What to do when you spend millions of your own money, get less than 20% of the votes, and get creamed by a guy whose name didn’t even appear on the ballot?
Declare that you won and the actual winner is hopelessly weak!
“We just earned 20% tonight and no one knew who we were!”
Enough said. The absurdity of it all speaks for itself.
I’ve driven gas-electric hybrids for 20 years, but I wanted to step up my environmental game. I thought I’d share the basics of that journey towards increasing electrification, since others may be pondering the same.
My first choice for a new vehicle was a Toyota Prius Prime, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) that uses 100% electric over the first 40-ish miles and then automatically switches over to the gasoline-fueled internal combustion engine (ICE) after that. Since the U.S. Department of Transportation finds that 95% of trips are less than 35 miles, that seemed like a sensible bridge vehicle to use while the charging infrastructure and EV battery technology improved.
However, after spending two years on a Prime waitlist, I got impatient and somewhat impulsively bought a 100% electric Chevy Bolt EV instead.
The Bolt’s battery pack has an EPA-rated 247-mile range. Though the range is much lower in the winter, even winter ranges easily cover the way I use my car over 99% of the time. It’s very feasilble to go further by refueling at the fast-growing number of public charging stations, but for the other 1% of trips we also do have an ICE-powered vehicle in reserve.
For what it’s worth these are some of my initial impressions of EV life.
While the Bolt is much cheaper (MSRP ~$30,000 with generous tax credits available to many) and much more utilitarian than the Prius and other high-end EVs, it’s easily the smoothest, quietest, and most technologically sophisticated vehicle I’ve driven. I’m not a car enthusiast, but I look forward to driving my Bolt. While many people I know seem to assume EVs will have worse driving performance than ICE vehicles, I’m finding the opposite to be true.
It’s also cool to never again have to do things like add gas, oil, transmission fluid, sparkplugs, fuel filters, and coolant, or make other repairs associated with ICE cars powered by thousands of recurrent explosions. Brakes also last much longer because one-pedal driving has the engine doing much more of the braking, which also regenerates free electricity to slightly extend the range.
I’m not one of those guys who meticulously calculates the cost of electric charging versus the cost of putting gas in the car, but the federal government calculates that the average 2023 Chevy Bolt EUV user will save about $5,000 in fuel costs over 5 years. I tend to keep cars a lot longer than 5 years (current car is 14 years old), so that benefit will grow over time.
Environmentally, it’s not perfect, because Minnesota has a lot of coal fueling its grid. But that is changing rapidly as Minnesota moves to sunset coal use by 2035. Still, the Bolt has a 10 out 10 EPA rating for greenhouse gas emissions and is rated at 115 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe), which measures the efficiency of vehicles that run on non-liquid fuels.
Charging is truly easy. The vehicle comes with a Level 1 charger that you can plug into a regular three-prong household outlet. A Level 1 charger is the slowest kind of charger, delivering about 4 miles of additional range per hour of charging, or about 96 hours per day. That’s mighty pokey compared to other types of chargers, but a lot of people who don’t drive far or often could get by with it. In my dotage, I probably could.
For a couple grand, minus a nice rebate from my utility company, I put in a Level 2 charger in my garage. The Level 2 delivers about 25 miles of range per hour. With that, I can easily fully charge a nearly empty battery overnight with cheaper off-peak power rates. So, I start every day with a “full tank,” though “full” is a very complex concept among the legions of EV techno-geeks.
When making longer trips, I’ll use Level 3 chargers at public stations, which deliver about 200 miles of range per hour of charging. That leads to a longer re-fueling stop than I made with my ICE vehicle at gas station. But by the time I take care of my biological needs, appetite, and smartphone addiction, I don’t think that an hour will be so onerous. And again, for the vast majority of my trips I’m only charging in my garage, where there is no waiting for refueling.
Beyond installing a charger, life with an EV truly isn’t that much different than life with an ICE vehicle.
Except for all of the questions I am fielding. That’s definitely different.
You don’t need to become an EV expert to own and operate an EV. EV enthusiasts inhabiting online EV discussion sites can make EV operation seem like quantum physics, but the truth is that you can ignore that level of complexity if you’re not interested in deep analysis of all things EV. And I most assuredly am not interested.
However, you do have to become somewhat of an expert to endure the endless questioning you get from the genuinely curious to the shockingly hostile. “Aren’t you worried that thing will start your house on fire?” “Don’t you know EVs are actually worse for the environment?” “Why get it when gas prices are low now?” “Why not wait for the next generation of improved technology?” “Aren’t you worried about getting stranded?” “Oh, so you’re better than us now?” “How can you afford that?” “Oh now I suppose you’re going to be That Guy who never shuts up about your precious EV?” “Doesn’t range decrease in cold weather?” “What did you pay for X, Y, and Z (EV-specific things)?” “Aren’t EVs going to overwhelm the grid we depend on for our homes?”
That constant barrage of questioning definitely does get tiresome. But so far, that’s the only part of EV life that I dislike.
Minnesota Republicans think they have found a golden issue to run on in 2024. In the 2022 elections, campaigning on interfering with women’s healthcare decisions, blocking gun protections, banning books, censoring teachers, and championing insurrectionists didn’t go that great for them. Therefore, Republicans have settled on an old reliable “bread and butter” issue — fighting to cut taxes for the wealthiest individuals and corporations.
Bam! Take that, big-taxing progressives. Here come the trickle-down “Reagan Republicans.”
The problem is that this isn’t 1984, and most Americans do not want the wealthiest and corporations to have lower taxes. According to a March 2023 Pew survey, a jaw-dropping 83% of Americans are bothered — 61% “a lot,” 22% “somewhat” — that “some corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes.” A nearly identical number are bothered that “some wealthy people don’t pay their fair share.” Only 17% agree with Republicans on that issue.
Looking at these numbers, you would be hard-pressed to find a worse issue for Republicans to emphasize during the 2024 elections. DFLer activists should consider contributing to Republicans who are paying to put their “shame on the DFL for taxing the wealthy and corporations” messages in front of voters. That messaging does Republicans much more harm than good.
If only Minnesota DFLers had a way to show the swing voters who will decide close races how they are fighting to ensure that wealthy people pay their fair share of taxes to support state infrastructure and services.
Enter the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The national think tank recently found that Minnesota currently has the #1 most equitable state and local tax system, thanks to changes made by DFLers.
How does Minnesota have a more equitable system than other states? The breakdown for Minnesota by the Minnesota Budget Project shows that Minnesota’s highly progressive state income tax offsets out highly regressive sales and excise (e.g. alcohol, tobacco, gasoline) taxes.
You may recall, that in 2020 GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen and his followers ran on eliminating that state income tax. That 2020 election didn’t go particularly well for Johson and his party.
Based on the polling and Jensen’s shellacking, shouldn’t Minnesota’s tax fairness ranking be something that DFLers tout to the 83% who agree with them? Shouldn’t they “go on offense” on this issue?
Let’s be honest, shall we? We all love a hot mess. Not that you want to be related to one (or two) or live next door to one or work for one, but from a distance hot messes supply a certain ghoulish sense of superiority-inducing reassurance. “I may be a mess,” you say to yourself, or spouse, “but I’m not nearly as hot a mess as [insert object of current fascination.]”
This deep insight came to mind yesterday watching the surprise appearance of Hunter Biden at the MAGA-led House Oversight Committee hearing into you know … Hunter Biden. It was a surpise because as everyone with more than two functioning neurons knows that very same commitee has been howling and puffing ad nauseum for over two years now demanding Biden show up and answer all their questions about how he scammed $2 billion from the Saudis to A: buy a new laptop, B: buy a new pickup truck, or C: take more d*ck pics on his cell phone.
(Oh, sorry. That bona fide/actually happened $2 billion scam was pulled off by a different relative, a guy actually in a government job, and not Hunter Biden, who did however get a roughly $6000 loan from his old man to cover the payments on his new truck.)
The issue of course is that Biden, who is to be honest more than a bit of a hot mess himself, has repeatedly said he is only willing to testify … in public. With cameras rolling. (The nefarious, tricky bastard! What’s he tring to pull?) So what happens when the Oversight MAGA crew spots Hunter right there in their hearing room? They demand — demand, by all that is MAGA and God-like — he be arrested on the spot and jailed and soon thereafter voted to hold him in contempt … for … for … showing up and being willing to answer their questions?
One perpetually camera-ready MAGA congresswoman sniped at Biden that he didn’t have “the balls” to … to … mmm … I’m not sure what. And minutes later the biggest MAGA-naut of all, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Atlanta suburbanite carpetbagging over in Georgia’s Cracker Holler First District was holding up … yup, you gussed it … the same d*ck pics of Hunter Biden she’s flashed in other super serious MAGA hearings. (She’s flashed these pix so often I think it’s fair to ask if she has them Velcroed to the ceiling over her bed.)
Simultaneous with all this, MAGA Speaker Mike Johnson, the forelocked Bible study savant from Lousiana’s Cracker Holler Fourth District, was getting the word from some of the same people irate about Hunter Biden showing up to answer questions that his days are numbered. Why? For agreeing to a deal with Democrats to fund the government, avoid another MAGA-driven shutdown, supply bullets to fight off a Russian invasion in Europe, and keep Israel in the business of driving every Palestinian into the Sinai desert.
And with all that, I won’t even bore you with the story about the lawyer for Orange Jesus, the Supreme Leader of the Cult of MAGA, arguing in court and with what I presume was a straight face that his client — the very large, weirdly groomed fellow to his right — had the absolute immunity to murder a political rival if he woke up one day and felt like it.
And folks, that was pretty much 36 hours in the Fevered Hot Mess that is MAGA-verse 2024.
So okay, maybe the only way to “love” a mess as hot as these Real Ding-A-Lings of DC is to take a step back to a safe distance from the dumpster and just savor that fleeting sense of superiority. A moment that reassures you that no matter what indisputably stupid thing you may have said or done in your life, you at least stopped short of doing it live in public, on an official record and on camera for the entire world to see.
All this is a long wind up to encourage you to take 15 minutes out of your day and watch the two videos I’m linking here.
Since the war in Ukraine war began I’ve been watching the daily, Moscow man-on-the-street interviews conducted by a young guy named Daniil Orain for his 1420 YouTube site. Shot mainly in Moscow — which truly a world apart from everything beyond its city limits — the interviews are a revealing assessment of what ordinary Russians think and dare to say in public, in front of a camera beaming out to the entire world.
For the most part, older Russians habituated to state TV (think FoxNews Rooskie style) believe Ukraine is full of LGBT-loving fascist Nazis and Glorious Leader Vladimir Vladimirovich is the only man to protect the empire and stop NATO from overruning the Motherland. Younger people, when they’re not reluctant to “talk politics”, seem to understand what’s really going down but are helpless to do anything about it, lest they get hauled before some hot mess Kremlin tribunal and forced to explain what they saw on the internet.
Then there’s the two people in these videos. One, an 83 year-old woman, a “babushka” in Russian terms, absolutely unloading on Putin, authoritarian bullshit, the astonishing sheep-like cowardice she sees all around her.
And second, a 30-something construction worker/remodeler with the wit and affect of a stand up comic walking his interviewer through the facts of life in Russia 2024.
I’d enjoy seeing both of them live on camera at a MAGA House Oversight hearing.
Having reached the point where I can say conclusively that I’ve been around for a while, I’m here today to say that I do not recall anytime in my many years that so many people I know or read have expressed so much apprehension for the coming of a new year.
Everyone is expecting the worst.
It comes up in conversation — ok, mostly with my lefty, Trump-despising cronies — but also in blogs, in comments, in asides from strangers. With “Jesus, this one going to be sick … “, being — in para-phrased form — a common refrain. Maybe you do, but I don’t remember this as the calendar turned from say, 2013 to 2014. Or even 1967 to ’68, and ’68 was a seriously bad year anyway anyone looks at it.
For a while I was thinking of doing a semi-facetious list of the ways 2024 is really going to jump the rails of common sense, decency, legality, etc. This list would have included predictions like:
1: Thanks to a ruling of the Supreme Court, with Clarence Thomas refusing to recuse, Donald Trump will be declared the winner of the 2024 election despite again losing the popular vote by millions. Legal battles in Ohio, Michigan and Arizona will result in the Court certifying contested Electoral College electors mere days before the inauguration.
2: Violent protests will erupt across the country and in D.C. as a result, suspending the inauguration and forcing Trump to take the oath indoors under heavy security.
3: An “October surprise” — a startlingly realistic AI-generated deep fake — will so badly damage Joe Biden, much as the Comey letter eroded Hillary Clinton’s support days before the election in 2016, that it will shave tens of thousands of votes in key states, putting a Court decision about the Electoral College in complete control of asserting the winner.
And so on …
But, good lord! What a bummer, right? Who wants to think about this stuff, even if — guessing here — millions already are?
While I continue to doubt both Biden and Trump will make the 2024 ballot, neither has any serious impediment — other than age — in this first week of the new year. I can not imagine the Supreme Court, its dogmatic allegiance to “originalism” withstanding, will do anything to complicate Trump’s myriad legal fights. It certainly won’t uphold Colorado’s 14th amendment decision, no doubt resting its decision on an argument Sam Alito intuits from a Spanish Inquisition case from 1503.
Likewise, in my morose stupor of the moment, I predict the same Court will strategize a way to avoid making any definitive decision on Jack Smith’s request for a ruling on Trump’s total immunity from prosecution on anything; parking tickets, exploiting illegal immigrant labor, stiffing contractors, raping women in department store dressing rooms, inciting a riot to overthrow the government, you name it. The Alito-Thomas bloc will devise a plan effectively exonerating Trump, certainly until after he’s reelected, at which point he can (and will) pardon himself.
I had a couple dozen more like this penciled in for added emphasis, but, damn man! It’s just too dystopian, even for me, a guy who can’t wait for the “Mad Max: Fury Road” sequel.
One thing that constantly rattles through my alleged brain though is how much of the over-arching chaos of this moment, and the looming chaos of 2024 (and beyond), rests at the feet of two people: Trump and Vladimir Putin, two guys who are not exactly unfamiliar or uninvested in each other.
Putin is obviously the key element in the war in Ukraine, and the powerful suspicion is that he is also a primary figure behind Iran’s support of Hamas and Hezbollah, on the grounds that any and all chaos that absorbs and consumes western democracies serves his long term interests.
It seems smart to bet that Putin’s long-standing support for Trump — via internet troll farms and social media disinformation — will, as I suggest with that “October surprise” business — only accelerate and become much more sophisticated this year, since a Trump defeat could likely seal Putin’s fate as well among the Russian elites.
Anyway, I promise I’m scouring the web for more uplifting topics to rant on about in the months to come. Maybe even something about Taylor Swift! Please stay tuned.
I certainly am not the only one hearing echoes of last winter’s Hamline University “image of the Prophet” fiasco in the cringy mumbo-jumbo coming out of the mouths of the presidents of MIT, Harvard and U Penn. And as much as everyone can see that the three Ivy League presidents were baited into it by congressional actors of rancid bad faith, the fact none of them could summon anything other than legalized corporatese to answer basic questions like whether students ranting about “intifada” is hate speech, equivalent to fat-shaming and misusing pronouns is smack-worthy of the gob-most.
I’ve avoided adding my .05 to the howling and posturing over the attack/war in Gaza, because it is very difficult to come up with anything that hasn’t been said a million times before over the past 2000 years. Additionally, my only “expertise” on the Israel/Palestine question comes from a winter and spring on a kibbutz in 1973, a time as a callow youth that I spent mostly as a hippie vagrant volunteer planting and picking grapefruit and chasing cute Long Island Jewish girls away from mom and dad for the first time. Not exactly deep academic endeavours.
If there is a foundational floor for any commentary here, on Ivy League quads or from extraordinarily well-bred presidents before Congress it should be that:
1: The October 7 attack was a checks-all-boxes terrorist atrocity … with an option to add that it was carried out by fanatical religious fundamentalists dedicated to the death of Jews anywhere.
2: The Israeli response while legitimate to a point, is far too broad to achieve its stated goal of destroying said terrorists “once and for all.”
Beyond that we can then satisfy ourselves with a discussion of the 800-pound nuance of Israel incinerating its moral standing with a civilian pulverizing operation designed primarily to — I’m just sayin’ it — keep Benjamin Netanyhu’s deeply corrupt, arch right-wing administration in power. An administration undergirded by … fanatical religious fundamentalists dedicated to sustaining a dehumanizing existence for Palestinians.
Point being that somewhere in there is an option for public verbiage more compelling than saying, it is “a context-dependent decision”, when asked if calling for genocide against Jews is hate speech on an Ivy League campus. As the kids like to say, “Oh, for f*ck sake!”
Hamline had to suffer international embarrassment before learning, there is a point where defering to any complaining interest group is counter-effective to insuring free speech for all. The cruel lesson being that at some point the adults in charge have to swallow deep, step up to the microphone and say, “No. That is not right. You are wrong.”
But we — and as we see they, meaning college administrators — live in a world that places proficiency with tortured legalese among the key criteria for prominent public positions. Never mind the way board room gobbledygook looks and sounds when it gets pushed out into public view and the conflict-addicted internet.
And it’s not that I don’t have some level of sympathy for an administrator’s position. Stroking the egos of donors is a full time job. But in the case of the three Ivy Leaguers who resisted admonishing anti-Jewish speech prior to their Congressional debasement, had they jumped in, mid-protest and told the demonstrators on their campuses that they were engaging in intolerable hate speech … they would then have been in the position of having to … you know … do something. As in punishment, or sanctions, or … something.
Go ahead and imagine where they’d be if they called in the campus cops to put an end to the “intifada” rallies.
In a previous life I wrote about television for a local newspaper. A recurring source of conflict with my supervisors was so-called “reality TV” which had recently, um, blossomed, across all the networks. Being a cranky, disputatious bastard I thought the stuff was junk, plainly stage-managed and therefore worthy of derisive coverage, if any at all. The bosses thought differently. They loved it. And they were convinced “our readers” as they called them, loved it too. Especially the dating shows, and they resented my resistance to succumbing to abject fandom.
I mention this because of last night’s the much-touted finale of “The Golden Bachelor”, a variation on the usual hunky/sexy twenty-somethings, in which viewers are presented hunky/sexy seventy-somethings cooing and trilling in hot tubs in search of, you know, real true love. Ratings for the variant have been through the roof, so we can expect a lot more of what this is all about.
This morning’s Star Tribune features what looks like the eighth update on “The Golden Bachelor” and its Minnesota bachelorette, the [correction: ex-wife] of a well-known local restaurateur. The story gives all-in, misty-eyed fans everything they want. The fashion choices, the heart break, a touch of recrimination. So much, you know, reality.
Everythihg real except the reality part, as reported in excruciating detail by the show biz trade paper, The Hollywood Reporter, the day before. That piece essentially vivisected the hunky golden widower bachelor, revealing him to be, while still hunky and dreamy, quite a bit the fraud, at least compared to how he was being packaged and sold on TV, and a bit of cad, as well.
Some key bits from that (actual) reporting:
“The idea that this guileless man was reawakening before our eyes to contemporary life — ‘I mean, I haven’t dated in 45 years’, he told Entertainment Tonight — made him a hugely compelling character. He seemed so wholesome and almost preacherly that, on The Daily Show, comedian Lewis Black joked, ‘This guy is like if the word ‘Gee Willikers’ became a person’. But even in this Golden variation, this is, at bottom, a reality show, a genre mostly known for its frequent disconnection with reality.”
And … “The Hollywood Reporter has discovered several inconsistencies regarding both his work history and recent romantic entanglements that contradict the received narrative. Whether [the producers] never learned about these discrepancies or ignored them to sell a buffed-up, shinier storyline for greater impact, producers presented an incomplete and misleading image of [bachelor Gerry] Turner, which the bachelor helped perpetuate in personal remarks.
“He’s identified in chyrons throughout the show as a ‘retired restaurateur’, which is a fancy way to say he owns or owned a restaurant, with all of its attendant fun and glamour. But according to his profile on LinkedIn, Gerry last owned a restaurant in 1985, when he sold his Mr. Quick hamburger drive-in franchise in Iowa, where he’d worked his way up from high school.”
And … ” … he would come to know a woman (we’ll call her Carolyn) with whom he would go on to have a nearly three-year relationship, beginning innocently enough a month after his wife’s death.”
And … ” … his amorous activity certainly didn’t align with how he regularly yanked viewers’ heartstrings with on-air announcements about his lack of a love life since his wife died.”
And … ” … [a friend of the girlfriend] recalled watching the show and hearing Gerry say that line about not having been kissed in six years. ‘And I’m like, what? He’s got to know that people are paying attention to this show. I’m just flabbergasted’. (ABC and Turner declined to comment for this article.) At first, Carolyn [the girlfriend] tried to laugh it off. But then The Golden Bachelor became a ratings bonanza. The show was suddenly the talk of pop culture, considered a breakthrough for its positive portrayal of sexually active seniors. It bothered Carolyn that her ex was foisting lines and moves on the bachelorettes that he had used to seduce her.”
The story goes on to talk about the hunk finally talked Carolyn into quitting her job and moving five hous away from her home to his lake house, only to then present her with half the tab for his place’s monthly expenses, telling her he wasn’t going to take her to his high school reunion because she’d gained weight and then soon after that telling she had to be out by the first of the year, and making her stay at hotel the last two weeks before she moved.
My god, what a smoothy! What a heart throb! What woman’s heart wouldn’t go pitter patter for a real loving hunk like that?
Anyway, you can read the whole story, none … none … of which was mentioned in the Strib’s coverage. And maybe … perhaps … you and I and mainstream editors who should know better can reflect on how easy and irresponsible it is to give gullible audiences the story they want to believe as opposed to a story that is believable.
This though, being a blog for political ranting and raving, allow me to point out the stark parallels to the low information, gullible audiences who were sold Donald Trump as the infallible titan of finance on “The Apprentice.”
The heavily stage-managed “reality TV” Trump was for many viewers the first and certainly the most potent introduction to Trump, and no credible political analyst discounts the impact that that perception — of an astute, tough-minded, fabulously rich, more-cunning-than-the-other-rascals rascal — had on propelling him ahead of the hapless stiffs in the 2016 Republican primary and on into the White House, (thanks to the electoral college.) Never mind Trump’s “Apprentice” board room was a TV set and no producer ever mentioned his decades as a cartoonish fraud shunned by real titans of finance, swindling business partners, contractors and laborers.
Given “The Golden Bachelor’s” boffo box office, ABC will without a doubt spin this shtick ad nauseum. And that’s show biz.
But the so-called professional press has an obligation different than playing fan boy/girl to satisfy the most infantile and credulous yearnings of their readers.
There’s the story we have and then there’s the story we still haven’t heard. And that’s where we are in The Curious Case of Dean Phillips. A few days ago the Strib ran a piece about Phillips’ not all that surprising (to me) decision to bail on this grimey Congress thing. The usual officialese was transcribed and published. But for everyone following this bizarre adventure the essential question still remaining is, “WTF, Dean?”
I don’t live in Phillips’ district, but literally across the road, so I’ve been to a couple of his small group meet-ups and had two brief conversations with the guy. Astute judge of political talent that I am I assessed that he was, A: Upright, mobile and bathed regularly, B: Could form consecutive coherent paragraphs in the king’s English, C: Was solicitous and patient with the elderly and common folk, D: Was a good-looking dude and, E: Was rich.
In other words a character dispatched from Central Casting for modern American politics.
And then, after barely five years as a reasonably diligent backbencher he decides … he’s the guy to take a primary fight to the sitting President of his own party.
Oooooookay.
I have no disagreement with his stated reasons for painting a bus and road-tripping to New Hampshire. Joe Biden puts both the party and the country in a precarious situation vis a vis Donald Trump in 2024. But .. you … Dean Phillips? You’re the message bearer? You’re the alternative? Even you don’t think you could win this. So what are you really thinking when you run around torching not just your reputation as a sane adult but your relationships with the DFL/Democratic political machinery?
Missing from the Strib piece, and other local outlets covering Phillips, were quotes from DFL wisemen/women. On or off record I’d be fascinated to hear their assessments of Phillips as a person and what Phillips thinks he’s doing. Either way, having paid enough attention to politics over the years I can speculate without fear that personable, good-looking and rich Mr. Phillips has received several-to-a-lot of scorching phone calls from his soon-to-be-former-colleagues, party financiers and advisors, etc. and etc. some more. To the point I strongly suspect he’s now persona non grata with those who matter in the Democratic politics.
Oh, they’ll smile and say bland niceties in public, but he’s not getting invited to the main table for Christmas dinner.
If I had to spout off a psychologically-based explanation for Phillips I’d tie most of it to his wealth. (He was adopted into the Phillips liquor fortune.) Unlike the average Congressperson, he doesn’t need the job. While high profile and with some perks, the downside of being in Congress is the amount of precious life hours/days/months wasted in the churning wake of deeply stupid-to-manifestly corrupt “colleagues.” (Phillips said as much in the Strib story, leaving out the “deeply stupid” and “manifestly corrupt” parts.)
Being as wealthy as he is, he doesn’t have to spend hours every week demeaning himself on the phone begging for reelection money from occasionally sketchy supporters. But being as wealthy as he is also builds and sustains an attitude that, “I’m better than this”, an attitude he could sell if it weren’t for what now looks and feels like an act of adolescent hubris.
To date the “Phillips for President” campaign has been an almost farcical disaster, yet in his reasonable-sounding, good-looking and rich way he insists he’s going to carry on … you know, for the good of the party and the country.
It’s all so sad I cringe every time I hear his name.
What issue gets Minnesotans most engaged and inflamed?
The wealthiest not paying their fair share? The unaffordability of health care and child care? Proposals to deny citizens the freedom to control their bodies, marriages, and reading choices? Low-income families lacking affordable food, housing, and early education?
Nope. State flag redesign! Fetch the torches and pitchforks!
If you want to see Minnesota’s “public square” aflame, take a look at social media posts about the re-design of the Minnesota state flag. Minnesotans are passionately rising up 1) in defense of the current state flag, and/or 2) expressing outrage about the lack of their preferred colors, layouts, symbols, and words being included on the six designs that have been chosen as finalists.
“Where’s the fucking loon?”
When the Minnesota Legislature decided to redesign the current state flag, it took on a thankless political challenge. But I give them a lot of credit for taking this on, because the change is badly needed.
The current flag has many faults. The state seal on a plain background design is dull, illegible at a distance, and similar to many other state flags. More disturbingly, Minnesota’s current flag spotlights a white settler plowing a field as a Native American rides away on a horse, a scene that seems to glorify Minnesota’s most shameful chapter, when indigenous people were slaughtered and robbed of their land and livelihoods by white newcomers and white supremacist politicians.
Even if you disagree that the scene on the state seal glorifies mistreatment of indigenous people, you have to acknowledge that, given our history, it feels that way to many. Therefore, this is a needlessly divisive image to feature on a flag that that is supposed to unify all Minnesotans.
Moving into the future, we need a flag that is more unique and unifying. However, redesigning a flag in the age of social media is easier said than done. Anyone who works in or around graphic design won’t be surprised by the volume and temperature of the feedback being offered about Minnesota’s new flag design finalists. In the world of graphic design, this happens all the time. We are all supremely confident that we have impeccable design taste that everyone else should follow, and we’re not shy about sharing our thoughts.
However, we don’t all make the same design choices. Take a look at the artistic choices we individually make in our lives. You’ll see that there is nothing close to an aesthetic consensus amongst Minnesotans. Therefore, picking a consensus flag out of the pile of over 2,000 submissions is going to be impossible. Even the finest of designs is going to be controversial with many Minnesotans.
In addition to the “everyone thinks they’re a designer” phenomenon, we now have social media, where the masses are empowered to impulsively and repeatedly voice their opinions in the most harsh terms. In the social media age, a public relations shitshow was sure to follow the naming of these flag finalists, and it has.
So really, are these six finalists really that horrible? Or would any flag design have faced similar public brickbats?
Imagine if the Internet had existed in 1776, and that George Washington had sought popular input on Betsy Ross’s flag design. Just like with the Minnesota flag designs, Betsy would have gotten an earful about her stars and stripes proposal.
“LMAO. I’m sorry, but this is reallly the best she could do?
Even I could draw that! This is so simplistic it looks like a talentless child did it!
How much did the corrupt Continental Congress pay for this monstrosity? Those founding fathers fuck up everything.
WTF do stars have to do with America anyway. And why such ugly stars?
Where’s the EAGLE? There must be at least one EAGLE!!!
WE NEED TO START OVER FROM SCRATCH!!! Here’s MY much better drawing…”
Woud it kill them to include the actual name of the country on the country’s flag?
I don’t see cotton farmers or anything else representing the south’s proud heritage here. So typical! Such disrespect! “Why is the design so vague and symbolic? This doesn’t look anything like the 13 colonies!
Why not just use that awesome Gadsen snake flag instead?!?
Before the flag fetishists go off on me, let me be clear that my point isn’t that Betsy had a bad design. My point is that any time you ask the public to weigh in on graphic design, some will inevitably pick apart any design that is offered, even one that over time ultimately becomes beloved.
Therefore, state leaders just need to approve a design and get prepared to be pummelled for a while by the self-righteous masses of wannabe graphic designers. It’s inevitable.
Legislators won’t be praised now, but history will look more kindly on them.
So now 60 years have passed since JFK was killed in Dallas. And because “the media” (whatever that means today) loves anniversaries we’re getting a fresh flow of interviews, articles, fascinating algorithmically created animations and podcasts on the subject of the assassination … and, you know, “what really happened.”
As someone who remembers 11/22/63 vividly and has followed the various investigations and reporting on the killing extensively (some say “obsessively”) for six decades, one of the recent interviews stands out. “JFK: What the Doctors Saw”, a documentary now on Paramount+ gathers the surviving team of doctors who were present when Kennedy was wheeled into the Parkland Hospital emergency room.
What I find interesting here is that nothing these gentlemen say has changed since that day. Nothing.
In fact, if you too are an obsessive, you can dial up any number of YouTube videos of these very same doctors over the years, usually separately, saying exactly what they’re saying now. Namely … (trigger warning alert for all you who believe America is so exceptional conspiracies never happen here) … wherever else shots might have been fired from, Kennedy was hit twice from the front. Once through the throat, a wound that was quickly obliterated for a tracheotomy incision, and then, most critically the enormous head wound that blew out a large part of the back of his skull.
Allow me to repeat: these are exactly the same wounds these same doctors described that day, in the immediate aftermath and ever since. Nothing they say has changed, even though hype around this documentary suggests some kind of new understanding. In other words, this “news”, while forever relevant is very, very old.
What I finally had to accept — as part of growing up and acknowledging the world as it is, not as it should be — is that, A: There will never be a definitive judgment on JFK’s assassination, in part because B: The case long ago became such a toxic stew of official and lunatic speculation that credible political leaders and professional reporters, people whose reputations might otherwise move public opinion toward acceptance of what the Parkland doctors have always said, edged further and further away from contact with the story. They too eacknowledging as I did that this will never be settled and that public association with anything but the (deeply compromised) Warren Commission conclusion is, you know, just bad career mojo.
I could go on ad nauseum, and I have. But today’s takeaway is … what it has always been.
The Parkland doctors have always described the throat entrance wound and the massive exit wound on the rear of Kennedy’s head in the same way. In other words … as result of shots from in front of the motorcade. If you want to get into the pretzel logic of how Lee Harvey Oswald — the sad, lone commie malcontent recently encamped in Dallas, the most rabidly right-wing big city in the USA, while simltaneously interacting with an improbable collection of mobbed-up spooks — pulled off two shots from the front while perched 100 yards behind JFK, well you’ve always had the Warren Commision to buck you up.
We’ve all got little moments, seemingly innocuous at the time, but that stick in memory nevertheless. Like this, for example.
October 2016 and I’m sitting in a hotel bar in West Yellowstone, Montana with a couple friends and a dozen or so guys out on a hunting trip or early season snowmobiling. The TV is carrying one of the debates between Hillary Clinton, who everyone assumes will win and Donald Trump, who is trying to recover from that pussy grabbin’ business.
At one point, Trump makes the crack about how Clinton should be in jail … and half the hunter-snowmobilers guffaw in unison. They are amused. This Trump dude is, you know, “just sayin’ it”, and they find it entertaining.
That’s the moment. Nothing more. I didn’t take names and follow up to see who they eventually voted for. Although one guy, figuring me for a Clinton voter, followed me out to lobby to register his moral outrage at the way Bill Clinton “defiled the people’s house”, with the Monica Lewinsky escapade.
The takeaway that has haunted me ever since is not just that Trump won — the electoral college — largely because he was a pop culture entertainment star who spoke in a common man’s vernacular. But that despite the seven years since, the 30,000 documented lies, the gross mismanagement of an epidemic that killed over a million Americans, the constant insults to allies, bona fide meritorious Americans and, you know, inciting a riot to overthrow the elected government, his followers, at their essence a deeply ignorant mob, still find him both entertaining and a better steward of their future than … well, just about anyone, but certainly Joe Biden.
All this was in mind when I read that recent New York Times/Siena College Poll that had Trump beating Biden in key battleground states. (Key and battleground because the fate of constitutional democracy is once again in the hands of … the electoral college.)
Among the facets of this coming campaign that are clear is that Trump’s voters, the MAGA crowd, most certainly does see him as their “retribution”, and this next election as their best and perhaps last chance to correct a terrible wrong and set the country back on a path that serves them, (and only them.)
Point being, the MAGA mob is 100% certain to come out with even more zealotry than they showed in 2016, since revenge and retribution have been added to the entertainment appeal of their leader.
The same can not and will never be said for Joe Biden. Tucked away in the Times/Siena poll was 25% of younger voters interested in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with options like Cornel West and Jill Stein still in play. (We of course hope Stein, to plump up her independent bona fides, can cadge another dinner invitation to Moscow with Vladimir Putin and Gen. Mike Flynn.)
A normal presidential campaign features all sorts of “critical issues.” This next campaign has only one: keeping Donald Trump, his praetorian guard of renegade legal experts, election denying state officials and his self-pitying red hat mob away from even a scent of government authority. That’s it. Nothing else matters.
This will not be an election that turns on policy. The deciding factor is not tax equality, climate change, or police reform. One side is afire and firmly set on on cult-like retribution, while a critical faction of the other is lost in self-absorbed silliness.
Which brings us to why Joe Biden, regardless of the legitimacy he’s restored to the White House, the legislation he’s delivered and the wisdom he’s applied to Ukraine and now Israel/Hamas, is simply too precarious a vehicle to risk in another match up with Trump.
Given the electoral college — vigorously defended with inverted, Mobius strip logic by greybeard Libertarians — the indifference to Biden of a couple hundred thousand Millenials, Gen Z’ers and blacks identified in the Times/Siena poll — restores to Trump to the White House. That’s how precarious the situation is … today. And a restoration of Trump incompetence, fraud and pop authoritarianism is simply too calamitous to imagine.
The presumption among the political cognoscenti is that we are far past the point of no return in terms of Biden-Trump. Biden is in it to stay.
That said, all of them that I follow go on to fret openly about the instantaneous death spiral of the Biden campaign given one “health episode” on Biden’s part, one mumble-mouth response in a debate, or another uptick in the price of gas.
Trump’s addled buffoonery has never deterred his voters. Nor will his dive deeper and deeper into truly ugly Himmler-Goebbels-speak. The MAGA mob either doesn’t get the historical references of “blood poison”, “rooting out vermin” and setting up “camps” for immigrants, or doesn’t care. Either way they’re still entertained, Trump is their retribution, and revenge is a very powerful human motivation.
By contrast, one Mitch McConnell-like “freeze up” and Biden is toast.
I know I’ve warned against catastrophic thinking, but I did say that some matters before us are “worrisome.”
This is the biggest. Biden can’t make the mistake Ruth Bader Ginsburg made. Voters, especially young voters, want to be “excited” about a candidate. Sad but true. Political leadership is a form of entertainment. Joe Biden can never give them that.
Their response then is to stay home or vote for some third party vanity act. And the consequence of that is the Trump restoration.
I repeat what I’ve said before. Biden has done an excellent job. But the realities of 21st century politics powerfully suggest he should step aside and let a fresher face give critical voters the dopamine hit they need to feel entertained.
It seems like a million years ago now, but back in 2009 I drove up to a sports bar in Big Lake, Minnesota to do a story off a night of speechifying by Republican fire breathers. The event was headlined by none other than Michele Bachmann, at the time — and I repeat, at the time — the most flagrant, batshit grifter on Minnesota’s landscape and arguably that of the whole country.
I took a couple important things away from evening … before I was thrown out of the place.
A: Until that night, it hadn’t quite centered itself in my mind how much the alleged thinking of Bachmann and her “base” revolved around notions of impending doom, catastrophe and apocalypse. As the night began I was at a table with a dozen normal enough looking … ardent Bachmann supporters. And as we chatted, I sensed the theme of … God’s righteous punishment, a complete collapse of the American system and the destruction even of life as we know it … all due to … that’s right folks … liberals and their heinous liberal ideas.
Why, some of those libtards were even questioning Ms. Bachmann’s husband’s “pray way the gay” therapy cult!
But the idea du jour that motivated several at the table to come out that night was … you’re sitting down right? … train service.
As in a railroad train. Carrying people.
Speaker after speaker, including Bachmann and Tom Emmer (who — and this revelation #2 — otherwise came off as the adult in the room), fired up the doomers with menacing visions of what would happen to them and their children right there in far exurban all-white Big Lake if legislative liberals, Met Council liberals and god knows what other mongrel cult of liberals funded a passenger train link that would let — them — get on a train Chicago, (Chicago!!!), and ride all the way to Big Lake.
Everyone understood what Bachmann, Emmer and the rest meant by “Chicago.”
Black folks! Hookers and pimps! Drug addicts and pushers! Gangbangers and shoot-outs on Main Street Big Lake! In other words: apocalypse, societal collapse and catastrophe. What liberals always want!
As I say, someone figured I out that I was, shall we say, “unsympathetic” to the idea that liberals were conniving to pollute the Big Lake bloodline with Chicago pimps and addicts, and I was asked … no, told to leave. Which I did, processing on the drive home the near universal appeal to and acceptance of catastrophic thinking. “Christ, what a bunch of whack-os. How do they ever dare leave their houses?,” said I … in 2009.
This all comes back in our current moment as I listen to so many liberal friends expressing their own variation of apocalyptic, catastrophic thinking based on their sense of life in 2023 USA. Obviously, over 14 years, eight of them choked with mind-breaking Trumpism, we’ve grown to accept the paranoid, fundamentally racist fantasies of what was once the far right but is now mainstream Republican-ism.
We’ve listened — ad nauseum — to manifest fools bleat on about the decay of American values, a country “going in the wrong direction”, (at least every time a Democrat walks into the Oval Office) and the persecution of people like them who make this country what it is, meaning the not all that well educated, contentedly ill-informed and very white.
But now, with the combined impacts of climate change, spiraling violence in the Middle East, polls showing young voters and blacks so unhappy that Joe Biden hasn’t met all their needs, solved all their problems and given them a free pony, they may sit out the next election, even if it means electing the Quadrophonically Indicted Human Cheeto … again, the apocalypse seems nigh, for liberals.
My first reaction to the Big Lake crowd — and maybe the reason I was tossed out — was to blurt out something to the effect of, “Oh for fuck sake, maybe you should calm down and not take this shit so seriously.”
My instinct is to say the same to my liberal cronies and fellow travelers today.
Yes, everything you’re worried about is … mmm … worrisome. But merely worrying, palpitating and as the political pros like to say, “bed-wetting” fails not only to achieve anything positive, it reinforces, i.e. thickens the pall of catastrophic fever in the air just generally.
I realize that the worst thing you can ever say to someone expressing apocalyptic phobias and high anxiety is, “Calm down.” But really, how about we all — and by “all” I mean those of us not mainlining speed balls of Russian disinformation, Mark Levin, Hannity and Steve Bannon — just get a grip?
We’re a long — long — ways from election day 2024. 70-75% of the voting population isn’t paying any attention, much less any serious attention to what’s going on and the media mills make their quarterly nut selling you the sweet, sweet rage and terror that keeps you tuning back for more.
If you really think a battle royale is coming — and it may be — a deep reserve of rationality and clear thinking is the best offense.
So much for today’s sermon.
U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips (DFL-Edina) seems to be relishing the national attention that comes with his months of hemming and hawing about a long-shot potential challenge of Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination. To be clear, Phillips is far from the best Democrat in the nation to serve as an alternative to Joe Biden. In fact, Phillips is not even close to being the best presidential candidate in little old Minnesota.
Phillips is fine. The former CEO of Phillips Distributing, his step-father’s inherited business, is thoughtful and decent, if also sometimes dull and self-righteous, as centrist politicicans tend to be. His bipartisan instincts have made him a good fit to represent the purple-ish 3rd congressional district, which is anchored by Minnesota’s most affluent western suburbs.
However, it’s time for Phillips to come out of the TV studios and return to representing his district. As Rep. Annie Kuster (D-NH) said in today’s Star Tribune:
There’s no path. There’s no outcry. Personally, I think it’s a vanity project by Mr. Phillips, and I think it could do serious damage by emboldening the Trump Republicans.”
To be clear, the most talented politician in Minnesota isn’t Phillips. It’s DFL Senator Amy Klobuchar, and it’s not even close. Reports about Klobuchar’s erratic behind-the-scenes behavior are concerning when it comes to the world’s most pressure-packed job. Still, no Minnesota politician is better than Klobuchar at doing what presidential candidates must do well – sell progressive ideas and positions in both wholesale and retail settings to a wide variety of audiences. Whether on big or small stages, Klobuchar consistently comes across as warm, sincere, tough, bright, thoughtful, prepared, nimble, and persuasive. As such, Minnesota’s senior senator would be a much more compelling presidential candidate than Phillips.
While Klobuchar is Minnesota’s most skilled politician, DFL Governor Tim Walz ranks second. At the same time, Walz has more marketable policy accomplishments than Kloubachar or any other Minnesota pol.
In a purple state with a slim one-vote DFL advantage in the state Senate, Walz can boast on national stages that he signed many state laws that national Democrats want to see on a national level, such as legislation creating a family and medical leave system, securing abortion rights, legalizing marijuana, expanding child care access, creating new gun violence protections, making voting more accessible, providing free school lunches for all, investing much more in public education, building a public option for health insurance, and requiring disclosure for dark money donors.
All the while, the Minnesota economy has outpaced a relatively strong national economy, with a lower rate of inflation and unemployment than the nation as a whole.
Walz’s long list of significant policy accomplishments would be popular among the national Democrats he would need to win over in a primary challenge against Biden. Importantly, it also would be popular among the swing voters a Democratic nominee will need to win over in a 2024 presidential general election. Politically speaking, Walz is well poised to make a “we will do for America what we did for Minnesota” pitch to Democrats clutching their pearls about Biden’s electoral viability.
State Capitol insiders are quick to point out that Walz’s myriad policy wins had more to do with House Speaker Melissa Hortman, Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic, and a number of very capable DFLers chairing key committees. But that kind of inside baseball would largely be ignored by national pundits and reporters if Walz ran for President. Walz vocally supported those progressive changes and signed them into law. Therefore, it would be fair for him to tout them in early Democratic primary states.
But Klobuchar and Walz aren’t going to be in those states, not as candidates anyway. They have enough political sense to understand that they’re never going to defeat an accomplished, albeit ancient, incumbent, and that trying to do so at this late hour would irreparably ruin their reputation with the leaders and activists they need in order to be effective.
Phillips, for all his strengths, appears incapable of understanding that part.
The current betting line is that this next Republican-driven government shut down, the one likely to begin at midnight on the 30th, will last three weeks. That anyway is what I’m picking up from the smart kids in the know.
But … those kids have no idea what it will take to actually end it. The fundamental problem being that the — take your pick here — “Clown Caucus”, “idiots”, “MAGA dead-enders” leading the revolt simply don’t care what damage they wreak. Put another way, they aren’t really serious about spending, (all this cynical/moron-level grandstanding is over 1.9% of the federal budget). We all know that what it’s really about is the value to their personal fund-raising, which only increases the longer their tantrum.
The “serious” business has been lodged in my brain lately thanks to the now infamous Lauren Boebert vaping/heavy petting session at that Denver theater and a fascinating story in the UK’s Daily Mail about South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, often touted as “veep” material for a second Trump term.
Because it was both comically salacious and her hypocrisy/lying was validated by the videotape, we all know about Boebert, the epically nitwit Congressperson/former escort (or maybe not) from western Colorado. But the Noem story has received far less traction, possibly because The Daily Mail, Britain’s highest circulation paper, doesn’t exactly compare with the New York Times in terms of, you know, journalistic credibility.
Still … with your gimlet eyes at full focus, I encourage you to read what the Mail dug up on Noem, who, keep in mind, is the sitting governor of an American state, albeit “Prairie ‘Bama” as I’m obliged to call it.
The very short version is this: Noem is still carrying on a not particularly down low affair with ex-Trump “advisor” Corey Lewandowski. That’d be one thing I couldn’t give a damn about, other than the usual rich irony that she’s still selling herself — successfully — to rock-ribbed Prairie ‘Bama Republicans as a model mother and wife.
But, as the story strongly suggests, the amount of time and state money she’s spending on far flung adventures to burnish her, mmm, conservative bona fides and get regularly advised by Lewandowski, is kind of, well, scandalous, not that anyone over there seems to care all that much.
Noem of course is very much modeling her governing after the likes of Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Tim Pawlenty here in Minnesota, two dudes who thought nothing of contorting their management obligations to, first and foremost, advancing their laughable presidential ambitions. Although in Walker and Pawlenty’s defense their cynical manipulation of state government never approached ignoring a deadly pandemic that at one point in November 2020 had Noem’s Live Free or Die fiefdom #1 in the world in terms of deaths per capita. (But hey, most of those were Indians and migrant workers at slaughterhouses.)
By contrast to all this manifest unseriousness, and the Matt Gaetz-Marjorie Taylor Greene clown caucus about to grind the gears of the country to a halt … again … (by now this is a Republican tradition), it’s worth a moment to compare all of that crew’s self-serving chaos to a very little noticed event hosted by MAGA bete noir, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, aka AOC.
While Boebert was checking her date for pocket change and Noem was racking up frequent flyer perks with Lewandowski, AOC, one of the most frightening figures on the landscape to the MAGA echo chamber was leading a thousands-strong awareness/protest march in New York City against fossil fuels and for green energy. Green energy! The horror! The stuff that you don’t choke on at stoplights behind that 7000 pound Duramax diesel. Pollution-free, job-creating renewable energy being an idea that Boebert/Noem/Gaetz/Greene Unserious Subcaucus rails against nearly as much as … as … well, I don’t know, as … books in libraries.
The contrast couldn’t be more stark. Yet one crew has the ability to bring government to dead stop … again … while the other, AOC, is treated like a Bond villain by the MAGA intellectuals on the set of “Fox & friends.”
I apologize for not having a solution to the existence of nitwits and charlatans like Boebert, Noem, etc. All I’ve got is the same question I — and perhaps you — have asked for years now, namely, “What do voters see in these people? What do they imagine politicians like this will or are doing for them? How are their lives better with the likes of Lauren Boebert in charge?” I mean, beyond, “sticking it to the libs?”
Personally, I return to brain science and ask what structure or gland or cluster of neurons is so excited by the sight of MAGA-speaking women in tight dresses and/or tight jeans … and can it be treated with drugs? Perhaps even via vape pen?
For what it’s worth, I would never count as a fan boy of Elon Musk. Even before this past year of reckless behavior — business and social media-wise — the guy was too much of a preening gadfly for my tastes. That said there is no question — none — that in terms of what he has created he is one of the most consequential characters of our era, and in a way that is unequivocally beneficial to human progress.
But good god man, get some help.
Not that he’s ever out of the news, (like The Great Orange Carbunkle Musk needs hourly affirmation that he still is everything he thinks he is), but with the new book from venerable biographer Walter Isaacson the chattering classes are again talking Elon with a vengeance. In particular, long time tech reporter-turned-podcaster, Kara Swisher, who has known Musk for several decades, interviewed him often and now with her typical bulldozer-like bluntness is declaring Musk a deplorable train wreck of a human being, and more critically, one the government urgently needs to get a grip on.
The first news out of the Isaacson book was that Musk ‘”turned off” his Starlink low-orbit internet satellite network over Crimea out of concern that Ukraine might use it to coordinate missile attacks on Russian facilities … and thereby set off… WWIII. That news was semi-voided when Isaacson corrected himself, saying he misunderstood a “nuance” of the story, namely that Musk simply didn’t turn it on. (The technical term for turning the system on and off is called “geo-fencing”, which acts kind of like those invisible dog barriers people dig around their yards.)
Whether he turned it off or didn’t turn it on, the very serious point is that this is one un-elected, demonstrably erratic billionaire with an endless number of financial conflicts of interest with outright American enemies (Russia) and serious rivals (China) deciding — on his own — how to fight naked aggression.
That ain’t right folks, and the story could get far more calamitous if China, where Musk’s Tesla car operation has both an enormous facility and consumer market, decides to invade Taiwan.
Swisher and her podcast partner, Scott Galloway, freely concede Musk’s entrepreneurial genius. Unlike say, the aforementioned Orange Carbunkle, who has never created anything of universal social value — thinking Trump University, Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump ties or Trump mugshot t-shirts here — the electric car revolution, SpaceX and Starlink — are bona fide Henry Ford-level leaps forward in substantive human endeavors.
Unfortunately, with virulent anti-Semite Henry Ford in mind, Swisher and Galloway and others make the complaint about Isaacson’s book, (which I have not read), that while genius-level entrepreneurial functioning is often wrapped up in mercurial personalities, that is no reason to excuse the truly ugly, shameless descent Musk has taken in MAGA-like posturing.
If you missed his recent insinuation that the Anti-Defamation League was responsible for the shocking decline in X/Twitter’s stock valuation, it was rancid and straight from every crackpot anti-semitic fever swamp you can think of.
Those Jews, y’know, always jacking with the honest, hard-workin’ Aryans.
The action item to this rant is that clearly Congress has to get full control of Musk vis a vis his numerous defense contracts. Serious professionals with serious oversight need to make military decisions, not a guy who has no qualms about acting out like a raging 15 year-old at the slightest imagined provocation.
The other point Swisher and Galloway got in to on the same recent podcast was the overall tenor of Isaacson’s book — which Swisher had read and panned with a “meh.” Their point being that Isaacson, a genial, avuncular character with an impressive pedigree in professional journalism, never dares make a call — the call — on Musk.
To which Galloway correctly sniffs, “It all feels like upscale access journalism.” Adding that if Isaacson — who wrote the most prominent biography of Apple’s Steve Jobs, (a genius who was often an asshole but never a public racist) — did drop the hammer on Musk, his chances of access to his next high-profile subject would evaporate in an instant.
He spent months with Musk and Musk’s friends, family and foes and still, Swisher complains, the book left her — a very tough interviewer with a long history with Musk — demanding to know, “Ok, Walter, what do YOU actually think of this guy. Your opinion has value. What is it?”
Isaacson BTW is booked as a guest on an upcoming Swisher podcast.
The mind tends to wander in the face of something as grim, dystopian and toxic as last week’s Republican “debate” in Milwaukee. I mean, even at this point in the collapse of Ye Grande Olde Party into a shreiking variation of The Real Housewives of The Villages, you expect something a tad more uplifting than, “This country is in decline” and “We are in a dark moment” from the same brand that perpetrated doddering ol’ Ronnie Reagan on us.
Jesus, what a collection of bummers.
But as I endured the polished ravings of far right wing America’s flavor-of-the-month, Vivek Ramaswamy, the pious nattering of Mike Pence, the cruelty-is-the-point jeremiads of Ron DeSantis and so on, I kept toggling back to … Taylor Swift and “Barbie.” And who young men in 2023 America have to take their culture cues from.
Whatever else this summer will be known most for, the truly remarkable tour of Ms. Swift across the country, filling gigantic football stadiums with adoring legions of (mostly) young women paired with the billion dollar success of “Barbie”, again mostly thanks to the delight it inspired in young women, makes a case that 2023 has been The Summer of Babs and Taylor.
Being just a wee bit of a curmudgeon I can make a modest case that the overwhelming appeal of Ms. Swift and “Barbie” is not without some concern.
For example, there’s something a bit mercenary in Swift’s incessant extraction of disposable income from her fans. Never mind the sky high ticket prices, how about the re-re-release of her various albums in … different colors of vinyl … at $30+ a pop? And the vast array of “Taylor approved” merch? And … . Well it goes on and on in ways that I’m sure Mick Jagger kicks himself for never thinking of back in the early ’70s.
Beyond that, on an artistic level, I do wonder what Ms. Swift’s pervasive indulgence in personal relationship melodrama signals to impressionable young women? What lovelorn 16 year-old doesn’t listen to any of 50 of Swift’s songs and presume that that cute guy she’s developed a crush on is in fact a rat bastard? (Which of course they could well be.)
Similarly, fans of “Barbie”, and I’m one on a clever filmmaking level, argue that it’s real message is how both genders are locked into counterproductive stereotypes, not just all the doofus Kens strutting around. I guess I can see that, given some reflection. But I seriously doubt the majority of “Barbie’s” fans register much beyond, “Wow! Are boys dumb.”
Which, again, they most certainly are. Especially if you pay attention to modern American politics and watched even 10 minutes of last week’s debate.
There’s a new book out titled, “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling” by a Brit named Richard Reeves.
It’s received a middling amount of attention for its thesis — backed up by abundant data — that today’s males are fairing quite badly in comparison to their female counterparts. The fact that 57% of college degrees are now being awarded to women tells you something about how significantly young men in particular are falling behind in terms of higher education. After that you get into truly grim trend lines on addiction, various other forms of self-abusive behavior and suicide. Point being the picture isn’t encouraging … for men … and us, when you consider how all this anti-intellectual, overly-aggressive, self destructive behavior affects society at large.
You can see where I’m going with this.
Niggles aside, the over-arching cultural message from Taylor Swift and “Barbie” is something positive, community-enhancing based in a deeply enriching sense of gender pride and possibility. By the starkest of contrasts you listen to … Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron De Santis and of course He Who’s Name I’m Trying Damn Hard Not to Say for Fear of Spoiling My Lunch … and your reaction is basically the same as if confronted by a rabid carnivore in a dark alley. Lacking an escape route you want to find something with which to beat it over the head. It’s so goddam ugly.
It seems to me there’s an indisputable direct line from the self-pitying, sullen, greivance-soaked animosities discussed by Reeves in his book and on various podcasts and the predominately under-educated male’s identification with The Orange God King and all those — Ramaswamy — shamelessly trying to out-dystopia him. (Gotta love the Dickensian name on that dude, btw. An obnoxious peddler of magical, mystical thinking: Rama – swami. Can’t make it up.)
Young women can look on Taylor Swfit and think how wonderful and fun it would be to be her. But let’s imagine young men this summer — or over the past long eight years — looking at DeSantis, Ramaswamy and Him. What is their takeaway from the behavior they see there?
My hope is that one takeaway from this moment is that young men in particular, males who took their culutural dominance for granted as some kind of god-given biological right, come to understand that they have genuinely failed to keep pace with the Summer of Sunny Girls and the 21st century.
Now that we’ve all had a good, hard-earned laugh at the mug shot of Fulton County perp #P01135809, we should probably turn to a discussion of the unlikelihood that convicted or not that glowering fool will never see the inside of a prison cell. If you’ve followed the game of scandal-mired high-profile politicians you know as well as I do that there’s an industry around them to prevent them from enduring the indignities of justice that would befall you, me and any platinum-selling rap star.
But nefarious scheming withstanding, its possible to foresee a scenario where Joe Biden might agree to pardon Trump, for the simple reason of finally and fully excising a festering tumor from the public corpus.
Sounds crazy, I know. But hear me out.
I couldn’t bear to watch more than five minutes of Trump’s Twitter/X interview with Tucker Carlson. (Someone tell me if Carlson ever reminded Trump to his face how much he hated him.) But the snippet I endured showed me a tired, flabby, addled old man with no coherent thought in his head other than mewling — on and on — about how unfair everything and everyone has been to him. “Standard Trump”, you say. But the fatigue in his face and posture was what was striking. The guy is exhausted.
As many have said, Trump is running again purely to return to the Oval Office and pardon himself. He’s never had any policy goals, other than wreaking havoc on his enemies, so why assume now that he’s got some big “to do” list, you know “infrastructure week 7.0” or “repealing Obamacare” or … oh, hell, why even bother … he doesn’t care about anything other than self-preservation. And by that I mean not sharing cell bunk with Big Louie or some MS 13 gangster.
This then is where “The Art of the Deal”, to borrow a phrase, steps in. Given his unpardonable exposure in Georgia, Trump’s only true all-purpose Get Out of Jail Free card is a grand, overarching plea deal with … the Biden administration. A deal that pardons him for all his federal crimes, criminal and civil accrued to date and in the future, plus … plus … a coordinated arrangement with Fulton County/Georgia to waive detention in that case. All in exchange for dropping out of the 2024 race, never again running for public office and just basically shutting the f*ck up, under penalty of voiding the deal and reinstituting every sentence he faces if he screws up.
In other words, “Go back to one of your goddam golf clubs and disappear. And by that we mean don’t stick your jowly orange mug up over the privet hedges ever again.”
The viability in this idea rests in Trump taking seriously his attorneys’ counsel that he stands a near 100% likelihood of being convicted on at least one of the 91 counts against him. (Jesus Christ, man! 91!)
Conviction on something, and maybe a lot of somethings, is nigh on as likely as the sun rising tomorrow over ex-wife Ivanka’s unmowed grave. And conviction is far more likely and certain than him winning another election against Joe Biden.
No one seems to doubt Trump’s had the idea of a plea deal presented to him by one or more of the semi-legitimate lawyers who have passed through his gilded office doors.
But, you ask, “Why would Biden do this? His chances of reelection are far better facing Trump than just about anyone else currently in the race.”
And that’s true, if you accept conventional wisdom, which I do. Obviously, as a gift to the country, a deal that removes Trump and all his relentless bullshit from the media marketplace with the stroke of pen, is an unalloyed public good. But politics are politics. So the strategizing from Biden and the government is how and when to float the deal that best minimizes the ability of the Republicans to prop up an effective alternative.
That moment is certainly not now or any time before next spring’s primary season has run its course. But what about — just spitballing here — right after the Republicans anoint him anew in Milwaukee next summer?
More sage heads than mine will argue that the “excitement” of a new, fresh GOP nominee — perhaps an annoying, jabbering tech bro, a woman who is more weather vane than serious administrator, or a pious ex-talk show host-turned-veep who they tried to lynch a couple years ago, take your pick — would push anyone of them over the top against “Sleepy Joe” and his “crippling inflation” and “crime infested blue cities”. For that kind of thinking, the risk is too high.
But what percentage of the MAGA cult, deprived of their 6’3″ 215, Muhammed Ali-in-his-prime thought leader, might simply stay home? Would their evaporation out balance the “normie” suburban Republicans who’d come flowing back, relieved not to have to vote for an exhausting fat fraud/rapist/coup leader?
No one knows. But $50 says both camps, Trump’s and Biden’s have given thought to how to make this happen.
Post life’s ups?
“BRAGGART!”
Post life’s downs?
“MAUDLIN!”
Post long?
“GASBAG!”
Post short?
“SIMPLISTIC!”
Post serious?
“BORING!”
Post playful?
“LIGHTWEIGHT!”
Post weighty?
“POLITICAL!’
Post trivial?
“SHALLOW!”
Post right?
“NAZI!”
Post left?
“COMMIE!”
Post opinion?
“KNOW-IT-ALL!”
Post doubt?
“WAFFLER!”
Post frequent?
“BLOWHARD!”
Post infrequent?
“CREEPER!”
Post positive?“
“POLLYANNA!”
Post critical?
“TROLL!”
Post experts?
“ELITIST!”
Post speculative?
“CONSPIRACIST!”
Lost in the maze.
Where’s the right phrase?
What to do?
What to do?!
What to do?!!
Post you.
Thick-skinned you!
And comment with grace, in lowercase.
Or scroll on, Friend, scroll on…
If I were a billionaire who loved American democracy, I would pay for a TV ad something like the following to run steadily in the coming year in places where the data tell me swing voters are viewing.
“America was founded on this principle: No one should be above the law.
That’s why all of these powerful Democratic politicians were convicted.
So when you hear Republican politicians whining, remember this long list of convicted Democrats.Is former President Trump guilty? We’ll see. We’ll see what a jury of ordinary Americans decides based on the facts and the law.
That’s how we do it in America. Because no one in either party, no matter how powerful they are, should ever be above the laws that apply to the rest of us.”
—
The image on the screen throughout this voiceover would be the following names, among others, scrolling steadily:
Dan Rostenkowski (Democrat-IL) – Convicted.
Harrison A. Williams (Democrat-NJ) – Convicted.
Mario Biaggi (Democrat-NY). Convicted.
Edwin Edwards (Democrat-LA). Convicted.
Don Siegelman (Democrat-AL). Convicted.
Nicholas Mavroules (Democrat-MA). Convicted.
Albert Bustamante (Democrat-TX). Convicted.
Joe Kolter (Democrat-PA). Convicted.
Austin Murphy (Democrat-PA). Convicted.
Mel Reynolds (Democrat-IL). Convicted.
Jim Traficant (Democrat-OH). Convicted.
Frank Ballance (Democrat-NC). Convicted.
Bob Ney (Democrat-OH). Convicted.
William J. Jefferson (Democrat-LA). Convicted.
Laura Richardson (Democrat-CA). Convicted.
Jesse Jackson Jr. (Democrat-IL). Convicted.
Chaka Fattah (D-PA). Convicted.
Corrine Brown (D-FL). Convicted.
Rod Blagojevich (D-IL). Convicted.
Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Convicted.
Why that ad? It’s not the least bit clever, cutting, or captivating. It’s in no danger of winning any awards.
But we need ads something like this because they inject information that is missing from the current debate. We need them to set the context for the upcoming Trump trials, a context that too many voters with short memories lack.
We need that messaging to bust the “only Republicans get prosecuted by the DOJ” myth being promoted non-stop by Fox News and other conservative propaganda outlets.
We need that message informing discussions on this topic at family, friend, and work gatherings.
We need messaging like that to prevent Trump, if he is convicted, from achieving martyr status amongst the swing voters who will decide if Trump ultimately regains the presidency in 2024, which would empower him to pardon himself and his co-conspirators and inflict punishment on prosecutors, political opponents, critics, and America’s most important democratic institutions.
Finally, we need paid advertising like that because we can’t rely on news reporters to repeatedly provide this important context, out of fear that it will somehow appear biased.
For billionaires, paying for this kind of messaging campaign would not diminish their lavish lifestyle. And it might just save American democracy.
So, what say you, Buffet? Soros? Bloomberg? Steyer? Sussman? Simons? Anyone?
This is an awkward time for Minnesota’s brand-new marijuana legalization law. Currently, it’s legal to use marijuana, grow marijuana plants at home, and keep up to two pounds of it. At the same time, it’s illegal to buy or sell it.
However, it is still legal to buy and sell hemp-derived products, which, by the way, have the same intoxicating impact on a user as marijuana-derived products.
It all makes perfect sense, right?
Actually, it does. Or at least it will. Minnesota is wisely taking time to get its regulatory framework built before it starts letting stores sell cannabis, but the new framework will eventually make good sense.
Mostly.
Most components of the law are logical. Beyond the fact that I worry state politicians may have taxed marijuana products at too high of a rate to allow legal products to put the black market out of business, Minnesota Public Radio recently revealed a particularly wacky provision in the weed law:
A pending update limits use of both hemp-derived THC products and marijuana to adults age 21 and older, but it says establishments can’t serve someone both alcohol and THC products during the same visit.
Under the new law, if the bar knows that a customer has had a marijuana-based beverage within five hours, they’re not allowed to sell them an alcoholic drink, and vice versa. To manage this legal mandate, some bars say they will have THC drink customers wear wristbands or get ink stamps.
To be clear, Minnesota’s bars can still sell you multiple shots of alcohol in a row. Or they can sell multiple THC drinks in a row. That kind of dangerous selling is legal.
However, bars can’t legally sell you one beer and one THC seltzer in a single sitting or they run afoul of the law.
This makes no sense. Total speculation here, but I can imagine this provision being inserted to win over the vote of a holdout state legislator who had an uninformed hunch that mixing alcohol and THC might be super-duper intoxicating as if the two drinks were the intoxicant equivalent of coke and Mentos.
Obviously, the THC impact on bar customers will be somewhat different than the alcohol impact. After all, the impacts of different kinds of alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, straight shots, and mixed drinks — vary a bit in their intoxicating impact too. Therefore, mixing THC and alcoholic drinks will create a somewhat new sensation for people to learn to manage.
But the impact of mixing drinks that are derived from different plants – grapes, hops, potatoes, grains, juniper, cannabis, sugar cane, agave — isn’t different enough to warrant strict segregation of usage. It puts a regulatory burden on bars and the state that delivers little to no public benefit. This ill-conceived provision should be eliminated the next time the Minnesota Legislature adjusts this law.