Relishing the Hatred of Enemies

Last night, I read the speech FDR gave in which that famous line, "I ask you judge me by the enemies I have made," comes up, at the very end of his remarks. 

It is a little eerie reading that speech today, because it was delivered in 1932, 73 years ago, and yet it is so current--it could be given, almost for the same reasons, today.

He was speaking in Portland, Oregon about efforts to make the electric companies into utilities and he was laying down the justification for the creation of utilities and the concept of utilities.  When you think about it, the idea of a utility is sort of an anti capitalistic thing. You are taking a private company and saying, "You can produce your electricity, you can run your railroad, you can provide your water to the public but you cannot charge whatever you like and you will be controlled and regulated by the government."

What a socialistic, communistic idea! Donald Trump would be turning crimson. Rush Limbaugh would be fulminating and frothing at the mouth. The very idea! Here you have that highest of all economic forms, the private corporation being told it cannot charge what it likes for its products and services. 

Roosevelt begins by going back to King James of England and his problem with ferry services at English rivers. Roads at the time of his reign ran to the river's edge but then a ferry was needed to allow travelers and commerce to proceed. The service of ferrying was vital to the economy and to functioning of the people.  But the ferry services constituted a monopoly, just as, in 19th century America, the railroads did. The land the railroads traversed was sold to oligarchs at fire sale prices and then the railroad barons had the American traveling public by the throat.  So the railroads were, eventually, brought under control of anti monopoly, anti trust law.

Now, Roosevelt was arguing, electricity was in the same position. He pointed out that in Canada each household used three times as much electricity as in America because the people in Canada controlled access to electric power but in America progress was being thwarted by the strangle hold the electric power companies held to control the costs, delivery and development of electricity and the electric grid. He argued that whenever the interests of the many came into conflict with the interests of the few, the principle should be the greatest good for the greatest number.

Bernie Sanders, who Donald Trump calls a "communist" is arguing the same thing. He is a direct descendant of  FDR.

Roosevelt carefully constructs his argument, about something which seems so self evident today--that the good of the whole is more important than serving the narrow interest of the few--you wonder why he even needed to make the point. But, as someone once said, if you are going to lie, the big lie is easiest to sell. So if you are Rush or Donald, you say it's more important, on principle, to mold your rules to the benefit of the upper 1% than it is to serve the interests of the lower 90%.  This is, after all, a matter of "playing by the rules."  

Of course, as Bernie Sanders has noted, the rules are rigged. Rigged by the rule makers who are bought and owned by the 1%. 

Liberals now call themselves "progressives."  But oh, how little progress we have made, when it comes to thought.

Fortunately, FDR persuaded the nation electricity was too important to be left in the hands of a few rich men. Can you imagine what our nation would be like today if FDR had lost that argument?

Can you imagine what America will be like in 73 years if Donald Trump or any of the Republican bullies wins the argument today?

Enemies Lists: Finally We've Got Warriors

Iranians, Republicans.

"I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made."
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt


When Anderson Cooper asked the candidates which enemies they were proudest to have made, he clearly caught the five off guard. Lincoln Chafee had the misfortune to have to answer first and he stumbled but gamely proposed the coal industry.

The Coal Industry

Martin O'Malley had a moment to collect his thoughts, while Chafee stammered, and he came up with a decisive simply three letter answer, "The NRA."  It was part of O'Malley's strong performance, characterized by clarity and decisiveness.

The NRA

Bernie Sanders said he'd made enemies of the oligarchs on Wall Street and he was probably correct and he was echoing Roosevelt who had made the same enemies and was considered a traitor to his class.  Earlier, Sanders had claimed he was the only one on the stage who was not a billionaire and nobody challenged that, which got me thinking.

Wall Street Tycoons

Jim Webb trotted out his lame red neck answer that he was proud to have made an enemy of the Viet Cong who had lobbed a grenade at him but that Cong was no longer around, thus claiming the mantle of tough guy pick up truck Joe Six pack frat boy. 

A dead Viet Cong.

Hillary answered, the NRA, the Iranians, the pharmaceutical industry, the health insurers but ultimately, "the Republicans."

Haven't seen the Fox bimbo/hyena reaction yet, but you know they are going to gleefully invoke the umbrage taken by the enemies of Richard Nixon who inveighed against a President compiling a list of worthy American citizens who he considered "enemies."  No American President should consider his loyal opposition as "enemies."  Other Americans, enemies. How outrageous.

Yet Roosevelt relished the notion.  "I welcome their hatred," Roosevelt said of the tycoons who reviled him. He did not mince words. He was a warrior and he knew he was in a battle. 

Until now Democrats, Hillary included, have been too timid to admit politics is a blood sport. Now she's come alive and she seems to enjoy the battle. I hope she does not back down when this gets thrown at her in the upcoming Republican hearings.

"Ms. Clinton, do you consider the Republican members of this committee enemies, to be lumped into the same category as Iranians? Do you consider insurance company executives as loathsome as Iranians?"

Here's my fantasy for her answer:

"I was asked whose enmity I had no regrets about, and the very existence of this farce of a committee hearing, this witch hunt,  should be ample evidence that I have been treated as an enemy. Your own Republican majority leader has admitted these proceedings have nothing to do with seeking the truth but everything to do with deflating my own poll numbers. That is not the behavior of a loyal opposition. That is the behavior of a group which has vilified me, which has treated me as an enemy. I am only acknowledging a self evident fact. And yes, I welcome your hatred. You are my best advertising for what is wrong with your pathetic party which has lost its soul to the Tea Party." 

Oh, would you not love to see that?  And, after last night, seeing the fire in her eye, I would not put it past Hillary. 

You go lady. 

Democratic Debate: And Then There Were Three

The best debate ever. Well, maybe the best debate since the  Lincoln-Douglas debates, but I wasn't around for that.

Surprisingly, after all the glitz and attempts at glamour and jazzing things up by the CNN designers, when Anderson Cooper finally started zipping questions at each candidate, the debate lurched ahead full throttle, as electric as a championship fight. It was as riveting as Ali-Frazier and nearly as bloody, but clean punches and well fought.

The guys on the periphery (Webb and Chafee) remained on the periphery, and deservedly so, and may not have been treated fairly, but they did not help themselves--Webb in particular, when asked who the enemy he is proudest of having made went for the Viet Cong who threw the grenade at him, and Chafee sort of fizzled, naming the coal companies, but Martin O'Malley got in the straight right to the jaw with "The NRA" and Hillary laughed and said there were just so many to pick from,  and after rattling off a few set up jabs she landed a right cross with "The Republicans."

Oddly, much as I love Bernie and love listening to him, after 2 1/2 hours of listening and watching, I realized much of what Bernie says becomes repetitive and Hillary is actually the one who does not grow old but simply grows stronger and she can punch toe to toe or dance and bob and weave and she is someone I can imagine her standing up to Trump and I can see her as President--a little harder imagining Bernie in that role. I'd love to see him as Treasury Secretary and Martin O'Malley is my pick for VP.

They were all, as Hillary noted, each and every one,  so much better than even the best Republicans.

It was exhilarating, absorbing, gratifying. We do have good people out there willing and eager to sit behind that desk in the Oval Office. 

I'm not sure I'm up to manning a phone bank for Hillary, but I'll work for her in the general election. 

You got to love Bernie for coming to Hillary's defense when Cooper tried zinging her about her emails--Oh, come on, this is a media story nothing anyone out there in the real world cares about. Talk about something that matters and there's plenty of that to talk about.  

Hillary was prepared for the questions about not supporting Glass-Steagal  and she admitted she was the Senator from New York representing Wall Street but she said we have to go beyond regulating banks to regulating all sorts of financial institutions beyond banks. Bernie will be there to hold feet to the fire, but Hillary hung tough.  She is smart and savvy and as she observed, she was in the middle taking flak from all sides, but she would give no ground.

These were Democrats who know how to throw punches, the very thing Democrats have lacked lo these many years. Let's have some warriors.  Take it to Mr. Trump and Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Cruz and Ryan and Rubio and all those idiots.

As Hillary said, whenever you want to fund some worthy idea, the Republicans wail we cannot afford it, and say that's too much government. But when they want to take down Planned Parenthood, Oh, we don't have nearly enough government. 

A bracing night. A good night for Democrats. May there be many more.

A Fresh Face: Donald the Trump

After 8 years of a sleazy, albeit effective, jowly, perspiring President Nixon, voters chose his opposite: the sunny, grinning, toothy, boyish  Jimmy Carter who kept his promise never to lie to the electorate and ultimately alienated them by telling them what they did not want to hear, that the country was afflicted with "malaise." They replaced him with the optimistic Ronald Reagan who told them it was "morning in America."   After 8 years of the historically dim witted George W. Bush, voters were ready for his polar opposite, the cerebral, cool and analytical Barack Obama, who saw nuances which eluded others and who spoke in complex sentences and who assumed his listeners were intelligent, reasonable people who could handle complexity.

Now we have the Donald, who has taken H.L. Menken's advice to heart: Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

I listened to Donald Trump this morning, on my treadmill and came away surprised:

1. He is fun to listen to--not at all agonizing like George W.   He simplifies to the point of incomprehensibility. He told us we have a lot of "stuff" underground, enough to make us energy independent and I thought he was talking about untapped oil and I think he was, for a moment talking about oil,  because he mentioned we just haven't gone looking for "it. " But then he said we have more coal than China and I wound up thinking he was talking about making us energy independent by going back to coal, as if all the problems coal has caused for the environment have never been a problem. Coal for Mr. Trump is a competition thing. The Chinese will use coal for the next 30 years and we should not allow them to beat us at using coal. All the world's a game, for Mr. Trump.

2. He is all for compromise, which in the era of the Tea Party is wonderful to hear coming from a Republican. Of course, he says the way you negotiate is to ask three times what you want and when you get 1/3 you've got what you wanted. He would use this tactic to be tough but smart negotiating with the Chinese, who presumably would never see it coming.

3. He wants to protect Social Security because this is all some people have. Hearing this from a Republican is very refreshing. Of course, the only way he mentions saving social security is for billionaires to refuse accepting their pay outs from Social Security which would save Social Security at least $100,000 a year. 

4. He is still crowing about the crowning achievement of his life in public policy--the building of the Central Park ice skating rink after the mayor of New York, Ed Koch, cried out for help. Actually, Mr. Koch resisted the idea of Trump taking over the project, which had languished for 6 years, but when Koch offered to do it with his own money, if he could have the profits from the adjacent restaurant public pressure mounted and Koch relented.  Trump took over the project which had squandered $13 million of taxpayer money and got a $3 million dollar budget and brought it in under budget complete in 3 months. Trump uses this as the prototypical example of how government cannot do anything but private enterprise can do everything. 

It is true the project had been politicized--the fuel used to refrigerate became a political football; equitable bidding rules  thwarted efficient subcontracting; there was much incentive to milk the project for profit by contractors but Trump had the incentive of making this a poster for his own potency.  It remains, to this day, the only example of his accomplishing anything for the public in the world of civic endeavor, as opposed to building a tower for private profit.


Well, there is one other example:  His other great coup was building a golf course in the South Bronx, across the river from Manhattan, which he extols as just what the South Bronx needed. A golf course. 

There is great appeal to Mr. Trump's vagueness and simplicity. He says Mr. Obama was on TV last night and "bombed" when he talked about ISIS, Syria, the refugee problem. I did not see Mr. Obama last night, but I can imagine in Mr. Trump's eyes Mr. Obama would always "bomb" because Mr. Obama is inclined to see complexities when complexities exist, but for Mr. Trump every knot is a Gordian knot--you have only to draw your sword and slice through it to unravel the knotty problem.

I have not spoken with Nate Silver yet, but I suspect if Mr. Trump ran against Hillary Clinton, he would beat her soundly. The only Democrat who would walk away from a debate with Mr. Trump victorious would be Bernie Sanders. 

Now that's a campaign I'd love to watch. 

And here, Heaven Help me, Maud forgive me, I have to say I have entertained the thought:  I'd rather see President Trump than President Marco Rubio, or President Bush or President Carson or President anyone Republican. The man has the potential to be another Richard Nixon: someone you can despise and dismiss but someone who, if he surrounds himself with a Patrick Moynahan or, Heaven Help Us, a latter day Henry Kissinger, he might actually stumble toward getting some good legislation passed. 

You would think, in a nation of 300 million we could find better choices than what we've got now.

Gun Violence in the United States: What to Do?

Only used once or twice in the past 12 years in mass shootings

Used three times in mass shootings 

The real threat. This is the gun most often used

President Obama expressed the frustration of liberal Americans when he said the latest shootings at the Oregon school were horrifying precisely because they have become so ordinary--oh, just another dozen students and teachers shot at a school or a playground. Oh, hum. What else is new?

 Of course, beheaded bodies by the dozens appear on the streets of Mexico daily but we never see those on CNN. Among well developed "civilized" nations, America stands alone as the home to routine mass murders by psychopaths wielding guns.

The problem is, nobody has any good ideas about how to stop this.  The President has suggested, vaguely, there oughta be a law. John Boehner, predictably blames the lack of a solution on the President--won't it be good to be rid of Mr. Boehner?  Democrats talk about more extensive background checks.  Republicans say we need to arm school teachers.

In medicine, when you have an epidemic, an outbreak of disease, you do epidemiological studies to identify patterns to understand how the disease is spread in hopes of figuring out what to do about it. Actually, the New York TImes did something like this recently, printed out each mass murder since 2013 and showing the guns used and noting when or if the shooter had shown evidence of a psychopathology and whether or not the guns used were obtained legally. For the most part, the guns were acquired legally, would not have been denied to the shooter by current law and the shooter had not eluded psychotherapy but simply was not identified as a likely mass murderer.

So, it appears none of what we have in place works well enough to reliably predict who will "go postal" and nothing works very well to prevent it. 

There are so many guns floating around America--estimates are 250 million guns and 1/3 of all homes have guns--it is hard to imagine we can keep guns out of the hands of maniacs, because all they have to do is break into a neighbor's home if their own home doesn't have a handy supply.

The Tea Party types say it's simple--just arm everyone and soon shooters would be too frightened to start shooting.  Trouble with this is you are dealing with psychopathology and many of these shooters shoot themselves in the end, so fear of the other guy with the gun is not likely to be a deterrent and, in any case, the shooter is likely to do what bank robbers do--they look for the guard with the gun, use surprise to draw first and take out the guard. 

The other argument against the armed population as the best deterrent is there has never been a case, or at least there are only rare instances, of an armed citizen intervening to save his fellow citizens from a shooter.  We have an armed population, and we have lots of guns but they never seem to be in place to save lives when the shooter starts shooting. One of the things shooters seem pretty good at is the element of surprise. They look around to be sure nobody present can stop them before they pull out their guns.

As I've mentioned before, the Army is very controlling when it comes to bullets. If you send a soldier to the firing range for target practice, he gets twelve bullets and he must return with 12 spent casings. If he comes back with 11 then hey may be planning to shoot his drill sergeant and he is in trouble and likely headed to the brig.

If only we had such a system for the rest of American society. 

But, the fact is, we do not have a working system. Nobody, not the Democrats in Congress, certainly no the Republicans or their benefactors, the NRA, nor the courts, nor the social workers nor the psychiatrists have any good ideas. 

We have traffic laws and yet we lose, what? Fifty thousand lives a year on the highways?  We just cannot control human behavior down to the lone wolf with the pocket full of Glocks.

Shawn O'Connor Takes Hampton

Last night, Shawn O'Connor spoke to about a score of people at the monthly Hampton Dems meeting. He is running for the New Hampshire first Congressional district seat now held by Frank Guinta and being sought, for the umpteenth time by Carol Shea Porter, the Democrat who's played musical chairs with Guinta for several election cycles.

O'Connor spoke at the Democratic convention in Manchester and about all I could recall about him was he said he would not accept as a salary in Congress anything more than the minimum wage in New Hampshire, about $15,000 a year and he was gay, which seems to be something of a merit badge in New Hampshire Democratic circles lately.

Tonight, he started with the Ghandi-esque thing about not wanting to live any better than the least among us, the minimum wage thing, which had me squirming.  I don't resent a Congressman making $170K annually.  We have an unpaid legislature in New Hampshire and that has resulted in a selection bias in favor of kooks like Fred Rice, who have nothing better to do and an independent income. Much of our governmental dysfunction may derive from the amateur hour we have going in Concord.

So the I'm not taking money to do this-job-which-should-be-a-calling thing did not resonate with me and my friends all said, "How bogus."    It comes off as an insincere gimmick. Most people here understand Congress can be a fun job, for the right insane individual.

However...when he started answering pointed questions about how he would keep the Portsmouth shipyard open,  how he would react to the prospect of a propane terminal in Portsmouth, how he would respond to the periodic gun events which seem to claim students from elementary school to college on a regular basis, how he would respond to being called a tax and spend Democrat, he transformed from callow clueless youth to a very polished, thoughtful, persuasive and effective man.  

Turns out, he worked on Capitol Hill for 4 years; he went to Georgetown undergrad, Harvard Law (where his favorite professor was Elizabeth Warren!) Harvard Business School and he started a firm with 40 employees, so he's met a payroll.

Forty five minutes later, he had me on his team. 

Now, if I can just get him to listen to me about this Gandhi thing. It's a distraction.

He could also use some prepping on how to keep his answers short and how to arm himself with arrows of zingers to answer The Donald and any other Republican when they sling their own arrows...this guy could be a keeper.

He is smart, does not back down from a fight, and he could serve a long time. 

What to Look for in a Republican President

Okay Mad Dog fans, you knew it was coming. 

Maud has implored, "Say it ain't true," but it can no longer be denied.

In the long dark teatime of his soul, Mad Dog has had to face a certain longing for an illicit love:  He has found he can no longer deny his attraction to that forbidden love--a Republican! 

Mad Dog is out of the closet. He admits to illicit longing!

Thinking back of his favorite Presidents, Obama, of course leads the list, back to Lincoln (a Republican) or maybe Roosevelt (either one.)  But right up there in the top 5, a man Mad Dog would never have expected to name, none other than Tricky Dick Nixon, the man who was a Communist hunter, a McCarthy type Red Baiter, who characterized his opponent in a Congressional race as "pink right down to her underpants."  

But when you stop listening to the bluster and anti Commie rhetoric and start looking at what he did, at the legislation he signed, you have to be impressed:

1/ He signed legislation into law creating the Envirnomental Protection Agency.
2/ He signed legislation creating the Occupational Safety and Health Agency to protect workers on the job.
3/ He floated the idea of not just a higher minimal wage, but a guaranteed annual income.
4/ He signed cost of living rises for Social Security benefits.
5/ He ended the war in Vietnam, however belatedly, but faster than President Obama has ended Afghanistan.
6/ He ended the draft!!!!
7/ He engaged China and opened up trade and relations with that communist regime.
8/ He put wage and price controls into place.
9/ He got us off the gold standard.
10/ He raised food stamps spending from $600 million to $2.5 billion. 
11/ He created the Supplemental Security Income portion of Social Security which constitutes  a guaranteed annual income for the aged, blind and disabled.
12/ He embraced Keynesian economics which advocates government spending in times of economic recession (which Paul Krugman had advocated). 
13/ Under his administration spending on social resource programs exceeded defense spending for the first time since WWII. 
14/ He imposed a minimum tax on the wealthy, the Alternative Minimum Tax. 
15/ He dramatically increased federal employee salaries.
16/ He oversaw the first large scale integration of public schools in the South. 
17/ He created the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (which goes out and fights for preservation of fisheries and "charismatic mammals" like sea otters. The man was green!
18/ Three of the Supreme Court justices he appointed voted for Roe v Wade.
19/ He promoted the Legacy of Parks program
20/ He implemented the first significant federal affirmative action program. 

Of course, he was a paranoid who used the IRS to harass his "enemies."  
He also devised the "Southern strategy" by which he pried the Southern Dixiecrats away from the Democratic Party after Lyndon Johnson had passed the Voting Rights Act, which had shaken the solidly Democratic South from fidelity toward divorce and Dick Nixon knew just how to appeal to the jilted Southerners. 

But he remarked to one of his top aides, John Whitaker, when William F. Buckley lost the mayoral race for New York City mayor in 1965 to the liberal Republican, John Lindsay, "The trouble with far-right conservatives like Buckley is that they really don't give a damn about people."

He described the patron saint of today's Republicans, Ronald Reagan, as a showy "know nothing" who did not have the intellect to be president. 

Nixon pushed for a health care program which would have required employers to buy health insurance for their employees and subsidized the employers who couldn't afford it. 

It has been said, "Only Nixon could have gone to China," by which it is meant that only someone with conservative street cred could do something really liberal because he has the trust of the conservative half of the country--Nixon was thought to be so Machiavellian that conservatives could look at him toasting Mao in Peking and tell themselves, "He's up to something: It'll be okay."  

So, in a sense Nixon was the executive version of Earl Warren, a man advertised as a dyed in the wool conservative who was able to execute a liberal agenda. 

None of the Supreme Court justices since has shown such wisdom and certainly none of the current crew of Republican candidates are likely to see the light--they are all William F. Buckley's.  

They just don't give a damn about people.