Intimations of Impending Doom

Diary of a mad morning:


1. On the treadmill, "New Day" reviewing early voting trends in North Carolina: Early voting is up 50% among whites compared to last year, up only 15% among Blacks. Inference: Blacks are not coming out to vote for Hillary as they did to vote for Obama. You need a big Black vote to win North Carolina.
2. Driving in: NPR report on two reporters, one in England one in Pennsylvania. Town in coal country where everyone is voting Trump because "Hillary wants to kill coal. Washington has forgotten about us."  Brexit voters say the same thing about London. The elites in London are doing well and we are drowning in immigrants.
Inference: Trump is the American Brexit. He's the disrupter.
3. NPR report on a woman canvassing in Manchester, New Hampshire. She asks to speak to the wife, who she has listed on her computer spread sheet as a potential Democratic vote. Man answers the door says, "Nobody in this house is voting for Hillary. We're Trump. She should be in jail, for what she did. Shouldn't even be allowed to run. She belongs in jail."
By the time the canvasser has finished knocking on 39 doors, she has spoken with only one voter who wouldn't say how she was voting and the man who knows Hillary belongs in jail. And this is using what the Democratic party's computer says is a list of Democratic voters.


So much for the value of a "ground game." 

Why should I care?  Will my life, personally, change with President Trump? If the Ku Klux Klan marches down Lafayette Street, how will it affect my life? 
If the scoundrels and racists and Muslim, foreigner haters take control of the government, the Music Hall will still have concerts. I can still take the C&J bus to New York City and see my kids.

My father returned from a trip to Spain, years ago, when the dictator, Franco, was still in power. He was dismayed at how happy the Spaniards looked. "They're living under a dictatorship and they look happy!"

El Duce, not Franco--Mussolini

I imagine, if you lived in Austria, for most of the 1930's and even into the 1940's your life continued to be pretty pleasant, as long as you were not a Jew or a Gypsy.
Symphonies still played, operas still got sung. People went out to beer gardens and for hikes in the mountains.

You will say the odor wafting into town from the concentration camps must have unsettled the happy little blonde lives, but Americans keep their nastiness at a distance--in Gitmo, in the great empty spaces of the far West.
It's just an election. Just a government. And what Mr. Trump's supporters are reminding us is we don't need no freaking government.

November 9, 2016

President Donald John Trump, 45th President of these United States takes office on January, 2017.

Is he the worst human being to ever hold that office?  He has some stiff competition.
Andrew Johnson, Warren Harding, Richard Nixon--there have been some potential winners for that competition. Racists, paranoid near schizophrenics, simpletons, but it is hard to confect a more perfect combination of all the above, to which we add a twist of Mussolini/Berlusconi narcissism.

There might be a certain delicious quality of dreadful anxiety, anticipating his arrival at  the portico of the Capitol Building, to deliver what I am sure will be a memorable Inaugural Address to the American people, on a bright January day, when the clean, crisp air attempts  to wash clean a foul election campaign and we can sense a new beginning.

What an excruciating ride from the White House for President Obama, who will accompany his replacement, riding in the long black limousine, and who, I hope, will lean over and whisper in his ear, "You know, Donald. I can tell you now. You were right: I really was born in Kenya." Just one last effort to mess with the President elect's head.

In the interval between his election on the night of November 8, and his inauguration in January there have been cross burnings on the lawns of Blacks and Jews, but Muslim Americans have come in for special attention, as several men suspected of being Muslims have been dragged out of bars, grocery stores, Walmarts and beaten to death in parking lots, on sidewalks and alleys. One was dragged behind a car in Texas.


A crowd of men with AK 15 assault rifles roamed the streets of a Michigan town near Dearborn and fired on passers-by, killing a Shik man who was thought to be a Muslim. Store windows were broken and homes set afire.

In Nashville, Tennessee and Portsmouth, NH synagogues were defaced with swastikas and in Charleston, Richmond and  Birmingham synagogues and mosques were burned to the ground.


Mr. Trump vowed his promise to jail Mrs. Clinton would be fulfilled and he would appoint an attorney general whose first priority would be accomplishing that.
The inaugural balls scheduled for the evening after the address have been organized by the Miss Universe organization and every woman invited must be a 10, except for Maria Bartiromo, is invited even though she has gained weight, eating like a pig, but as long as she wears that red dress she wore at the Al Smith dinner, which caught Mr. Trump's eye, she can attend.

Such are the celebrations of Mr. Trump's election.
Listening to his oration, we can forget all that and simply enjoy the show.


Democracy reigns.

The Hatch Act: I Stand Corrected

Okay, so I got a little carried away and failed to inquire into the penalties for violation of the Hatch Act. Apparently, after further googling, Mr. Comey cannot be led away in hand cuffs--a pity--the only penalty is removal from office.

Listening to the talking heads on The PBS News Hour, Chris Hayes etc., opinion broke two ways--there are the forgiving Obama types who have known the man and think well of him, but thought he simply made a mistake and then there are others, who simply shrugged and said, "Of course he violated the Hatch Act. There have been few examples of a more flagrant violation."

There is a board which hears these cases and their verdict can be appealed in court. 

If Trump wins,  I doubt we'll see that process unfold. 

Deep Cleansing Breath

Oliver described the FBI’s announcement as the equivalent of a mystery box.
“And like the box from the end of ‘Seven,’ it could contain anything from nothing to Gwyneth Paltrow’s head,” he said. “Although it almost definitely contains Anthony Weiner’s penis.” --RE: JOHN OLIVER SHOW


OY, what a story! The October Surprise. Trump gloating, triumphant. I told you so!

Told us what?

Fact is, nothing.  Nothing's changed.

In "The West Wing" the Republican candidate is undone by an October surprise when a nuclear power plant in his home state nearly melts down. He had advocated for more nuclear power in a debate with his opponent and now this comes back to bite him just before the voting.  He never recovers and loses the election.
But that was different. That was a policy thing.


If Hillary Clinton is elected, the Republicans in Congress will be investigating her from day one through her last day in office, spending millions of taxpayer dollars in their single minded obsession to prove they were right all along.
They'll continue to infect the government with gridlock.
Survivalists in Idaho and the Dakotas will continue to stockpile arms in anticipation of the apocalyptic attack of the black helicopters. Rush Limbaugh and Trump radio will continue to accuse Hillary of dark, undiscovered crimes against humanity and the Republic.
South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Utah, the Dakotas, Idaho and Wyoming and likely Texas will continue to be home to people who believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya or on Mars, and Hillary and the Democrats are plotting to take away your guns, and the federal government should not be allowed to own land, and there are space aliens in Area 51.  Oh, yes, and there is a vast, world wide conspiracy nobody in the liberal media will tell you about to do bad things nobody is quite sure of, but it's bad.
Worst of all, we'll have Donald Trump on TV every day, and he'll lead every news program every night. He'll be so ubiquitous he'll make Big Brother look like a recluse.

I have a button which says, "Shut the Trump Up."
But, of course, we can never do that. Wouldn't really want to. After all, there is a reason freedom of speech is in the FIRST amendment. It's the most important freedom of all. 
If Trump wins, having to listen to stories about him, but actually, I was forgetting--there is an even worse than worst part:  We'll have to deal with stories about those he inspires, enables and emboldens.
That is the real horror show.

But, in a better world, if Hillary Clinton does win, and if she wins by a wide margin, then it might reassure a broad swath of the nation that Americans are not fools, that we can listen to Trump and all those who travel with him without being convinced.

If Hillary wins a squeaker, that would be less therapeutic, especially if she has to face a Republican Senate.

If she loses, likely the news about Obamacare premiums rising will be more important than the schemes of James Comey, the screams of Rush Limbaugh.


Now, just a week until we know.

Where is the Warrant for the Arrest of James Comey?

Harry Reid tells Director of the FBI, James Comey, he "may" have violated the Hatch Act.  The New York Times says if the election goes to Mr. Trump, then Mr. Comey "might" be guilty of violating the law which forbids federal employees from using their offices to influence political activity, elections.

All this implies there is some doubt about whether Mr. Comey violated the law. 
The Times, and others, point out Mr. Comey's intent must be assessed to convict him of violating the law.

Yes, that's what trials are about, weighing alternative interpretations of actions.
But this is also what arrests are about, and what timing is about. And what law is about. 
Judges have a process by which they can issue an interim decision when timing is critical to outcomes. 
Unless I'm mistaken, the only remedy for the current situation is to publicly arrest Mr. Comey, and make him do a perp walk in handcuffs, to say to those impressionable voters out there who are wondering if the FBI investigation of emails associated with Mrs. Clinton implies she has done something wrong or even illegal, to say to these folks, no, actually it's the Director of the FBI who has done something wrong. 

He has taken action which can only be seen on face value as one which was motivated by trying to influence an election.  He can be tried on this charge. We can take all the time he needs to prepare his defense, but for now, he belongs in jail.

Jail Jimmy: Indict Jimmy Comey for Hatch Act Violation

The Hatch Act is not my favorite law, but sometimes bad law can be put to good uses.  In 1939 the act was passed to prevent federal government employees from engaging in "pernicious political activity."  It was actually inspired by the use of government employees to intimidate voters on behalf of certain candidates, but over the years it's meant that federal government employees cannot drive to work in Washington, D.C. with bumper stickers for candidates for federal office.

Over the years, there have been some questions about its implied restrictions of freedom of speech for the employees, but in the Case of James Comey, current director of the FBI, it should be used to send federal officers to his office and slap him in hand cuffs for trying to perniciously sway a federal election by insinuating Hillary Clinton is under investigation as a crook, when in fact it is the director and his underlings who have violated the law.

The really sleazey part of Comey's actions is that he did not have to accuse Ms. Clinton of anything. He only had to say, "She's under investigation, or maybe not, again."

So, yes. Let the Attorney General send some officers, preferably not FBI agents--with all the police agencies in Washington, D.C., they ought to be able to find somebody carrying handcuffs, who knows how to use them.

John Randolph: Citizen of the Republic of Reason

I am a citizen of the Republic of Reason. 
--John Randolph

Reading about John Randolph, of Roanoke, Virginia, born 1773, who served in the nascent United States House of Representatives and the Senate is both thrilling and reassuring, here and now in 2016. 

Randolph was a slave owning master of a Virginian plantation, a son of Virginia aristocracy and bizarrely, a distant relative of none other than Pocahontas. (This should be a comfort to Elizabeth Warren. Not all descendants of Pocahontas look like Cher.)

He was a prodigious horseman, whose feats upon stallions were well known and much admired in hunt country, but he was also clearly a eunuch. His biographers speculate about the source of his testosterone deficiency, speculating him to be  a victim of Klinefelter's Syndrome, but all we really know is at his autopsy, he had only a remnant of one atrophic testicle. Whatever caused this, it likely happened before puberty was fully completed, leaving him with long legs, no beard growth and a high pitched voice.

It was Randolph, reacting to another Congressman's taunt about his lack of virility, who said, "Sir, you pride yourself on an animal faculty, in which the Negro is your equal and the jackass infinitely your superior."
Oh, that we had Congressmen with that sort of mind today--but without the racist tinge. 
As if in compensation for his lack of manliness, he became pugnacious and physically fearless.  His home plantation was called, "Bizarre." And bizarre he was.

But he was also important and reading about him is much more than merely entertaining and enthralling: It is enlightening. 

Randolph vehemently opposed the proposition the federal government ought to raise and support a standing army in peacetime.  For Randolph, the idea of paying an army of mercenaries to defend the citizens of America was an anathema. 
"A people who mean to continue free must be prepared to meet danger in person, not to rely on the fallacious protection of mercenary armies. When citizen and soldier shall be synonymous terms, then will you be safe."
As a student at Columbia, he had listened to debates in the United States Congress, then in New York, about the idea of allowing militia to keep and bear arms.  He thought arming the militia a bad idea. Citizens should arm themselves.
This provides a new insight into the origins of the Second Amendment. Clearly, the Second Amendment was meant to arm militias, not individuals. Randolph thought the Constitution should guarantee an individual's right to bear arms and was appalled it ceded that right only to members of a militia.
Somehow, this escaped the attention of Justice Scalia and others as they found the Second Amendment guaranteeing an individual's right to keep and bear arms in what they claimed was the original intent of the founding fathers. (What did Scalia actually know about what the founding fathers thought?)
Randolph was offended by the idea of paying men to be soldiers when there was no war to fight. These fighting men, with no fight before them would simply be "mercenary loungers and ragamuffins." 

Oddly, the idea that peacetime soldiers might be described as slackers or hired guns did not so much offend the military as the description, "ragamuffin," and Randolph felt compelled to walk back that term, but he stuck to his guns about the slacker (lounger) and mercenary parts.

I cannot know for sure, but from what I've read, those off the grid white supremacists living out in Idaho and North Dakota would likely agree with Randolph about the imperative to be self sufficient and to be prepared and willing to defend yourself and your home personally and they are arming themselves to fight the standing army of the federal government. Now we think of these people as lunatics, but Randolph, coming from a Virginia plantation was describing this mentality explicitly.

Distrust of others, unwillingness to place power in the hands of people outside your family, your plantation is sewn into the fabric of those Trump supporters who pack heat and show up at his rallies. These people are profoundly, often sociopath ically, anti social. Theirs is a distrust of the losing class, the kids who were told in grade school they were stupid, who were denigrated by their teachers in middle school, who were never going to get past high school.  Institutions of the government rejected them, told them they were worthless losers. And they never fully recovered, even if they went on to earn decent livings as HVAC repairmen, plumbers, electricians and wood workers.

Clinging to their guns.

But the really interesting thing is the unraveling of threads we today think of as interwoven.  Clinging to their guns and their religion. Not so in Randolph, who like Jefferson and so many other founding fathers was a "deist, and therefor an atheist."  Deist, as Jefferson described it, hoped for the existence of a God and an afterlife, but had no faith in any earthly religion connecting them to that.

Randolph would not have embraced today's Second Amendment crowd. He detested the idea of equality, and no gun could make you his equal.

It's pretty clear the current gun toting Second Amendment character feels powerful, the equal of any man when he straps on his Glock or slings his AK-15 over his shoulder and walks down the street or shows up at an Obama rally to protest.

Randolph had no illusions about even the biggest hand gun or rifle making you all powerful. The Revolution had been fought with cannon and howitzers--even in the late 18th and early 19th century, armies could crush any individual or plantation owner. 

My right to enslave others

Oddly, Randolph and Jefferson and the early Republican-Democrats loved the French revolutionaries, who were heavily into chopping off heads.  The heads they were after were aristocrats and the government they were advancing was one of citizen equality. And Jefferson and Randolph were aristocrats. But what they did not like was the idea of a government which could intervene on behalf of the have nots to impose power over them in their own little plantation kingdoms. 

Much as today's anti government Trumpees revile the whole notion of government. 

The odd evolution has, however, brought our present day anti government types into the military fold. Kelly Ayotte extols the virtues of our present day ragamuffins at every opportunity. Of course, you can argue that we no longer have a peacetime army in our world of eternal, constant war.  But she loves the idea of hiring others to do our fighting for us, rather than making citizens defend themselves in person. 

But Ayotte and her Tea Party lovers do share that Jeffersonian, Randolph desire to live without a government.  

You want guns: I'll give you guns

"Given the choice between government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I'd choose the latter," Jefferson said.

Which means, for all his dismissal of the value of any real government, Mr. Trump has not embraced the alternative.