Dark Money and Why They Win

Reading "Dark Money" by Jane Mayer for a book club, I can understand why the Tea Party Republicons have been able to gain control of all three branches of government and both houses of the legislature.

Mitch McConnell is depicted as teaching a class in college, writing on the blackboard the three essentials for gaining and maintaining political power: "Money, money, money."

And the right has the money. Yes, the left had George Soros, but there are a dozen George Soros's on the right, most especially the Koch brothers.

As the Koch brothers are quick to point out, they've spent billions on elections their candidates lost, so money is not enough, but what they and their cohort have done is to provide the money that keeps enough right wing nuts continuously employed, and over time, with enough think tank cranks churning out stuff, feeding Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, it has an irresistible cumulative effect.

When Hillary Clinton described a "vast right wing conspiracy" she was engaging in what might be described as significant understatement.

The relentlessness, the desperation of the right is several orders of magnitude higher than that of the left because for the left, this is simply a matter of principle and the leftists have other things to do with their weekends like reading, or fishing or going to dinner and discussing Proust.  The right wing considers their expenses as essential to protecting their billions, their vast vaults of gold. For the right, the idea is they are protecting all their hard earned winnings; for the left political activity is just another expression of their ideals. 

It is true that Hillary Clinton outspent Donald Trump 9 to 1 in some counties and still lost, and you might think that argues that Citizens United and the Koch brothers don't matter because, well, what does money translate into?  Money is used to buy TV ads and to do oppositional research and to pay people to campaign for you, but if those ads don't work, as they did not for Hillary, then you can hardly argue that money can buy elections.

But the problem is, Hillary's money was spent too late. The Koch brothers had been spending money and forming opinions for years in the run up to 2016. All that effort paid off so by the time Hillary's ads hit the air, minds were already made up.

Money buying political contests is nothing new in American history.  
A President who isn't fit for the office is nothing new.
Class warfare is nothing new.
The rich buying laws which ensure they make more money and that others pay to support their business is not new.
Businesses despoiling the environment, the land, the rivers, lakes and oceans is not new. 

Ronald Reagan cut taxes for the rich, drove deficits and the national debt through the roof and the nation survived. 

The curious thing is that so much of the right is driven by two things:  
1. Extractive industries (oil, coal) and their owners (Koch brothers among others) want to keep making money selling oil and coal--which benefits only them. But renewal energy could eventually supplant these sources of energy and other people would make the money, so the overall economy would not suffer, just the oil and coal people. We went from whale oil to drilled oil and the economy bloomed. Same can happen shifting away from oil.

2. Fear and loathing of the "other."  Kris Kobach, Joe Arpaio, David Duke, simply fear the growing numbers of dark skinned people and want to keep America white or make America White Again.  Thus, allowing 800,000 children who grew up in the USA from age 3 to stay in America is an anathema. Send them home! But they are already home. No! These dark skinned people cannot claim this country as home! But the arc of demographics is bending toward the day when whites will be a minority. In the South, that minority has been able to dominate and subjugate the colored population. But this may not be true in the future. 
So now the right says it values the rule of law. And these 800,000 have broken the law, so they have to go. But these kids didn't know they were breaking any laws. No matter: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. You must obey the law always. Even when the law says any white person who advocates that the white race is not superior to the coloreds is breaking the law. (Mississippi law in 1960.)

So these two interests see themselves as fighting for their lives, for their fortunes.

Do people on the left have any such abiding, deeply held reasons to fight back?

The Case for a Post Menopausal President

Americans have typically gone for one or the other of two types of leaders in their Presidents:  The libidinous, hormone driven, charismatic guy --John Kennedy, Teddy Roosevelt, even Franklin Roosevelt--who can charge up an audience, get his team roaring and charging out on the field, and maybe even lead them there or the guy whose been there, done that, and now is slowing down, testosterone levels falling, but who has seen it all before and is not too surprised or shocked by much--Eisenhower, Coolidge (about whom, when Dorothy Parker was told he had died, she asked, "How can they tell?")

So we went from Barack Obama, who visibly restrained all his lean, male althleticism and played the role of the good father, loyal husband, the Ozzie of Ozzie and Harriet, the Father Knows Best, sort of asexual, boring, reliable, dependable type and we went to Mr. Penis Erectus, volatile, fun, blustering, charging here and there, to and fro, tweeting Mr. Sweeney Erect.

It's hard to run against that bad boy type.  You need another bad boy.  Maybe Bernie Sanders is the best answer because he combines energy with white hair, but the Republicans will go after him as a grumpy old man and they may succeed.


It would be nice to find a guy or a woman, who combines lancinating wit, hard punching rhetoric with a sort of restraint borne of power.  if you are physically imposing enough, you do not need to be as voluble. 

It is well war is so terrible or we'd grow to love it too much.

So we need someone who maybe played professional football and then got his law degree, or better yet, an engineering degree and who still looks dangerous.  Sort of like the Jimmy Smitts character in "West Wing."  Maybe a combat veteran, but not physically broken like John McCain. Someone whose virility you don't question, but who has been there done that and now wants to avoid all that foolishness and is not about to react to Kim Jung Whoever with more than a disdainful glance.

"War is not popularity seeking."

He ought to be able to take on the stupidity of Lindsay Graham head on: "Oh, so now Senator Graham is telling us we don't want some government bureaucrat in Washington, DC getting between us and our doctor in the exam room. Oh, horrors!  Of course, Senator Graham does not mind at all if the billionaire CEO of the private insurance company gets between you and your doctor--that's just fine with Senator Graham.  As long as free enterprise is cooking, it's all fine with Senator Graham. As long as the insurance company gets it's pockets filled, as long as Senator Graham gets his election fund filled with insurance company money, that CEO can glove and gown in the operating room."


And all like that.


I'm looking around but I haven't seen that ideal Democratic leader. 


All we've got is the Chuck and Nancy show. I'm sure the Republicans thank God every day for that.

Where Did All the Charisma Go?

Last night, I attended a meeting of local New Hampshire Democrats. There was one good looking woman, but, for the most part, it was a sorry looking crowd of aged, bent and halt citizens, whose voices cracked and hands shook.

The speaker was a bright man, a lawyer, who said he was thinking of running for governor. He was five feet tall if he stood on a soap box.

Gets your attention

All I could think was, these people are bright, and they are right in their opinions, but they are losers. Not economic losers, for they were clearly affluent. But politically, losers. Nobody wants to be on their team.

Wrong Cause, but Charisma Plus

What ever happened to the Democrats who had dazzle? The Kennedys, the Roosevelts, the people who had charm, grace, charisma?

A general we can believe in

The closest thing we've got to charisma on the Democratic side is Bernie Sanders, who is tall, but stooped and looks every one of his seventy plus years.

We like Our Team

This morning, on TV, Sanders hosted a rally "Medicare for All" and he had Corey Booker (NJ) and Richard Blumenthal (CT) and Elizabeth Warren speak.  Nice people. On the right side, but weak voices, no energy.

Don't Mess With Our Team

I don't know.  I think we need someone new.

Band of Brothers

Democrats Need Don Draper

What the Democratic Party needs is marketing.

Reading "Dark Money" the thing that stands out is the Republicans have treated political discourse as marketing.  They know that Democrats have the arguments which should keep them in power:  1/ we need some form of universal health care 2/ We need regulation of markets to protect consumers from unscrupulous profit driven businesses  3/ we need to pay people enough money to keep them in the game, to give them a stake, so they want to cooperate enough to insure the continued flow of goods and services they want directed to them. 4/ we need to allow for the free expression of opinion and for free exchange of information so bad products and bad companies and bad practices (like cows standing in their own poop and chickens crowded shoulder to shoulder for their whole lives) can been exposed and rejected 5/ we need a planet unsullied by poisonous fumes and toxins.

So the Republicans have needed to come up with some appealing goodies to sell and they have hit upon keeping government off your back, resisting taxes and regulations and the knee of government on the neck of entrepreneurs who are our best hope for driving new knowledge, innovation.

Then the Republicans monetize these ideas by paying enough people enough money to keep them marketing these ideas--Rush Limbaugh has found his own pot of gold but there are numerous "foundations" and "think tanks" which employ people to get and remained "impassioned."


They know and know how to use anger.

President Obama, for all his great and many virtues did not do well with anger.  He failed, to the extent he failed, because he could not bring himself to get angry enough or often enough. He saw the American economy shoved to the brink of death by--well, who knows who was responsible really?  My best guess comes from reading "The Big Short" and stuff like that.
But Obama could not bring himself to rail against Wall Street greed, and nobody went to jail. NOBODY WENT TO JAIL!  In Iceland, after their 2008 crash, lots of bankers wen to jail. Made everyone feel a lot better. I saw the jails when I visited. And I thought, "We should have some American bankers, and American credit rating agency CEO's in jail. I'd feel a lot better.

Now Bernie Sanders writes an editorial in the NYT:

This is a pivotal moment in American history. Do we, as a nation, join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee comprehensive health care to every person as a human right? Or do we maintain a system that is enormously expensive, wasteful and bureaucratic, and is designed to maximize profits for big insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, Wall Street and medical equipment suppliers?

We remain the only major country on earth that allows chief executives and stockholders in the health care industry to get incredibly rich, while tens of millions of people suffer because they can’t get the health care they need. This is not what the United States should be abo

Notice how he clearly identifies the bad guys, the bad values, the enemy.That's what you need in war, an enemy. FDR knew how to do that. Elizabeth Warren sometimes can identify the enemy, but she seems saddened by their perfidy rather than angered by it.

We need somebody to get angry.

Police Acting Badly (Again) Now Utah

Just how stupid are some police?  
As I have it from various news sources, a nurse at the University of Utah hospital apparently knows her job and the law better than Detective Jeff Payne, who arrived to draw blood on a comatose patient who had been struck by a speeding vehicle in a police chase, as an innocent bystander. 

Alex Wubbels, RN

One can only imagine the police wanted blood to show the driver was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol when he was assaulted by a speeding vehicle.

The patient's nurse knows that drawing blood on a patient without the patient's permission is assault, legally, as we were all told when we were in training in hospitals.

The detective apparently was not taught this point of law.

Detective Jeff Payne, Salt Lake City Police 

The nurse calmly schools the detective that to draw the blood he needs: 1/ The patient's permission--not possible in a comatose patient  2/ A warrant, which can be obtained electronically or 3/ The police can arrest the patient.

The nurse does what we are all trained to do: She gets her supervisor on the phone and the supervisor tells the cop to back off and the detective claims he's talked to his superior officer, "my lieutenant" who orders him to arrest the nurse, over the phone. 

So, now we have two supervisors, not on the scene, who are part of the problem, not the solution, although only one of them is dead wrong about the law.

Since the patient happens to be a victim of a crime, namely the car chase crash, arresting him apparently did not appeal to Detective Payne, so he arrested the nurse instead and hauled her off to his police car, for the crime of "obstructing justice."

Who is the bad guy in this picture?

So many questions leap to mind:
1/ Where was hospital security?
2/ Where was the nurse's supervisor?
3/ Where was the hospital administration?
4/ Where were the interns, residents, other nurses who might have rallied to her defense, or at the very least, called the police.
No, wait, it was the police who were assaulting the nurse.

5/ Why was the detective allowed to walk past the waiting room to the patient's room?
Ordinary citizens are not allowed in a patient's room or in operating rooms or on wards without security screening.  Should we not demand the same of police, given this behavior? If the patient was actually in the burn unit, he would be under protective isolation and you'd have to gown and glove to draw the blood. Did this detective know how to draw blood in a sterile fashion?


Another question: Why was this detective not fired summarily, immediately and seriously? Why was his lieutenant not fired? 
And where is the mayor of Salt Lake City in all this?

The other thing you might note is this all happened after a high speed police chase. How was the public served by this chase, and by putting this truck driver, who, as far as any responsible official has said, was an innocent bystander and still does not know his nurse stuck up for him.

But more to the point: What level of arrogance do police function with daily? They give an order and expect you to obey?  Where is that in the constitution?

The Child is the Father of the Flim Flam Man

Norman Vincent Peale died in 1993, but for 50 years before that he wrote best selling books and ran a church in New York City and a  psychiatric/religious "clinic" next door.

Norman Vincent Peale

He wrote a book, "The Power of Positive Thinking" which I have never read, but I've read Wikipedia and other internet excerpts and it seems to be an argument that a positive mind set can overcome all adversity, and you are going to be afflicted in life, you're going to have reversals but you can slide right by all those, and use that to make yourself a success--the old that which does not kill me will make me stronger stuff. 



“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”  

“Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel there is something special in them. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only the best, be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

Stand up t

Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don't have any problems, you don't get any seeds.

 your obstacles
and d

Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities -- always see them, for they're always there.

o something about them. You will find that they haven't half the strength you think they have

Peale did not like the Catholic in Kennedy and supported his opponent, Nixon and the Democrats pointed to Peale's book and said this country was built by realists who took action based on facts, and Peale's book was larded with examples of how well his positive mindset works which were invariably anecdotes about unnamed people who prevailed through thinking happy and constructive thoughts and made lemonade out of lemons.

President Tripe was an acolyte of Rev. Peale and you can hear it in his refusal to cite facts, statistics and numbers but in his pattern of simply saying what he wants to be true and that's enough. So Mexican rapists are pouring across the border because he heard about a woman who got raped by one in San Francisco, and vaccinations cause autism and mental retardation because he had a friend who had a child...and as for positive thinking, well we are going to have so much winning when President Tripe gets into office and drains the swamp you'll be tired and bored of winning.


Bless his soul. President Honey Boo Boo.


In his time Rev Peale was called "the flim flam man" because he asserted so many things which were supported by nothing more than tales he had clearly simply made up.

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you're going to live your life.

When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.

You can change your world by changing your words... Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Reading about Joel Osteen and his prosperity gospel of read my book and you will be rich, there are distinct echoes of Peale.

I wonder if President Tripe will invite Rev Osteen to the White House for dinner with him and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.


Wouldn't you like to be there for that?

Carol Shea Porter In Exeter: Oh, Democrats!

You have to love Carol Shea Porter, who represents  New Hampshire's First District in the United States House of Representatives. She has authored a Medicare for All bill which has found no other sponsors in the House. She has been for increasing the minimal wage for years, fighting against that canard from Republicans that increasing the minimal wage will decrease jobs, as if every owner of a McDonalds franchise will close down his store rather than share his profits more equitably, as if exploitation of labor is a good thing.

You also have to love a lady who was thrown out of a George W. Bush rally for wearing a bright red T shirt which said, "Turn your back on Bush."


And you have to respect her fighting spirit for beating Jeb Bradley twice and Frank Guinta twice, having also been beaten twice by Frank Guinta.


On the other hand, she is exactly what is wrong with the Democrats: Heart in the right place, right on all the issues, but milquetoast. Her voice is too quiet.


She spoke at Exeter last night and I lost count of the times she mentioned how nasty Washington had become, how upset she had been by the shootings of Republican Congressmen at a baseball field, how she hoped for more pleasant conversations with Republicans and more comity in the halls of Congress.


Her most ardent meme was opposition must come from people like us, in the audience, "grass roots" ordinary folks. This the same thing Ray Buckley tells us every chance he gets. Which is to say, "You are not going to get any leadership from us--you do it."  Or, put another way, the ship has hit an iceberg and the captain and crew are powerless, so you passengers organize yourselves in boats and get off while you still can.





The last question of the night was the one I wanted answered:  Who do the Democrats have who can beat President Honey Boo Boo in 2020? 


Oh, we have lots of people, good candidates. And we all sat forward on the edges of our seats and waited to hear. Ms. Shea Porter struggled, well, Kirstin Gillibrand, maybe.  And someone, a name I'd never heard and quickly forgot. Another couple of names like that. Sherrod Brown. And Al Franken.
Al Franken? Really? That's the best we can do?
I mean, I like Al, but he was never that funny on Saturday Night Live and he won his Senate seat by like, two votes.

So, we are left with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer as the face of the Democratic Party, while the Republicans have Jim Jordan, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, John Cornyn, Rush Limbaugh, John Thune and a host of other big voiced, smooth talking fair haired boys who hammer away at the wimpy sounding Dems, who, until recently were led by Harry Reid whose voice could barely ever rise above a whisper and who was beaten up by a snapping exercise band and had to retire, passing his mantel on to Chuck Schumer who thought hard and consulted widely and came up with the slogan "A Better Deal" for America. Which is like, "Well, we may not be much, but we are probably better."

There was a lot of talk from Congresswoman Shea Porter last night about the things President Honey Boo Boo had done, but there was precious little about what we will do, why the Dems ought to be leading the government, how we will address immigration, the war in Afghanistan, healthcare, the loss of manufacturing jobs, the withering life in the non urban parts of America.
We need warriors. We've got nice ladies who are wonderful, good hearted people, but they are not leaders.