Mindi Messmer: Going all Erin Brockovitch

We all want safe drinking water. Just ask the folks in Flint, Michigan.
We are all appalled whenever we learn some factory has dumped toxic stuff into a Love Canal or its equivalent in New Hampshire.
But we are also suspicious of people who develop a "passion" for causes which somehow works for them, personally.

Mindi Messmer

Anyone who lived through the 1960's remembers the folks who organized rallies and marches against the war, against poverty, against racism, who clearly felt they had found their calling. We looked at those people, who were doing good work, but who were "cashing in" on some cause.


In "The Wire," (yes, I'm guilty, alluding to "The Wire" again) an ambitious journalist at the Baltimore Sun finds himself in the middle of the investigation of a serial killer and, at one point, one of the cynical Baltimore homicide cops listens to the journalist say how dreadful this ongoing succession of murders must be for the homeless out there on the streets, and the cop says, "Oh, I don't know it's all that bad. It's worked for you, hasn't it?"

Erin Gone Hollywood

By which he means, you've made your career on the back of this story. Gus Haynes, the journalist's editor, who has been following the progress of the story looks at the cop and betrays just a wisp of a knowing smile.


So it is for me, with Mindi Messmer, who has been campaigning about ground water contamination on the Seacoast, which we all abhor.

Contamination was Good for Me

But she has tried to tie it to a "cluster" of pediatric (and now adult) malignancies. The problem with these "cancer clusters" which may or may not actually be related to environmental contamination is they have been devilishly difficult, nay impossible, to scientifically verify and only two or three cases--one being the Erin Brockovitch story--have ever been convincing to a jury.
I've heard Mindi raise the issue of an adult with pancreatic cancer who lives near what may well be a contaminated site, and she said something to the effect that Tom Sherman, MD, who we all love and respect, has said the cancer might be a product of the contamination.
That is called "anecdote" in medicine. It is anything but science. It is where science may begin.  And Mindi is trying to sell herself as a "scientist" and not just a scientist, but a woman scientist and we all know we need more of those. Fact is, Mindi's behind the times. We have, happily, lots of women scientists now, if you count physicians and surgeons and even PhD's and engineers. Times have changed. You can't run on being a role model for girls who might want to be scientists. That's so 20th century.

Hate That

Mindi's campaign material now says "send a woman scientist to Congress." She also has posted stuff about how women present differently than men with respect to a variety of diseases, the point being that women are being short changed by uncaring male doctors. Of course, this neglects the fact that the American medical profession is just about half and half female and male now. Women are not being neglected, or victimized and do not need a woman in Congress to champion their rights.
I do note that when a woman is passionate about a topic she's often criticized as being "emotional" where a man is "passionate." And that is unfair and unwarranted. But you don't get a free pass if you are a woman when you try to stoke up support for your ambitions by pointing to a cause like water pollution as if only you are pushing that.

Let's Get All Dramatic

As I hear it, Ms. Messmer has done a great job in the state legislature, but I think we've got better people (both of whom HAPPEN to be male, but that should not count against them.)


And, she is a Democrat and if she is the ultimate Democratic candidate, I'll be all in for her and work for her.


Some say we ought not be criticizing Democrats, giving Republicans ammunition for November. That is, of course, ridiculous. There is nothing we can think of saying about any Democrat they will not have thought of and more. During the primaries is where we shake out the problems, identify weaknesses, find the strongest candidate. That's what the Republicans did in 2016--and they got a guy nobody would have predicted would be a formidable politician, difficult to beat.


I think we need to send a warrior to Congress who nobody will look at and say, "Oh, she's trying to cash in and sound all passionate. Works for her."


We've got better folks, and their lack of "experience" is no longer an issue, not in these times when having political experience may simply make you appear to be a candidate from the Deep State.

The Almost Perfect Candidate (s): Deaglan McEachern + Terence O'Rourke

"Listen to every single one of them," my savant, Democratic guru keeps telling me.
There are eight candidates for the seat now held by Carol Shea Porter in the New Hampshire First.
This is a lady who knows of what she speaks: She's worked Democratic campaigns for years, knows the state and Congressional representatives and she knows New Hampshire. A product of Manchester's Central High School and Keene State, she can see and hear things I miss cold, when we go out canvassing.


After slogging through, listening to one candidate after another at the monthly Hampton Dems meeting and at the weekly Exeter meetings, there was only one who struck me as the real article: Terence O'Rourke. But last night Deaglon McEachern spoke at Exeter and he was interesting.

He is polished, articulate, speaks the Queen's English (American accent) and holds a degree from Cambridge (MA in history) and he is every bit the physical specimen you'd expect from a guy who spent a lot of college (and some post college) in the rowing/crew world.
Fact is, he had the time and money to indulge his passion for rowing, to go off to Cambridge for a little more polishing, and the polishing shows.




He said a few important things:
1/ To address the problem of mass shootings we should not only outlaw the sales of AR 15 assault rifles; we should focus on the bullets, the high capacity magazines.
We're never going to get back those weapons already out there. Forget that.
2/ We should focus a lot more effort on training plumbers, electricians, carpenters, the trades which will support families, allow them to buy homes and which will never be replaced by robots.
That definitely struck a nerve with me. Much as I loved Obama, he was wrong about insisting on sending everyone to college. He was uncritical of the data suggesting that is the path to prosperity. He should have focused on those "blue collar" jobs and so should the Democrats.

McEachern

Like most Democrats, McEachern is for shifting the tax burden from the poor to the rich, and he's in favor of single payor, Medicare for all.




When pressed about abortion he simply said he's for the woman's right to control what happens to her body, end of discussion.
After the talk, when I pressed him on the argument he'll hear from his Republican colleagues: "So, it's not a choice: It's a life. When the kid is 28 weeks and you do a late term abortion, or when he is on the way down the birth canal and you meet him with a scalpel, is that not infanticide?" McEachern explained that when you start drawing lines like that, you concede too much to the other side. But I insisted that abortion is all about line drawing, as was true in Roe v Wade, and he listened and said, "Ask me about abortion next time. I think you may have changed my response a little here."

O'Rourke

When asked about endless war, he said he could not see pulling out of Afghanistan until we'd built a better nation there. O'Rourke basically said fye on nation building. Don't send American troops in where there is no clear mission beyond winning the hearts and minds. We saw how well that worked in Vietnam. No more endless war.


Other than that, McEachern is right on most of the big things. I'll scour his website for his positions, but on most things, he's a Democrat. He's correct.


The differences between him and O'Rourke come down to style and experience.
On style points, at least for the moment, McEachern will stand out in an 8 candidate debate. He's tall, chiseled, vigorous, articulate and he speaks well, articulates where O'Rourke tends to mumble and get all staccato. And he's clearly very bright and well educated. He's so very polished, all smooth edges and gloss; O'Rourke is a work in progress--the guy with something to prove.


Both have clearly been told to appeal to women voters by talking too much about their young children.


McEachern ended his talk by saying he's not important, that none of the candidates are, that it's the folks like us in the audience, who come out to hear the candidates who are important.
Nice sentiment, but to these hard ears, sounded like a kiss up, like a guy who is trying to get all warm in fuzzy in times when we don't need warm and fuzzy.
We need tough and sharp elbows and someone who can throw a punch.
Not sure if McEarchern is tough enough. There's a tough you need to be a world class rower; there's a different sort of tough you need to hump through the dust in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Who can speak to this guy?

But where he draws on the experience of the arguably most physically demanding of all sport--rowing--O'Rourke was a combat officer in Iraq, and is now a prosecutor. McEarchern is a rich high tech entrepreneur. He is from a family of New Hampshire political royalty my savant/guru tells me. He's a JFK, where O'Rourke is a street fighting man, more a Joe Biden, only way smarter. 
O'Rourke would enjoy the gritty "Wire" where McEachern would be watching "Downton Abbey."


I can see O'Rourke taking on Jim Jordan, Mitch McConnell and all those loud mouth, bullying Republicans and not taking one step backward. O'Rourke is Ulysses S. Grant. McEachern is right off PT 109, a young Jack Kennedy.

He fights

If you mixed the two of these guys together, taking the best characteristics from each, you'd have the next rising star in national politics.  Fact is, either or both may be that anyway, if they can get their minds around the issues, figure out an image to project and hammer away at the opposition.

Portsmouth Anti Gun Rally: Movement or Group Hug?

There were some worthwhile speeches at Market Square in Portsmouth, yesterday.
Renny Cushing spoke, as always, with calm authority, about the absurdity of the New Hampshire law which requires police departments to sell rather than destroy guns which are turned in or confiscated. As if to destroy them would be to destroy some sentient being, which needs to be protected.  That deer hunters in New Hampshire are limited to 5 bullets in their chambers but men can buy 38 round clips for their assault rifles which are designed with people in mind, was telling. 
In New Hampshire we try to protect deer; people, not so much.

A nurse practitioner simply read off a list of mass shootings in which she listed the number of minutes the gun man fired and the number of deaths and injuries he managed to visit upon his prey and it was stunning: In Las Vegas, if memory serves me well, it was something on the order of 55 dead 155 injured in about 5 minutes. 

A teacher described the predicament of being an armed teacher inside a classroom with twenty pupils, seven year old children, who she would try to wall off by closing windows and shades and overturning desks to barricade them and then she would open the door to the hallway, to go seek out the killer with her gun, turning to her children to say, "Mrs. Curtin will be right back."  And she mentioned the study of New York City policemen, who hit their target only 18% of the time in real gun fights.

Some allusions were made to the law which had banned assault rifles which expired in 1994 and all the mass shootings which happened after it expired.

Of course, nobody got to considering the arguments:  That laws meant to stop mass shootings focusing on gun sales to minors, sales of assault weapons, sales of high capacity magazines would address, but likely not completely solve, the issue of mass shootings in schools or public places, but such laws would do nothing for accidental shootings at home, domestic dispute shootings, bar room fight shootings, suicide by gun shootings. 

Little comparative sociology was mentioned, except on some of the signs held around the square: Why is it other countries with the same percentage of mentally ill people have so many fewer gun deaths? 

Then there is the problem of France, where fundamentalist Islamic "soldiers" do mass shootings, when they are not driving trucks into crowds. 

The most fundamental question is: Who are we trying to convince? The folks on that stage were in the most real imaginable way "preaching to the choir."

A student described the "active shooter" drills they do at her school, where "they are teaching us to become victims." 
Of course, the Second Amendment freaks would agree with her: None of us should train to become victims. We should train to kill shooters.

Actually, we do active shooter drills at our work site and one of the things the training videos mentioned is that thinking about hiding and cowering in place have changed and the new idea is it may be better to try to assault the shooter, especially if you can organize a force of numerical superiority, because the greatest number of deaths occur in the first few minutes before any police can arrive.

The most discouraging news of all is the news that since taking a stand on selling assault rifles to kids under 21--hardly a radical position one would think--Dick's Sporting Goods has seen a precipitate and unexpected decline in all sales at its stores. Not just in guns but in all sales, bats, balls, shoes, jerseys. This may or may not be related to the new gun policy. Other business factors may be operating, including greater competition from Amazon and Nike, but if this loss of revenue is in fact, ultimately, tied to the gun policy, that would mean consumers have voted against gun control.  
What is hard for me to understand in this is whenever I'm in Dicks, I see people buying Patriots jerseys, shoes, baseball gloves, and I would be surprised to learn there is much overlap between these customers and the guys buying assault rifles, or even hunting rifles. But maybe this just shows how little I know that part of our society, that 40% subculture.

We must all know by now, we will never convince the Donald Trump crowd of anything. They are beyond reason, for the most part, beyond salvation. 

The question is, if they are beyond reason on guns or on abortion, is there any other way to peel them away from Mr. Trump? Or should we simply focus on agitating and motivating the rest of the electorate? 

Personally, I think it's likely there is a portion of the nation which while no fans of Trump, are unable to bring themselves to vote for Democrats, who they perceive as being weak, wailing and too soft for governing. They are looking for a strong man to rally behind, but not Trump. Joe Biden appeals to this group. You can be a man and be against Trump and for Biden. 
"Debate him?" Biden asks. "Hell, I'd take him out behind the gym and beat the shit out of him. That's what he is, one of those fat, ugly kids in high school who bullied the smaller kids." 

For my money, Biden would be trading a stupid conservative for a stupid liberal, but that's a deal I'd take.

I still think we can do better. We just need to find some tough guy Democrats. 

The Only Issue: It's Come To This

So, as we all knew, it was always about the personality, and about the people who vote, called "the electorate."

“People who tell me, who are out on trail, say, look, people don’t ask about issues anymore. They don’t care about issues. They want to know if you’re with Trump or not,” Corker added.

Everyone, each in his own way, has said Trump is the symptom, not the disease.

And the disease is the people, sad to say.
Talk to your neighbors who support him, and you can hear it.
"Hold me in your arms; you can feel my disease."
Yup. 
Just look around. 

We've seen this before, in other countries.

Now we have der Fuhrer of our very own.

The Young Lions and the Lamb

Maybe, just maybe, if Conor Lamb does manage to win in the Pennsylvania 18th, he may be the heralding instance of a new, young Democrat, tested by war, looking forward, ready to wrest the government from the Republicans who would destroy it, who would sacrifice labor unions, who would help scuttle hard won pensions, Republicans  who always have been intent on killing Social Security and Medicare, not to mention Obamacare.

The Republicans ran away from Lamb, tried to pretend the race was about Nancy Pelosi, whom they've tried to vilify, did everything but chant, "Lock her up!" But it didn't work this time. This guy is a former Marine Corps captain, and he is a prosecutor. Sound like anyone you know? Do we not have someone like this vying for the seat in the New Hampshire First?

Even so, and even if he wins, he will have to run again in 7 months.
But it could be a start.  He does not apologize for his stances, does not speak politicospeak.


If we could send these two, and more like them, we might have Democrats tough enough to face down the Republican scourge. We need guys like this. You do not defeat the White Walkers and Prince Joffrey with pussycats. You need John Snow. You need guys with hot blood flowing.

Imagine sending Conor Lamb to Congress with Terence O'Rourke. Finally, instead of the lambs to slaughter, instead of the Silence of the Lambs, we might have the Young Lions carrying the Democratic banner in Washington, D.C.  Guys who will roar, not whimper.

We can dream on it, but it hasn't happened yet.

Congressional Russia Investigation: Not with a Bang But with a Whimper

John Yang from the News Hour interviewed Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee which investigated the connection between the Russians and the Trump campaign last night. Schiff made some noises about how there were many witnesses and avenues of investigation the Republicans on the committee simply refused the Democrats to pursue, and as a result the committee found nothing to say about the collusion question.

Schiff, who is a former prosecutor, mumbled something about not being sure whether anything Trump did "rises to the level of a crime" and then faded into the background, which was much more interesting than he, the Capitol rotunda, and various tourists, Congressmen and vagrants drifted by, which distracted mightily from the interview.


Had Schiff been of the Republican persuasion, he would have thundered about the "massive, deliberate cover up by the opposition party, who would rather sell out their country than risk damaging the head of their political party," or words to that effect.

But, being a pussycat Democrat, he wimped out.

Let's have a bonding moment and then move on

All he lacked was the pink knit hat with the ears.

Does the 1st Amendment Protect Willful Untruth?

Alex Jones on the Sandy Hook children's massacre:

In March 2014, Jones said, “I’ve looked at it and undoubtedly there’s a cover-up, there’s actors, they’re manipulating, they’ve been caught lying, and they were pre-planning before it and rolled out with it.”

In December 2014, Jones said on his radio program, “The whole thing is a giant hoax.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Supreme Court justice set the limits on the American right to free speech, when he declared. "You cannot shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater, when there is no fire."

Nobody has successfully rebutted that simple statement, although the American Civil Liberties Union disagrees. The ACLU is absolutist about the 1st Amendment, and as absolutist positions frequently do, this has led them to some absurd positions; they sacrifice everything, even credibility, to remain consistent.

The same is true, of course, of the NRA and it's "defense" of the 2nd Amendment, although in that case, they are not defending the original text, but simply ignoring half the amendment and seeing only what they want to see.

Alex Jones has denied Sandy Hook ever happened and apparently he promulgated the story that the Washington, DC pizza parlor was the front for Hillary Clinton's child sex ring, before Edgar Maddison Welch drove up from Salisbury North Carolina,  brandished his weapon at the stunned folks eating pizza, but somehow was dissuaded from shooting the customers and staff.

"Homeland"  has a plot line which creates the crowded theater, in which an Alex Jones look alike, called "Brett O'Keefe" on the show, is cornered in a farm house, where he is defended by local fans with guns from the FBI which has surrounded the place in a Waco redux stand-off. While negotiations are stalled, the son realizes his dog has escaped and is charging across a field at a line of FBI and SWAT team along the tree line. The son, in an act of verisimilitude is so stupid he carries his rifle as he runs after the dog, does not hear or respond to the order to halt and is shot by the FBI. When an agent goes to his aide, staunching the wound, he is captured by the militants and becomes a captive. An Alex Jones type alt right guy manages to get a photo in the hospital of the son lying on a gurney after he has been stabilized in the Emergency Room, looking dead, unattended. (He is later saved and taken to the recovery room.) But the damage is done, the photo goes up on some alt right website, is seen by the boy's father, who stomps over to the FBI agent, and shoots him point blank in the head, executes him. 

The photographer, the website manager cannot know the photo would result in the shooting of the FBI agent any more than Alex Jones could know that gunman from North Carolina would would drive up with his AR-15 and come within a few neural synapses from killing everyone in the pizza parlor.

But does the 1st Amendment protect, does it confer the freedom to be wrong, even willfully wrong, in the face of today's internet and the armed Confederacy of Dunces with guns?  

And how does "incitement to riot" fit in with this discussion. Is there an incitement to murder? Is there an incitement to commit armed mayhem? If a man in a Ku Klux Klan outfit, standing on a stage before a crowd of his brother robed imbeciles points to a Black child walking across the street and shouts, "Lynch him!" Is he simply exercising his First Amendment rights?

Donald Trump has been vexed by the First Amendment because it means he cannot sic his lawyers on his critics for stuff they write or say about him, and he has complained bitterly that in America it is almost impossible to prevail in a defamation of character lawsuit, especially if you are a "public figure," unlike in England, where all you have to do is prove your feelings have been hurt.

But here, in the now great again America, we have the 1st Amendment and Alex Jones and the alt right are protected, much as those banderilleros who hide behind wooden gates, then run out and stick their spears in the bull, to get him fighting mad. 

Are these guys not shouting "Fire?" Are they not goading on the action?