A Republic, Ma'am, If you can keep it.

Legend has it when Ben Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Convention, a woman asked him what sort of government the men inside had given the people, and Franklin said, "A Republic, Ma'am, if you can keep it."

And that has been the rub, ever since.  The founding fathers rigged the political system, which, in turn, rigged the economic system, and we have had the best Congress money can buy ever since.

These men, plantation owners from the South, wealthy businessmen, like John Hancock, from the North looked around at the rabble who were their countrymen and grew faint hearted about the prospect of the common man trying to govern himself and his neighbors. 

There was no such thing as public education then.

Over the ensuing centuries the verdict on the intelligence of the American public has not changed much--as H.L. Mencken said, "No one every went broke under estimating the intelligence of the American public."

The fact is, people are often smart in their own worlds, as engineers, lawyers, doctors, construction workers, cab drivers, but they are at sea without a sextant outside of their own worlds.  

So, in 2010, having elected President Obama, they turned on him and blamed him for the financial crisis. They blamed Obama and his party, not Wall Street, not George W. Bush.  

And the T Party was right there to capitalize on that and for the next 6 years the American voters in Kentucky gave us Mitch McConnell. These are the same voters who say they love Kynect, Kentucky's Obamacare, but they hate Obamacare. In Alabama they hate the federal government and they want the feds to keep their government hands off Medicare.  In Mississippi, they hate the federal government but they sho do love those government defense contracts without which they would have no economy.  And Kansas!  Yikes, don't even talk to me about Kansas.  Too much wind through the brain out there in the wasteland. They see beheadings on TV and they blame Obama, because he's the President after all, he should be able to stop that.

Watch a Donald Trump rally and you lose faith in the American public.  If they cannot see through this guy, do these voters deserve a Republic? 

I actually do not think Donald Trump is as evil as my Democratic friends here in Hampton do.  Ted Cruz, yes, that guy is loathsome.  But the Donald is too ridiculous to be scary.  He is Bart Simpson running for President.  

If Homer and Marge could see me now!

Trump has written no Mein Kampf  screed because he's really not interested in much beyond himself and his own reflection and his beautiful wife and children. He doesn't hate Muslims because he has no idea who Muslims are--they're just some people he's seen on TV before he lost interest in them.  As far as I know, while there may be some Muslim neighborhoods around Detroit and a few other places, for the most part American Muslims are so thoroughly integrated and woven into the American fabric, you are hardly aware they are even Muslim, until you to go to a wedding. They are doctors and teachers and cab drivers, doing no harm; actually, doing this country a world of good, for the most part.

As for those Mexican rapists streaming across the border, all Trump knows is he doesn't like those Mexicans but he likes the Hispanics who build his buildings for him, just the way most developers love those Hispanic workers who are very good workers. 

Of course, like Spiro Agnew and many others before him, Trump has given the worst haters among us permission to voice their nasty thoughts.  Hitler was not a magician; he needed Hess and Goebbels  and Speer and that whole vile crowd around him to do his damage. 

Hitler was a serious man, in the sense he had theory and he laid plans to execute it.

Trump has no theory.  He's barely even thought about the answer to the next question.  Abortion?  Haven't given it much thought. Yeah, sure, punish the woman but not the man.  Using nukes against ISIS? Sure, why not? Unless, of course, they'd be willing to come negotiate with me. Then we'll make them build a wall and stay behind it and whatever they want to do in that little hell hole of a country they make in the desert, that's their problem. 

In fact the only thing which he seems to stay focused on is Megyn Kelly, and even there, you figure it's just an adolescent crush. She gives me a hard time because, deep down--she doesn't want to admit it--she has the hots for me.

The Donald's real abiding interest

I have bigger things to worry about than the Donald. What if Bernie wins the nomination then has a heart attack?  What if Hillary wins and has a heart attack?

Things happen.

Dirty Old Men of Paksitan

"A coalition of more than 30 religious and political parties has declared the law un-Islamic, an attempt to secularize Pakistan and a clear and present threat to our most sacred institution: the family. They have threatened countrywide street protests if the government doesn’t back down.

Their logic goes like this: If you beat up a person on the street, it’s a criminal assault. If you bash someone in your bedroom, you’re protected by the sanctity of your home. If you kill a stranger, it’s murder. If you shoot your own sister, you’re defending your honor. I’m sure the nice folks campaigning against the bill don’t want to beat up their wives or murder their sisters, but they are fighting for their fellow men’s right to do just that."
--Mohammed Hanif, The New York Times

Mohammed Hanif tells us about something which should give us all--Democrats even more than Republicans--pause. In the Punjab province of Pakistan a proposed law to make the murder or maiming of a female relative a crime has stirred outrage.   Apparently, there is no such thing as "spousal abuse" in Pakistan.

Violence against women, far from illegal, is often embraced, if it is done in an attempt to defend the "honor" of the male head of household in particular, or the family in general. So a daughter who runs away to marry a boy not selected for her by her parents is murdered by her brother or her father throws acid in her face to deform her,  to defend the honor of the family--and that's defending family values in Pakistan.

An alliance of religious and political groups defends these values and opposes making murder or assault or disfigurement practices waged against wives or daughters or sisters a crime. Okay, I know I'm repeating myself more than Rachel Maddow, but:  Really?

Acid to the Face: The Family Honor Restored

We need not ask what Donald Trump would say about this, but we do need to hear from Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton about this.  Democrats have, as a rule, said we need to keep engaged with foreign countries and cultures with whom we disagree rather than simply alienating them.  But when the culture embraces an anathema, if we  declare ourselves open to hearing their side on this one, if we say, well, we have to be careful about denigrating the values of another culture, then we are every bit as effete and spineless as the Republicans always say we are.


From Mad Dog's perspective, Democrats ought to lead the way in excoriating these values, acknowledging they may be deeply held, but we have to say:  "Look, if you want to engage with us, you have to respect our values as well as your own." 
There are some lines you cannot cross if you want to sit at the same table with us. 

As Americans, we do not accept cannibalism.  Would we establish an embassy in a country which endorses cannibalism?  If you commit genocide, we don't talk to you; we hunt you down. (Well, we should, even if we don't.)

Of course, there is a difference between what we demand of our own and what we feel we can demand of others:  We would not admit Utah to the Union until it agreed to ban polygamy.  But we do not refuse to trade with Saudi Arabia because the royal family practices polygamy. 

Or course, some of our willingness to tolerate what we consider uncivilized or beastly behavior is shaped by our own needs and weaknesses. When we need Saudi oil we can get very open minded and tolerant of foreign cultural values.

And what, if anything, can we do to make that Pakistani villager decide to not throw acid in his daughter's face? We may deplore these practices and attitudes but is there anything, practically speaking, we can do to abolish them?

 We can talk the Prime Minister, but it's not clear he can do much, even if he wanted to.  He might well say, "Oh, I agree with you, but I am educated and sophisticated. We are talking about ignorant villagers here.  How well did you deal with those men in Mississippi who threw on Ku Klux Klan sheets and burnt down a Negro church with children in it?"  

We can say, "At least here, horrendous behavior is illegal."

So this is the question of whether or not you can point to a particular behavior and say this is representative of the group, the nation. 

 Lynchings occurred all over the South in the first half of the 20th century, Blacks who looked too long at white women, or who whistled at white women were strung up and the white men who did this said they were protecting the safety and defending the honor of white Southern womanhood. "Strange fruit" hung from trees all across Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.  When the Pakistani governmental leadership points to this phase of American past, they can say, "Well, you had your problems; we have ours."

The difference, of course, is lynchings were illegal even then, and, theoretically at least,  punishable by imprisonment.  In Pakistan we have just the opposite:  acid attacks, outright murder are defended by a coalition of religious and political groups who say these acts are justifiable and, indeed desirable, and consistent with Sharia law.

Donald Trump will said, "A pox on your house. No Pakistani gets into our country. Stop these abominable people at the border!"

I would have to say to the Pakistanis: "Well, then, you have to change your interpretation of Sharia law. The Third Reich had the racial Nuremberg laws which justified the annihilation of 6 million Jews and Gypsies. And those we now call "war crimes." Should we not call the mutilation of women in Pakistan, crimes against humanity?

But then the Pakistanis may say, "What about female circumcision in Africa? Do you want to point to this sort of mutilation and launch a cultural war against those African tribes?"


Mad Dog freely admits when it comes to international relations, he is an ignoramus.
But then again, so is Donald Trump and that doesn't stop him from  expressing an opinion.

In this sense Trump is the hedgehog. He knows only one thing--he doesn't like this sort of behavior.  Of course, his solution is to ban all Muslims.  Mad Dog knows plenty of American Muslims who are as horrified by acid throwing and wife beating as many American Jews are by mohels with Herpes Simplex who lick the bleeding tissue of male infants during circumcision, and cause Herpes Simplex encephalitis in the innocent male infants they have circumcised because God told them to lick the stump.

But, the difference here is you have a coalition of religious and political groups in Pakisitan speaking publicly, as a matter of policy, supporting insufferable behavior. When a  governor in Arkansas or South Carolina or North Carolina signs into law a policy which appears intolerant, and the cancellations for planned conventions start rolling in, when the mayor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire announces there will be no city business done with that state, when commerce starts to suffer,  then the businessmen back home in the offending state start howling.

Perhaps America has some leverage like that with Pakistan.

What do we have a United Nations for?  How about a resolution that maiming women is repugnant to the rest of the world? 

Democrats can play the fox, but at some point you do have to be a hedgehog and known only one thing:  Maiming and murdering is just wrong, no matter how you try to invoke Allah's name to justify it.

Defending the Indefensible 

Bathroom Break at the Trump/Clinton Debate

Here is my nightmare scenario for the Trump/Clinton debate.

Anderson Cooper:  Mr. Trump, the Governor of North Carolina signed a law which, in effects, prevents trans sexuals from using public bathrooms of their choice. Do you support the Governor on this?

Trump:   Well, as I understand it, this is all about allowing guys who claim they are women trapped in the bodies of  men to use the Ladies Rooms at ball parks, restaurants, what have you.  
And I'm not even sure I really know what a trans sexual is, but I've heard some of these guys still have all their male equipment, the full array, down below, so they haven't signed on for getting their anatomy rearranged, some of them just take pills or some of them not even that, and so I don't know what this is all about. 
All I can say is I don't want Melania or my daughters having to put up with a guy with his private parts in a Ladies Room. I mean, don't the women have some rights too?

  I mean, I've been accused of being anti Muslim, but as I understand it, there are some Muslims won't let their women out in public without a male relative chaperon. But they do let the women go to the bathroom in private. Can you imagine if there's a guy in the bathroom with his anatomy exposed?  I mean, Muslims have rights, too. Am I right? 

Anderson Cooper:  Madame Secretary?

Ms. Clinton:  Well, Anderson, let me say that the last thing we need in this country is a President who will divide us. We need everyone pulling together. It takes a village, you know.  I'm against discrimination and creating divisions, whether it's by religion or race or sexual preference. 

Anderson: So, is that a "no" to the governor's action? 

Ms. Clinton:  I'm for a person's right to choose.

Trump: What she's trying to say is she thinks anyone with a filled scrotum should be allowed to walk into a Women's bathroom any where in this country. Hillary, you are so afraid of saying anything politically incorrect, of losing even the votes of the most extreme people, you can't even bring yourself to say no balls in the women's room.

Ms. Clinton:  I don't think it's for me to tell another human being what gender he or she ought to be.

Trump: Well, excuuuuse me. I have no problem telling a guy with a penis and testicles he's a guy.

Ms. Clinton:  So you think the only determinant of gender is anatomy?

Trump: Hell, yes! I'm not saying the guy is necessarily a threat to every woman in that  bathroom. He might prefer men, if you know what I mean. But he has no business flashing his hardware around a bunch of women who are just trying to answer the call of nature.

Ms. Clinton: Some of these guys don't consider themselves guys.

Trump: That's their problem, not the problem of the women in that bathroom.

Ms. Clinton: I don't think you know what goes on in a women's. There are stalls and you are not looking at naked genitalia. It's not like 's not like there are urinals.

Trump:  This is just too weird! I cannot  believe you cannot see the problem with co ed bathrooms. And you want to be President. What planet to you live on?

Ms. Clinton: There are plenty of coed bathrooms on college campuses across the country.  The nation hasn't collapsed because of unisex bathrooms.

Trump: So vote for Hillary and you get coed bathrooms. The family that pees together stays together. Good Lord, lady. Are you seriously suggesting...?  I mean what's next coed beaches?  Oh, you can have sex on the beach because it's your choice and we wouldn't want to demean your freedom of expression.

Ms. Clinton: That's hardly an apt analogy.

Trump: Look, we have laws against indecent exposure and that's what this is all about.

Ms. Clinton: There's no exposure behind a stall.

Trump ( Looking into the camera): And the media has labeled ME as extreme.

Trans sexuals and Bathrooms

Charlottte, North Carolina must be an interesting town.  Recently, it's city council passed an ordinance which would have allowed trans sexual people to use the bathroom of their choice, so people with penises who feel they are women trapped in a man's body could walk into a women's rest room and use the toilet there because that's where they feel they belong.

A similar measure was defeated by referendum in Houston.

The State of North Carolina promptly passed a law forbidding this access, pre empting the local ordinance.  The New York Times excoriated the Republican governor for signing the law.

As is the wont for such events, the justifications for the law and the criticisms of it have all been fundamentally dishonest or beside the point.

Advocates for the law said if trans sexuals  were allowed entry to bathrooms, sexual predators would have license to prey on children.  Critics said this law is an attempt to deny trans sexual individuals respect and basic human rights.

Little effort has been made to actually analyze the real issues here which are:

1. Why do we, in this country, separate males and females in bathrooms, where people go to defecate and/or urinate?  Not all countries do this. On at least some college campuses, bathrooms are coed.



2. What is a trans sexual  individual?

With respect to the practice of gender separation of bathrooms. The fact is we do this because we do not like the idea of women seeing men's penises in public, which a rest room sort of is.  Some of us worry about our wives or daughters walking into an enclosed semi private/ semi public space and seeing a stranger's penis, even if it is in the non sexual context of urinating. Either the man or the woman or both may feel uncomfortable with this exposure. 

If the toilet is walled off, i.e., their are no urinals, the problems might be diminished, although we tend to be a little squeamish about this sort of thing in this country.
No need to escalate this into the end of Western Civilization, with dire warnings about sexual predation. Why go there? It's just not the problem. 

We do have laws about public nudity, "indecent exposure" which arise out of taste and cultural norms and folkways, not because of concerns of  any physical harm (sexual predation)  but because of a sense of propriety. 

It's really about nudity, decorum and sensibilities not rape, or sexual behavior. And that might be enough of a reason. If enough women in Houston say, no, I would not be comfortable sitting next to a man who is having a bowel movement in the stall next to me, even though I would not feel that way about a woman, then what Constitutional right have we violated?  

We have hurt the feelings of the man who is having the bowel movement but have we done something comparable to refusing in public to serve him at a lunch counter because he is Black? After all, there is no history of demeaning men for being males in this country. We have not denied the man the right to defecate, if we have provided him with a toilet next door in the men's room.

You will say, "Oh, right, separate but equal." But in the case of male / female segregation there may be such a thing. In the case of Brown v Board of Education the justices were quite right to say there was no such thing as separate but equal in the case of White and Black schools. 

Now, number 2: What is a trans sexual person?

While there is some confusion about transgender and trans sexual definition, most would agree a person who feels he is the wrong sex, for example a man who feels he's a woman trapped in a man's body, is a trans sexual.

Some trans sexual  men have had their penises removed and their breasts enhanced and they may not pose much of a problem to other women in the rest room, especially since in women's bathrooms, you generally enter a closed stall. 

But other trans sexual males still have penises and testicles in a scrotum and those individuals, were they to expose their anatomy to women in the rest room would likely meet with some shock and dismay, even if they announce, "But wait! I'm actually a woman trapped in a man's body!"

One might reasonably argue, if every bathroom has walled off toilets, in which case there is a private space within a private space, but since we are dealing with issues which pertain more to laws that have to do with public nudity and "indecent exposure"  the arguments ought to coalesce around those concerns.  

Some have tried to compare the issue of bathroom use to gay marriage, as a matter of "respect" and public acceptance of differences. That is not the issue in the case of public bathrooms.  

In the case of gay marriage, it's a case of what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes. In the case of trans sexuals revealing their anatomy in the private setting of a public facility, we are dealing with non consenting adults having to see what they do not want to see.

Best Presidential Campaign Ever: Thanks, Melania

I don't know about those high heels

I know it's Easter Sunday, but as that radical theologian, Joe Cocker, once said, "Let's don't get all hung up over Easter."  Or maybe it was, "Let's not all be hung over on Easter." Whatever.  The thing is, on this holiest of all Christian holidays, when many are celebrating the idea of ressurection and new life, and the joy of life, it seems somehow not totally inappropriate that the newspapers front pages are all plastered with stories, if not images of MelaniaTrump in her birthday suit.


I mean, how much less appropriate are thoughts of naked Melania, sex, the acts that give rise to new life than those weird little yellow chicken things they sell for Easter baskets and the dyed unfertilized chicken eggs we all search for?

The flower is the best touch

Anyway, I'm really loving this Presidential campaign. 

You got to hand it to Donald Trump for planting those nude photos of his wife and blaming Ted Cruz: He did get past all the political correctness and to the heart of what this campaign is really  all about. 

As anyone who watches "House of Cards" and has become a fan of the Russian President depicted in that series, we all know what politics is really about and that's sex, desire and seduction.  I mean, that scene in the study in Germany between Claire and the Russian was just so TENSE!  You just knew at any moment he was going to rip off all her clothes and she would put up token resistance before taking the top position and forcing him to sign the damn oil drilling agreement, and there would be some silly puns about his capacity for drilling.  I know all that was written and performed, but, obviously, Netflix executives chickened out and could not bring themselves to include it in the family TV series which shows President Underwood hallucinating sex with Zoe as he is about to leave this world. What else would he be hallucinating about? 

Have I digressed? 

No, I was talking about what 2016 is really about. Claire and Petrov are every bit as real as the Donald and Melania for most voters.

Look, the real issue in this campaign is:  Who would you like to think about in the Lincoln bedroom in the White House?  Now, Melania Trump, that stirs some dry roots with Spring rain, right there. 

Jackie Who?

It's an open secret what really drives those Aryan Nation boys in Idaho and Wyoming crazy is the idea of a Black couple spending nights in the WHITE House, in  same bed where the Great Emancipator once slept. Although, now that you mention it, wouldn't you think they'd like that idea? 

I don't know. Really, I don't.

Talk About Hot

But, anyway, I like the idea of voting for the First Lady first. Of course, in Bill Clinton's case, he would be the first man.  I cannot speak to this, but I will rely on my extensive female readership to comment on whether Bill does for you what Melania does for most heterosexual men.  If so, then we've got a match.

Actually, this opens up a whole new set of possibilities.  Memo to Bernie:  Leak the photos of your liaison with Megyn Kelly.  You don't have to be actually married to the lady or even actually having an affair; it's enough to just set the scene in the brains of the multitudes. Bernie and Megyn, you know. (And, just for the record, any woman who spells her name "Megyn" is just asking for it.)

Bernie: Memo to Donald: Eat your heart out

This is all a very healthy trend in openness, transparency and if the Republican leadership had only gone there first, why then, we'd be seeing Paul Ryan in the White House in 2017. And may yet. 

Joe Darrow New York Magazine

Hey, so what does Paul Ryan's  wife look like naked?

Government Good Deeds List

This morning one of my co workers came in all excited because she was walking her dog along the Merrimack River and she saw a bald eagle.

Which reminded me they are now seeing bald eagles near Lock 8 on the C&O Canal along the Potomac near my former home there. When I was growing up in the 1960's along the Potomac, nothing but carp and catfish could survive in that river, which was really scummy and smelled bad.

Government made industries clean up their acts and the rivers were born again. If libertarians or big business Republicans of today had their way, those rivers would still be cesspools. 

So this is my first item on the list of "Good Things Government Does."

Of course, state government failed to keep the water non toxic in Flint, and the villains there were not industrial miscreants but old and unsafe infrastructure. The trouble in Flint was government failed to do its job. Of course, when the government does it's job and enforces regulations, that is not something we think of as a good thing: It's just like functioning sewers and water treatment--it's just there.

So, I invite my legions of silent readers to raise their voices, or click their mouses and add to my list of Good Things Government Does, in no particular order: 
(NB:  Libertarians will argue some or all of these things could be done by private enterprise, e.g. road building and road maintenance, but what is on this list are things I would argue for structural reasons are better done, more efficiently done by government.)

#1  Clean Rivers. (Environmental Protection.)

#2 FAA traffic control.

#3 Coast Guard rescue.

#4 Public schools (when they work.)

#5 Social Security

#6 Medicare

#7 National Defense

#8 Parks and recreation (e.g. Central Park New York City, Mountain Major, New Hampshire, and all the National Parks)

#9 Prisons (hard to think of prisons in a positive way, but it's one of those things somebody has to do)

#10 Police (as in "Serve and Protect" as opposed to "Shoot and Stomp.")

The Hillary/Trump Debate of My Dreams

Dime Store Bully

Here's the debate I'd love to see.
The Donald, in his full insult mode confronts Madame Secretary Clinton.

She does have a high voltage smile

Donald (looking down at Ms. Clinton): Well, they had to adjust that podium so the TV cameras could find you down there.

Hillary:  I'm just about exactly the same height as your friend, Vladimir Putin, but I guess you knew that.

Donald: I didn't. He looks taller.  But he's got way more energy than you. I don't see you riding horses shirtless.

Hillary:  At my age, one expects to get tired at the end of a long day, but the next day I wake up, refreshed raring to go.

Donald:  No, you're low energy all day.

Hillary: You pride yourself on animal strength, in which wild swine are your equal and the jackass infinitely your superior.

Donald:  You calling me a swine?  

Hillary:  Well, it was the jackass where the invidious comparison obtains. And I wouldn't want to be unfair to the swine.

Donald: You know, you were the worst Secretary of State in history.  You just couldn't keep up, which is why you had to bail out the night of Benghazi, had to go home to catch your beauty sleep. Well, as President, you've got to be on the go all day and night.

Hillary: So by late at night, I will be tired, but the next morning I will awaken rejuvenated and you, sir, will still be an imbecile. 

Donald: You've never made an honest dollar. The only power you've every had has been given to you by men, first your husband, then Obama.

Hillary: And you would know all about being handed power, as opposed to say, earning it. You are this country's closest approximation to Joffrey, the feckless son of the Lancasters, from Game of Thrones.  Born to the throne but not brave enough or smart enough or strong enough to actually wield power effectively.

Donald:  And you fashion yourself as a champion of women, but you were the enabler who helped your husband abuse women.

Hillary:  Do you know who Phil Sheridan was?

Donald: Never met him, I don't think.

Hillary: Well, he was a Union general in the Civil War. He was a man of many failings, and he was short, rather homely, but he had the qualities his country needed to save it--courage, decisiveness, understanding the big picture. He died young and his much younger wife was asked who, among her many suitors, she would choose to replace him in her life and she said, "I'd rather be Phil Sheridan's widow than any living man's wife." People didn't understand that. I do. Anyone who reads the tabloids knows my husband has his  faults, but I consider myself lucky to be his wife, for all our troubles.  You don't have the character to even carry water for him.

Donald: Yeah, and he came hat in hand to me for money. I carried him. 

Hillary:  You know, I think I know men. You are the guy who might be fun at the frat party Friday night, but  what woman would ever want to wake up the next morning and see you there, in the light of day?

Donald: Oh, a lot of women would.

Hillary: Well, I've heard you brag about the size of your male organ, it's true. But it's not so much that organ where your real problem resides: It's the two other organs we all should worry about in your case: Brain and heart.  The one doesn't light up and the other's too small.