Atlantic, who is one of the reporters regularly reaffirming her credibility during this fiasco — the Times Op-Ed policy requires proving that a writer making claims to have access to meetings such as are described in the anonymous essay actually had such access. Also, (and I think this was Rachel Maddow), whoever “anonymous” quotes in the essay has to have a pretty damn good idea of who he/she said that to.

(“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently … .)

That withstanding I take a small amount of pride in my prediction that the full meltdown and a new epoch of craziness was fast approaching. (Here from February and here from June.) I said “late spring to early summer” and I’m pretty confident that the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in early July was the breaking point for a large number of D.C./White House regulars, an appalling demonstration of servitude that was quickly followed by both Trump attorney Michael Cohen and long-time tabloid crony David Pecker flipping on him and promising new fathomless tales of corruption, debauchery and incompetence.

So yeah, I’m a goddam seer. (New prediction: The Vikings will royally screw up a vital game and not win the Super Bowl.)

Also worth noting, a conversation on “Morning Joe” this morning, with ex-CIA director John Brennan, retired Admiral James Stavridis and old State Department hand Richard Haas — (i.e. not three twits on “Fox & Friends”) — was all about the very real possibility of Trump attempting some kind drunken-Nixon “wag the dog” action, distracting the public and rallying the goober base behind some absurd military action — and whether the military is now as insubordinate as “anonymous” claims the White House staff is to a guy who is so indisputably out of his depth.

So yes, “crazy time” has fully arrived, only to get crazier and possibly scarier in the weeks to come.

Hey! But how ’bout those Vikings?

Ellison, Ellison and More Ellison

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Clearly, Minnesota Republicans believe they’ve struck gold with Keith Ellison. As Dave Orrick of the Pioneer Press put it in a Labor Day story,

“Keith Ellison, Keith Ellison, Keith Ellison. It’s all about Keith Ellison, at least according a Republican narrative as part of the first wave of what promises to be a tide of political attack ads coming to Minnesota’s 2018 election season. Even in races where Ellison isn’t running, from the U.S. Senate high on the ballot down to state House races, he’s under attack.”

Not that this should come as a big surprise, the game of politics being what it is. To reiterate: in the midst of the #MeToo moment, arguably the largest and most significant cultural revolution going this decade, and minutes before last month’s primary election, Ellison was accused by the son of a woman — his live-in lady friend — of bad behavior, specifically of raging at her and dragging her off a bed during a domestic dispute.

That kind of thing never sounds good, even though no one outside of the two, uh, combatants has any real idea of what else was going on at the time that incident supposedly happened. (The son was not present during the alleged altercation.)

It is of course that “supposed” business where things got funky. Namely, there’s the fact the woman/victim (A:) claims it happened and (B:) she has video of it, but (C:) refuses to let anyone see it on the grounds that, (D:) as a self-proclaimed victim the public should simply believe her, fully accept her accusation and punish Ellison accordingly.

With apologies to Al Franken, #MeToo is morally weakened when we get to a point where women are under no obligation to prove their accusations.

For his part, Ellison has been startlingly emphatic. He says what she says not only never happened, but that no such video exists, two remarkably definitive statements that mean instant career death and permanent reputational ignominy if either are ever proven false. If he’s lying, it’s a gamble of mortal proportions.

(If the video does exist, the woman could quite easily strike a deal with journalists of her choosing to allow them to view it and verify it without posting it for public consumption.)

I’ve only met Ellison a couple of times, once for a fairly long interview prior to him being elected to Congress. My takeaway impression was that of an engaging, bright, cocky guy with plenty sufficient ego to endure a career in politics, where every adversary’s first order of business is to convince the public you’re come kind a cross between a liar, a pervert and a thief.

So, yeah. This latest thing is politics as usual.

But an interesting facet of this episode is the way standard issue Republicans, not Trumpist goobers, have so avidly seized on it as a talking point. While domestic abuse is always a potent political weapon, in this case once you’ve finished smirking at the outrage coming from the lips of folks never exactly in the vanguard of the women’s rights movement, you’re also reminded of their intense desire for anything … anything … that distracts the conversation from their complicity in the presence of Donald Trump in the White House.

I’ve been noting with some amusement how adamant traditional Republicans — and by that I mean familiar, neighborly, civic-minded old-school conservative types —  are to urge focus on local matters. To my ears, their passion for city and state issues has never been more committed.

And not that that is ever a bad thing. If there is a “Pink Wave” this November, with hundreds/thousands of female candidates swarming into elected office, that movement is swelling from the neighborhoods up and I’m entirely comfortable saying that the overall system will be stabilized we’ll all be much better off thanks to that kind of street level passion.

My point is really only how embarrassment and discomfort with Trump, and traditional Republicans’ essential role in failing to respond to his flagrant bigotry, misogyny and lack of qualifications in 2016 is manifesting itself two years later. As I say, these are people deservedly proud of the level of responsibility and good judgment they’ve shown throughout their adult lives.

But IMHO, there is a palpable sense of their mortification over how badly their judgment failed them — and all of us — in 2016. And, as I say, you feel this in their desire to ignore the Trump trickle-down effect in their 2018 local issues and candidates and keep polite conversations confined to zones more traditional and comfortable for them.

 

What I Was Too Dim to See in “Crazy Rich Asians”

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Being a sensitive guy in deep touch with my inner feminist I suggested to my bride the other day that I’d go with her to see “Crazy Rich Asians” the glitzy rom-com now cleaning up at the box office. This was an alternative to staying home with the lights off and curtains drawn watching Ingmar Bergman’s “Cries and Whispers” for the umpteenth time.

As a general rule I avoid rom-coms like an injection of hoof and mouth disease. Not so much that I’m opposed to either romance or comedy, but because every one is the same damned movie just re-set in different locations with different actors. Which means I sit in the theater checking off all the absolutely obligatory turns of plot and counting down to when I can unlock the wrist cuffs and go home.

But I was interested in “Crazy Rich Asians” because I had read so many reviews and “thinky” pieces — usually by writers with Asian names — celebrating the movie as not just a big breakthrough for Hollywood, namely an all-Asian cast up on thousands of screens across the country at the same moment, but a movie with a rich feel for unique nuances of Asian culture.

Really?

Not so much, say I, as a very white guy from rural Minnesota who does however have an appetite for well-stuffed dumplings. (You get hungry watching the movie.)

I grant you that the nuances of Asian culture may have been far too nuanced, too subtle or too fleeting for me to grasp. And that likewise, being clueless about mahjong I had no idea what kind of symbolism was at play when the strong and resourceful female lead sat down to confront her nemesis, the willful and powerful Tiger Mother of the impossibly flawless leading man. The male lead, son of the Tiger Mother, is played by a guy — actor/model Henry Golding — with a precise Oxford British accent and, it seemed to me, only the barest minimum of Asian physical characteristics.

As I’ve read, within the movie’s female characters — the American girl friend, the Tiger Mother and Tiger Mom’s imposing Empress Mother — is a valuable look at the unique Asian maternal culture too little understood by Western movie audiences.

So I’m dim. But the “commoner girlfriend” being denied full respect by the domineering mother of the leading man just didn’t strike me as anything close to “uniquely Asian”, much less any kind of nuanced. I mean, I’ve seen this exact story in dozens of movies featuring Jewish mothers, Hispanic mothers, British mothers, Lutheran Protestant mothers and hyper Catholic Italian mothers. I mean, it’s practically Basic Storyline #12.

“Crazy Rich Asians” is a formulaic rom-com, this time in Singapore. The two strong-willed women butt heads before — huge spoiler alert here — recognizing the strength and resolve of the other and patching things up to make way for the big heart-warming finale, which as usual involves lots of glamorous close-ups, hugging and kissing.

What “Crazy Rich Asians” seemed most like is a re-orientation of your standard Bollywood flick, where, as I say, impossibly flawless heroes and heroines, meet, separate and inevitably smooch for the grand finale, sending everyone home pleased to have forgotten about their root canal appointment (or Donald Trump) on Monday for a whole 90 minutes.

If there was something uniquely Asian about anything else going on — besides that mahjong game — that was way over my head, too.

I strongly suspect that if the movie had been titled just, “Crazy Asians”, it would only be playing on the second half of a double bill at the Film Society and wouldn’t already be teed up for two sequels. Why? Because the luxury-porn factor of that “Rich” thing strikes me as the true, singular driver of its appeal.

With the exception of the #MeToo era-smart and strong heroine everyone else is ridiculously, over-the-top, jade-and-pearl dripping rich. Scene after scene has the cast — all of whom look good in bikinis and swim trunks — racing around in Ferraris, personal helicopters, partying on private ocean-going cargo ships and waggling bags from every Coach and Chanel shop in high-end Singapore.

So if anyone was saying anything about either traditional or modern Asian culture other than they are as glitzed-out and consumer-crazed as any other culture given a few million renminbi of daddy’s money to play with, I missed that, too.

I get the desire of any Asian here in the West to promote the movie and encourage non-Asian Americans to get out and get a taste of something other than Aryan super heroes (with an occasional black guy) mopping the floor with cartoon villains. We should all check out how the other three billion live.

But, as a movie fan, and before I shut out the light and resume my private Bergman festival, I gotta tell you, if Jennifer Aniston and Ryan Reynolds had replaced the perfect, pimple-free stars of “Crazy Rich Asians” my and your understanding of Asian culture would not have changed one iota.

You want a feel for the lingering traditional mores of modern Asians? Check out anything by the great Wong Kar-wai .

And start with “In the Mood for Love.”*

*Spoiler alert #2. There are no Ferraris, private choppers or Chanel bags.

Can We Now, Finally, Talk About An Illegitimate Election?

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With yesterday’s one-two haymakers — personal attorney Michel Cohen going full “rat” and campaign manager (and career-long DC sleazeball) Paul Manafort getting nailed with eight felony convictions — only the most deluded Trumpist goober can still pretend our man in the Oval Office isn’t a criminal. More to the point, if you have been paying attention since way back when he was just a sleazy tabloid caricature, you know Donald “Drain the Swamp” Trump was a criminal before, during and after getting elected President of ‘Murica, USA.

In fact, as is now being confirmed in the starkest terms for those reluctant to believe, Trump’s criminality is directly related to him “winning” the presidency. Period. The guy’s naked illegality — first with paying off Bunnies and porn stars a fortnight before the election he won on the basis of 78,000 votes in three states — and second with whatever he actually did with the Rooskies in terms of illegal hacking, trading stolen e-mails and scamming Facebook cannot be separated from his ascension to the White House.

So, can we now have a serious, non-hysterical, fact-based and rational conversation about the legitimacy of the 2016 presidential election?

What does The Constitution have to say about a candidate engaging in A: Criminal pay-offs and B: Conspiracy with a hostile foreign power to achieve election?

From what I’ve read, not a lot in terms of invalidating his election in the first place.

The fact there is no clear legal mechanism much less any precedent for this situation has led most people to dismiss even the discussion. I mean, that isn’t how we play the game in this most exceptional of republics.

No matter how they win — whether Joe “The Prohibition Liquor Baron” Kennedy cooking a deal with Chicago mobsters to get out the dead vote in Cook County, or George W* being waved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on a straight 5-4 partisan vote of the Supreme Court, we ‘Muricans are always admonished to accept the results with equanimity. Because … well, because that’s just how things are done here in the world’s greatest democracy.

Except that we’ve never had a situation where a candidate actively conspired with our foremost foreign adversary to get where he got. Bimbos? Sure. Rooskies? Not so much.

If you’re saying, “Whoa, Nelly! We haven’t got to that whole ‘collusion’ thing, yet,” I will only point out the fact that Trump and his bejeweled urchins have lived off the proceeds from business with Russian gangsters at least since he went belly up in Atlantic City and that that much has been laying out in plain sight for years. After that you can start factoring in the notorious meet up with the Rooskies in Trump Tower to talk, you know, “adoptions.”

Then for a special Super Duper Bonus Package you can imagine for maybe a half-second how much more vivid detail Team Mueller has on all this not even remotely sophisticated sleaze.

So what is the solution? There is no language or precedent for voiding Donald Trump’s election certificate on the basis of criminal fraud and conspiracy against the United States, and certainly none that would hand that certificate and the remainder of his term over to the candidate who actually won the popular vote by a large and convincing margin.

But if this lunatic farce continues to spiral out of control as it most certainly will with what Cohen will now tell Mueller, what Michael Flynn has already revealed to prosecutors and all the hammers that are going to drop on gormless little Donny Jr., Jared the human cipher and Ivanka the Princess of Entitlement, are we really going to sit still and accept the Trump kleptocracy being handed off to Mike Pence?

If Trump achieved the Presidency through criminal (and treasonous) means, those are the same means that put Pence there. (Never mind for the moment his own legal exposure over what he damn well had to have known about Mike Flynn and the Russians.)

With all the talk about a looming Supreme Court fight over whether Mueller can subpoena Trump, or whether a sitting President can be indicted, I think there’s an even more relevant conversation to be had about “suitable remedies” for an election decided on the basis of tawdry criminality and outright conspiracy against the Constitution.

A Basket of Quotes, Just a Hint of Which I’d Like to Hear from Tina Smith

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From life-long Republican Steve Schmidt, better known as the man who advised John McCain to select Sarah Palin as his running mate:

The two parties for a long time were not homogeneous ideologically. There were plenty of conservatives in the Democratic Party, and there were no small number of liberals in the Republican Party. Now, culturally, we’re in thrall to theocratic crackpots like Mike Huckabee and Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell, where you’re able to justify the candidacy of a Roy Moore because you want to keep the Senate seat. The theocracy and crackpot sewer conservatism has taken over.

That’s not to mention the baby internment camps, the indecency, the cruelty, the meanness, the lying, the complicit nature of this Republican majority with an attack on the country that’s launched by the Russian Federation. So the Republican party of Teddy Roosevelt and John McCain and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is dead. It’s over. It doesn’t exist . It has been taken over, lock, stock, and barrel. For there to be any redemption of a right of center conservative party in the United States of America means the party of Trump must be destroyed politically.

It’s like a fire. Fires are a part of the ecosystem, part of the natural progress. And when the forest burns, it’s purified. There can be new growth. For there to be new growth of a conservative movement, of a right center party, the one that I joined in 1988, it needs to burn to the ground.”

From conservative columnist Michael Gerson in The Washington Post:

“In November, many Republican leaners and independents will face a difficult decision. The national Democratic Party under Nancy Pelosi and Charles E. Schumer doesn’t share their views or values. But President Trump is a rolling disaster of mendacity, corruption and prejudice. What should they do?

They should vote Democratic in their House race, no matter who the Democrats put forward. And they should vote Republican in Senate races with mainstream candidates (unlike, say, Corey Stewart in Virginia).

Why vote strategically in this case? Because American politics is in the midst of an emergency.

If Democrats gain control of the House but not the Senate, they will be a check on the president without becoming a threat to his best policies (from a Republican perspective) or able to enact their worst policies. The tax cut will stand. The Senate will still approve conservative judges. But the House will conduct real oversight hearings and expose both Russian influence and administration corruption. Under Republican control, important committees — such as Chairman Devin Nunes’s House Intelligence Committee — have become scraping, sniveling, panting and pathetic tools of the executive branch. Only Democratic control can drain this particular swamp.

Alternatively: If Republicans retain control of the House in November, Trump will (correctly) claim victory and vindication. He will have beaten the political performances of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in their first midterms. He will have proved the electoral value of racial and ethnic stereotyping. He will have demonstrated the effectiveness of circuslike distraction. He will have shown the political power of bold, constant, uncorrected lies. And he will gain many more enablers and imitators.

Perhaps worst of all, a victorious Trump will complete his takeover of the Republican Party (which is already far along). Even murmured dissent will be silenced. The GOP will be fully committed to a 2020 presidential campaign conducted in the spirit of George C. Wallace — a campaign of racial division, of rural/urban division, of religious division, of party division that metastasizes into mutual contempt.

But this does not change the political and ethical reality. The only way to save the GOP is to defeat it in the House. In this case, a Republican vote for a Democratic representative will be an act of conscience.”

From conservative icon George Will, also in The Washington Post:

Donald Trump, with his feral cunning, knew. The oleaginous Mike Pence, with his talent for toadyism and appetite for obsequiousness, could, Trump knew, become America’s most repulsive public figure. And Pence, who has reached this pinnacle by dethroning his benefactor, is augmenting the public stock of useful knowledge. Because his is the authentic voice of today’s lickspittle Republican Party, he clarifies this year’s elections: Vote Republican to ratify groveling as governing.

Noting that [Joe] Arpaio was in his Tempe audience, Pence, oozing unctuousness from every pore, called Arpaio “another favorite,” professed himself “honored” by Arpaio’s presence, and praised him as “a tireless champion of . . . the rule of law.” Arpaio, a grandstanding, camera-chasing bully and darling of the thuggish right, is also a criminal, convicted of contempt of court for ignoring a federal judge’s order to desist from certain illegal law enforcement practices. Pence’s performance occurred eight miles from the home of Sen. John McCain, who could teach Pence — or perhaps not — something about honor. …

It is said that one cannot blame people who applaud Arpaio and support his rehabilitators (Trump, Pence, et al.), because, well, globalization or health-care costs or something. Actually, one must either blame them or condescend to them as lacking moral agency. Republicans silent about Pence have no such excuse.

There will be negligible legislating by the next Congress, so ballots cast this November will be most important as validations or repudiations of the harmonizing voices of Trump, Pence, Arpaio and the like. Trump is what he is, a floundering, inarticulate jumble of gnawing insecurities and not-at-all compensating vanities, which is pathetic. Pence is what he has chosen to be, which is horrifying.”

 

And finally (for now) from liberal blogger Kevin Drum at Mother Jones:

“Today, the Republican Party exists for one and only one purpose: to pass tax cuts for the rich and regulatory rollbacks for corporations. They accomplish this using one and only method: unapologetically racist and bigoted appeals to win the votes of the heartland riff-raff they otherwise treat as mere money machines for their endless mail-order cons. Like it or not, this is the modern Republican Party. It no longer serves any legitimate purpose. It needs to be crushed and the earth salted behind it, while a new conservative party rises to take its place. This new party should be conservative; brash; ruthless when it needs to be; as simpleminded as any major party usually is; and absolutely dedicated to making Democrats look like idiots. There should be no holds barred except for one: no appeals to racism. None. Not loud ones, not subtle ones. Whatever else it is, it should be a conservative party genuinely open to any person of any color.

… I’d like to make clear just how long this has been brewing. I know this is hardly news to anyone who reads this blog, but as I approach my 60th birthday I can say that half my life has now been marked by Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report, Newt Gingrich, the Vince Foster suicide, Whitewater, the Rose law firm, Filegate, the Christmas card list scandal, Fox News, Monica Lewinsky, impeachment, the Florida recount, Swift boating, the GOP’s partywide effort to suppress black votes via photo ID laws, birtherism, the unanimous Republican rejection of the 2009 stimulus, Benghazi, Emailgate, Merrick Garland, and now the endless haze of racism, bigotry, and corruption surrounding Donald Trump.

This is very much a non-exhaustive list. But every one of these things is either a baseless ‘scandal’, an example of ethical rot, or part of a deliberate media effort to lie and mislead. These are the highlights of the Republican Party over the past three decades. No political party with a rap sheet like this deserves to be walking around free.”

 

And When I Looked Up, MPR Had Disappeared

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So I see “Magnum P.I.” is the latest geezer hit to get the re-boot treatment. Fans of TV as it once was already have a new “Hawaii 5-0” up and running, have seen “Roseanne” rise from the dead … die … and be born again (as “The Connors”, without the queen crazy) are awaiting the restoration of  “Murphy Brown.”

Since I never had any interest in any of these shows when I was (much) younger, I’m a bad judge of who they’re meant to entertain in 2018. But my wild guess is that none of the host networks in any rare moment of candor expects these shows to connect with your Gen X-ers, hipster Millennials or really anyone without an AARP card. That’s because what’s on sale here is — like Classic Rock on the radio — nostalgia for the aged, the now creaky folks eager to recall the time when their knees and hips and cataracts weren’t artificial.

Anyone younger than that has something in the range of 450-500 scripted TV series sprawling across dozens of cable channels and streaming apps providing comedy or drama far … far … more sophisticated, complex and involving than a reboot of color-by-numbers formulas anchored in an era 30 years out of date.

Somehow this nostalgia business — which will make a few bucks for the major networks — reminded me of how my own media consumption has shifted even over the past year. I mean, I don’t call watching a network series anytime in the past 10 years. “The Good Wife”? Never saw it. Oh wait. I did follow “Lost”. But when that ended (badly), so did my relationship with the ABCs, CBSs, NBCs and Foxs of the world, except of course for sports.

The main reason? The profound lack of imagination and audacity in storytelling. Think of it as an evolutionary standstill. Point being, times have changed network TV hasn’t. What worked in 1985 works today only with people with an impractical fixation with lost youth.

Other than a few gay characters it’s been years since there’s been anything in broadcast programming that offered any real sense of cultural change, suspense or comedic surprise. Why? Because everything, as they say in football, is being played between the 40 yard-lines. Right in the safe, dull, bland, familiar middle. It’s a safe, friction-less zone of perfect predictability, where everything is designed to reassure viewers that a kind of rule-abiding Eisenhower-era fantasy world still exists. Any viewer looking for a representation of life with the complexity of what they see around them every day has no choice but tune out and look elsewhere … and they’ve found it in abundance in shows like “The Sopranos”, “The Wire”, “Breaking Bad”, “Game of Thrones”, “Mad Men”, “Billions”, “The Terror”  and (a current favorite) HBO’s “Succession.”

In that vein, it occurred to me, while driving up to the cabin recently, that it has been at least four or five months since I’ve listened to anything on MPR, once the last go-to broadcast news source of any value in the Twin Cities. But MPR (and NPR) have now been entirely, and I do mean entirely, replaced by podcasts, all of which offer a far greater depth of reporting and analysis on a wider range of topics, from politics to science to entertainment than anything public radio can (or will) do within its self-determined parameters.

And yeah, this is Trump’s fault, too.

Anyone following the sprawling Trump story is vividly aware of characters and facets and the interplay between cast members that gets only passing “headline” mention on broadcast TV and only slightly more from public radio. (Honest analysis of the story puts hyper-cautious non-profit news outlets into the “bias” zone, y’know.) As with all complex fictional dramas, part of the appeal of the Trump story is figuring out who got to who and what made what happen, as well as building a notion of how it all ends. But most of that — way too much of it if you’re following closely and are, as I say, already familiar with the timelines and characters — is missing from public radio, and the network news.

Where it exists for me today are on podcasts like:

The Ezra Klein Show   (Check out the hour-long Aug. 2 conversation with Adam Davidson of The New Yorker. Note the part where they both express fear of what follows Trump, namely “competent Trump”. Just as corrupt, but not nearly the fool. Klein’s earlier conversation with author Michael Pollan, on his new book, “How to Change Your Mind” is maybe the most fascinating thing I’ve listened to in years.)

The Josh Marshall podcast.  (Linked is a recent one with Marcy Wheeler, a startling savant on dates and interrelations of characters in the Trump-Russia drama.)

The 538 Politics Podcast (The episode linked has Nate Silver and his crew playing with various theories of the Trump case. The key character IMHO is Clare Malone, the gal in the boys club with a very sharp and clever wit.)

Pod Save America. (Kind of the monster hit of political podcasts, starring ex-Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau and cronies.)

“Why is This Happening?”, with Chris Hayes. (This one, starring the MSNBC host, is newer and bit wonkier. But this particular conversation with Amy Chua, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” was a thoroughly satisfying discussion of tribalism in American culture.)

The Lawfare Podcast. (At 334 episodes and counting, it’s kind of a granddaddy of the species. This particular episode, hosted by the conservative Heritage Institute is a fascinating and scary look at what’s coming next in fake news, namely “deep fake” video. Probably in time for this November’s elections. (Also, for a change of pace, here’s another talking with scientists about whether we should communicate with aliens — of the outer space variety.)

“I Have to Ask” with Isaac Chotiner of Slate. (Linked is his conversation with Davidson of The New Yorker.)

Brain Science, with Ginger Campbell MD. (Invariably interesting discussions with scientists on brain research and phenomena. The linked episode is with neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg, (I had never heard of him), discussing creativity and — very relevant to the appeal of fake news — how in some humans novelty overwhelms the right hemisphere’s critical function.)

Celebration Rock. Hosted by Steven Hyden of 93X here in the Twin Cities. (Linked his Hyden talking, with customary intelligence, with Don DeLuca of the Philadelphia Inquirer about my favorite band of the moment, The War on Drugs.)

With all that and thousands more like them, the appeal of a new dude with less of a porn ‘stash and a newer Ferrari is lost on me.

 

I’ll Take Richard Painter in the Primary

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Prior to busting out of town for some desert road trip nirvana, I dropped by a “Pint With (Richard) Painter” event at Lake Monster Brewing in St. Paul. Besides responding favorably to the (former Republican’s) indignation over the gushing Trump sewer, I was curious to see what kind of crowd he was drawing in his long-shot fight to defeat appointed incumbent Tina Smith.

Expecting the usual sad collection of white-haired ideologues and sweated-up activists, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself among 150-200 people representative of a fairly broad age and gender spectrum — although no black folks that I could see.

The brewery venue was noisy and Painter — George W. Bush’s ex-ethics attorney — was ill-served by a cheesy sound system. Restlessness set in fast as he opened with a detailed explanation of the PolyMet land swap up north and Smith’s carefully calibrated position on that issue. Catching only every third word, those of us on the fringes sipped our beverages and waited for the good stuff.

The crowd got what it very clearly wanted to hear when Painter segued to Trump and the appropriate response to the most corrupt and disgraceful administration of our lifetime. A roar went up when he said, “we’ve got to get aggressive with this”. Another, even louder roar went up when he mentioned “Al Franken” and what the ex-Senator would probably have been saying and doing in the summer of 2018. In fact the applause for Franken was prolonged.

I met Painter last spring when we were both part of symposium up at Itasca Community College. (Painter was the keynote speaker. I was a presenter on “Fake News.”) Our rooms were on the same floor of a local hotel and I cornered him on the elevator. I asked him what he thought of my scenario that the key to driving Trump from office is not the “pee tape”, but rather an indisputable mortal threat to his money, the essence of his “brand” and ego, and if he could imagine a situation where Rod Rosenstein, armed with Mueller’s report, came to Trump with the message that he and his entire family of grifters could either be prosecuted down to the last nickel of their looted treasuries or he could resign. His choice.

Painter laughed. “I’d be okay with that.”

Combined with what he’s said as a talking head on cable news and the speech he gave in Grand Rapids — which was indignant and cathartically “unmodulated” by the standards of your average professional liberal — that’s everything I know about Painter. And it’s enough for me to vote for him over Smith in the August 14 primary.

Like many in the crowd at Lake Monster Brewing (nice joint BTW) “the Al Franken thing” will never sit well with me. The voters of Minnesota were Franken’s employers. We were the ones to decide whether his transgressions in the #MeToo moment required removing him from office, not a cabal of naked opportunists like New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. (And thank you Amy Klobuchar for your courageous collegial resistance to that purge.)

Tina Smith personally had no role that I know of in pushing Franken out the door. But Smith is without question a poster child for the, as I say, professional liberal class that did. These are a strata of bureaucratized, corporatized characters whose success in public life is directly related to their ability to take a belt sander to any word, phrase or facial expression that betrays honest human emotion. Emotion, like for example, visceral outrage and indignation at unprecedented corruption and god knows what else. (See Trump-Putin private meeting Helsinki).

The irony for me is that I argued to my Republican neighbors here in Edina that their best reason to vote for Hillary Clinton was “competent management.”  (I.e. “She’ll protect your portfolio”). Smith, the former Planned Parenthood exec and insider’s insider policy wonk would be perfectly fine in normal times. As in: be your numbingly bland self lady, just vote my issues.

But we aren’t there right now, and won’t be until everything Trump is bio-washed and detoxified from the gears of government. And that requires (constant) heat and pressure from high-level elected officials.

Do you see Tina Smith possessing any ability to apply those qualities?

While out cruising the empty highways of west Texas I heard of the flap between the DFL and Painter, and laughed out loud at the charge that because Painter would not profess fealty to the party sigil he must be treated as a toxic antigen.

Talk about professional liberal protocol.

I strongly suspect that the “fealty to party” thing is another endangered virtue in this unprecedented era. I don’t know about you, but in this moment I’ll vote for anyone committed to terminating this Trump “crap” (as Painter often calls it) sooner rather than later.

Smith has piled up something like 15 times the money Painter is running on, and has demonstrated no willingness whatsoever to face him in a one-on-one debate. (If Ms. Smith is too worried to lock up with Richard Painter, a well-educated lawyer and experienced bureaucrat, why would anyone think she’s up to the task of gutting right-wing nut-jobbery here or in D.C.?)

The betting line says Smith wins the primary easily. But she’ll do it without my vote.

 

” … by a government that had no pride.”

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Chrissie Hynde and the (mostly new) Pretenders were in good form last night at The State. Chrissie’s voice is still crisp and her two young guitar players have a remarkable feel for her material, while the only other surviving original, drummer Martin Chambers, looked to be having as much fun wailing on the tom-toms as the first time I saw them 40 years ago. It was a good upbeat night for geezer rock after a thoroughly disgusting day.

I didn’t take a poll, but my guess would be that more than a few of the crowd happily exchanging tales of bad rock ‘n roll behavior of yore had seen or by the cocktail hour heard of The Debacle in Helsinki. It was a truly depressing sight. The President of the United States … using phrases like “very strong and powerful” to flatter Vladimir [bleepin’] Putin, while demeaning his own military and intelligence services, the Justice Department and every adult with a high school degree who can spell “Make America Great Again” without eating their Crayons.

By now people like me, you know, characters way … waaaay … over on the fantastical fringe, have been gobsmacked by Donald Trump’s flagrant stupidity and fraudulence so many times that we can’t imagine him ever saying or doing anything that has the same effect on his Goober base.

(And yes, I know how the Tina Smiths of the world wring their hands and urge restraint at such intemperate language — for fear, you know, they might get really upset and do something, you know, bad. But screw it. If Trump’s crowd was merely ignorant, that’d be one thing, and I might give them a pass. But by now there is no question that they are mainly just seething with plain old George Wallace-style racial resentment. So, yeah. [Bleep] it. “Goobers.”)

A word gaining currency in the past couple weeks is “maximalist”. This in the context of imagining how bad this Trump crap really is, and how much worse it is going to get before he feels the weight of justice. Jonathan Chait at New York magazine wrote a long piece last week that got a lot of attention for going where our “responsible” press has generally avoided, to date.

Based largely on what is already on the record, what is known to anyone following the available facts of story and is certainly only the very tippiest of tips of the big, hulking spray-tanned iceberg in the eyes of Robert Mueller, we know Donald Trump’s business “empire” (the true size of which he keeps secret) has floated on Russian oligarch/gangster money for well over 20 years. From there common logic requires you to imagine what Trump will do to protect that empire — the essence of him — and what Vladimir Putin will continue to extract from him in exchange.

And forget “the pee tape”. At this point that would be just another … gobsmacker … that would have no effect on GooberNation. (“Fake video!”). You and I and every late night comic would turn cartwheels of delight. But it wouldn’t change a thing. Just as impeachment won’t change anything as long as more than 33 Republican senators see a poll of their voters showing ferocious approval of Trump holding above 50%.

At the risk of repeating myself, reprehensible as he is, Trump is smart enough to know his legal goose is cooked. His new attorney, Emmett Flood, would be engaging in malpractice if he hasn’t by now examined the situation — the money-laundering, the obstruction of justice vis-a-vis James Comey, etc. — and advised his client of the dire precariousness of the situation. Whether he has already used the phrase, “You are [bleeped], dude”, I can’t say. But it’d be accurate if he has, and explain Trump’s even more naked embrace lately of the only people who can save him.

They would be: Putin and The Goobers.

In their two hour-plus secret/no notes/no recordings meeting I have no problem taking the “maximalist” view that Putin assured Trump that techniques his people used to swing the 2016 election have been refined even further, thanks of course to no coordinated pushback from Trump’s government. And that all the algorithms capable of feeding individual Goobers precisely the bullshit insanity they gobble like soggy corn nuts is teed up and ready to roll on this next election. It will be, the promise goes, enough to keep the House in Republican hands and guarantee Trump a full four-year term.

And what does Putin get? Well, he’s already getting it. Trump’s senile-bull-in-the-china-shop act has Europeans thinking out loud about how to go about their business without the United States. NATO is reeling. The Brits are still trying to figure out what to do with the crowbar Putin’s hackers jammed into their Brexit vote. Mini-trumps are in power in Poland, Hungary at Italy, largely because of the refugee (immigrants!) crisis set off by Putin in Syria and North Africa.

And sure, while our Senate can vote for tougher sanctions on Putin and his mob boss money-laundering buddies, Trump’s crew has myriad ways to prevent anything of the sort from really happening.

So yeah. If I’m Trump, and I know that I’m toast every way you can spin it legally, what I do — the only thing I can do — is keep toggling back and forth between keeping the guy who got me there happy, with whatever he wants, and making sure my message to GooberNation — “Where are Hillary’s servers!” — is in tight synch with what Putin’s hackers and social media bots have greased and ready to go in November.

That’s what you call “maximalist” thinking, kids.

 

So I had a fleeting moment of encouragement last night as Chrissie (the pride of Akron, Ohio) and crew chugged through her classic hit, “My City Was Gone”.

Everyone in the place new the lyrics …

“Well I went back to Ohio
But my family was gone
I stood on the back porch
There was nobody home
I was stunned and amazed
My childhood memories
Slowly swirled past
Like the wind through the trees
A, o, oh way to go Ohio

I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride … “

 

At that line, a roar went up among the faithful.

I can’t say how many Goobers are Pretenders fans. But if any were in The State last night they were probably even more mystified and befuddled than usual.