Amy's reaction to Yang

Clearly, you are not supposed to see some things on TV but during the debate, when Yang managed to bring the house down with some truly funny or adroit responses to some questions the camera angles captured Amy Klobuchar's reactions. 

When asked about what to do for children with disabilities,  he said you have to realize that there is a difference between economic worth and human worth. Commenting on the issue over which donors candidates should pursue, rich or humble, he said this is all about going after people with disposable income, but poor people never enter the discussion because they don't have any. 

And when asked a surprise question about Obama's comment that we'd all be better off if we had more women presidents and senators, Yang remarked he thought that was true because if you put a group of all men in a room without women around, within one hour they all  begin acting like morons--and the camera happened to catch Klobuchar grimacing: Written across her face was the thought, "I'm supposed to be the funny one up here, the one with the best lines, and he's stealing my spotlight."

Ms. Klobuchar clearly, visibly gets irate when she is upstaged.

The candidates are getting better. 

But:

Elizabeth Warren still cannot answer the question put directly to her: she keeps going back to her stump speech as if the audience isn't quite bright enough and she is still teaching a special ed class and if she just keeps repeating we'll finally get it. 

But she was asked why it had to be Medicare for all or nothing and she didn't answer; she just kept extolling Medicare for all, even though the question was, well, what if you don't  have a Congress willing to do that?  

And when asked why she insisted on paying for the college education of the millionaire's son she simply repeated we needed to end all student debt and make state colleges free. She didn't answer that "means testing" question.

Bernie actually answered this for her, saying Americans hate filling out forms and having to prove you are poor enough to qualify for free tuition would be nasty and cumbersome, and some years you may be too rich and some years, if you lost your job, poor enough. He could have noted the great universities of Europe (e.g. the Sorbonne) are free---of course they don't have to support big football programs. 

The debate process is helping, is beginning to reveal more and more about people we think we know, but who we do not know. 

One of the things about Yang and Styer is as good as they look now, on the stage, we all know, on some level, we really do not know them well enough. 

I can almost now understand why some women do not want to sleep with a guy on the first date--they just don't know enough about him, and they might like him for one night but then, after a second date, realize he's a Trump Republican and they just wish they'd never invested the time or effort in such a loser. 

Why We Lose: The Victimhood Culture of Democrats

Donald Trump was enjoying himself at his Michigan rally and, being in the backyard of John Dingell, the former Democratic Congressman, he remarked Mr. Dingell might be looking down from Heaven at him, and then paused and said, "Or, he might be looking up, you never know."

The reaction from his widow, and from Speaker Pelosi and I'm sure from the legions of the outraged on Twitter and Snapface or wherever was predictable:

"I’m preparing for the first holiday season without the man I love,” she [Debbie Dingell, his widow] wrote. “You brought me down in a way you can never imagine and your hurtful words just made my healing much harder.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that there was nothing funny about what Mr. Trump said.

“What the president misunderstands is that cruelty is not wit,” she said. 'It’s not funny at all, it’s very sad.'"

And this is the trouble our side has: We are always the fragile flowers, ever so ready to become the victims, the hurt ones, the #METOO violated ones. We suffer from luxuriating in victimhood, in being helpless, unable to punch back, only able to weep and wail.

God, I am so tired of being in the beat-up camp.

It's good to be on the side of caged children at the Southern border, but let us not wish to be a caged child. Let us determine to wield the terrible swift sword.

There were all sorts of ways to respond to Mr. Trump:

• Mr. Trump suggests my husband may be in Hell for his life of sticking up for the little guy; all I can say is I would far rather join him there than spend one minute at Mar-a-Largo.
• Mr. Trump speaks from a stage at a rally in Michigan to his cheering fans who laugh at the idea my husband might be roasting in Hell. Fact is, those folks have spent their lives looking up; that's why they are so eager to hope for the same for others.
• Mr. Trump thinks he can come to my home state of Michigan and hold a Ku Klux Klan rally and dance on the grave of my husband. We'll find out in November who dances last, and who dances best. 

Or words to that effect.

Let us here and now  resolve:

1. No pictures of Democrats hugging, in grief, ever.

2. No statements of how hurt we are by something that moron says. 
Just practice rolling eyes and say, "The man considers himself a wit, and his hyena crowds roar with delight. These are the modern day equivalent of those crowds at the coliseum, roaring with delight at gladiators slitting each other's throats.  Patriots laughing at townspeople locked in burning churches."

3. Remind everyone at every opportunity: The man cannot look anyone in the eye--those little pig eyes just dart around in fear. Someday, if I get the opportunity, I'm going to hold up a mirror to him and we'll see if there's any reflection.

Truth Be Told: About that Impeachment

Donald Trump is a joke and a failed President, although he is a canny marketer.

But the Democrats are not good marketers.  As Don Draper might say: They have not told a compelling story.

The Democrats from Adam Schiff to Jerry Nadler to Chuck Schumer all have the same talking points:

1. They have to vote articles of impeachment because they have "sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution."

2. Donald Trump has tried to usurp the power of the legislative branch.

3. Donald Trump has tried to extort (or if you prefer "blackmail") a foreign leader to help him get re elected. 

But here's the problem.

1. I have a copy of the Constitution and nowhere in it can I find the clause or article or amendment Mr. Trump has violated. Exactly which passage is it that Mr. Trump has violated? If you say it's the "treason" clause, there isn't much there defining what treason is beyond taking up arms against the government, and clearly, for all the stupid and dangerous things Mr. Trump has done, he hasn't done that.

2. Clearly, by refusing to provide documents or witnesses to the House of Representatives Trump has denied their right to attempt to hold him accountable. But this would only matter if we can imagine what he has done is bad enough to remove him from office.  At most, he told Ukraine they were not getting the money Congress sent until they kissed Donald's ring and announced an investigation to help him win his election.  That's nasty, and it undermines a key ally Congress was trying to help, but many Americans will say, "It's up to the President to conduct foreign policy. True, in this case he wanted something for himself and he didn't see saving Ukraine was all that important, but just because Congress wanted to save Ukraine doesn't mean the President has to want that. That's his call. 
Who cares about Ukraine anyway? 
Putin says it's not even a real country.  When did Congress get the right to dictate foreign policy?" 

Or, the other response is:  
"Oh, that's just LBJ twisting arms. Politicians swap favors all the time--vote for the navy base in my state and I'll vote for food stamps for your state. Everyone, domestic and foreign, tries to horse trade.  
And everyone, from New Hampshire to California, from Israel to North Korea, tries to influence our elections, one way or another. 
 Bibi Netanhayu spoke before Congress trying to boost Trump."

Donald Trump has offended the Democratic members of the House of Representatives because he has not followed norms. He has conducted foreign policy to gain his ends rather than the ends the House was pursuing. 

But he was sent to Washington to break norms, to "drain the swamp" to act differently. That he is doing. It offends Democrats but elections are there to determine if he has offended a majority of the public. 

3. Extorting foreign leaders is not a crime, as far as I can see. 

We don't want our own President bought by a foreign government to pursue that nation's agenda for his own personal gain. 
But how many people care if our President tries to buy a foreign leader for his own personal agenda?  
True, he's using taxpayer money to do it, but when LBJ sent over billions to support Vietnam so he could win the war to win his election, how different was that? 

Before the 1968 election, Nixon learned of an impending breakthrough at the Paris peace talks which might have ended the war in Vietnam before the 1968 election.

Nixon needed that war to continue so that he could win the White House. Nixon was riding anti war sentiment toward victory.

So, when it looked as if LBJ was about to succeed in ending that war, Nixon conspired with Anna Chennault, a well connected Republican, to get the South Vietnamese to leave the talks, (promising they would get a much better deal from him if he were elected than the near abandonment they were facing from LBJ at that time.)

And Nixon succeeded in torpedoing the peace talks. The South Vietnamese walked out on the Paris talks, and the war continued right through the November US election, which Nixon won.  

As a result,  the war ground on for 6 more years with thousands more American casualties, 50,000 by war's end, not to mention the 2 million Vietnamese dead.

To my mind, THAT, was an  impeachable offense.
Or a hanging offense.

But the fact is, although the Dems appear to be playing at Impeachment as if it is non political and really a "trial" for "crimes." 
Unfortunately, they have not yet defined the "crime."  It's not burglary. It's not receiving a bribe.  It's not ordering torture of prisoners at Gitmo. 

It may be a crime to try to become king.  Rejecting Congress's powers and insisting the only legitimate power in our federal government is the President is offensive, but is it a "crime"?
As far as Mad Dog can discern, this is really a political move, a power grab: This guy refuses to work with Congress.
Even if the Supreme Court orders him to step down after a conviction in the Senate, he just might, being Donald Trump, refuse to do this. He might say: "Try and make me!"

Impeachment has always been political: Andrew Johnson was impeached for try to undo the outcome of the Civil War by destroying Reconstruction; Clinton was impeached because the Republicans hated him and thought they could play the sanctimony card, even though his accusers, in grand total, had had more affairs than he had. And now Trump.

Why not just say it?  He is an illegitimate President because he lost the popular vote.

A "trial" by definition, means the "judge and jury" listen with an open mind, having not decided until all the witnesses are heard and all the facts presented. 

But from the outset, Democrats have clearly made up their minds. The hearings were window dressing.

This charade of Democrats condemning the Senate Republicans for having prejudged the "case" before the trial in the Senate is such transparent blather. 

Has Schumer not made up his mind about how he will vote in a Senate "trial"? 

Just because you have the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court sitting there in a black robe, is there any doubt how the Republicans on the "jury" will vote? 

Is there any doubt about how the Democrats will vote? 

The fact is, Trump has once again out maneuvered the Democrats. His Tweet site now has a banner of Trump pointing at the viewer saying:  "This is not them coming for me. They  are coming for you. I just got in the way!"

He's not very bright. He's not very effective. But, oh, does he know how to market to that group of voters who love him. 

Spending Money on the Opioid Crisis

Today's Seacoast Sunday headlines a study done of the outcomes of government spending to try to stem the "opioid crisis."
It was a story produced by the Granite State News Collaborative, which meant it provided actual researched news--a rarity for our local "newspaper."

What it showed was that the "opioid crisis" is not a single problem but a web of problems.  
1/ The problem of death from acute opioid overdose.  For the past two years there have been about 470 overdose deaths in New Hampshire annually and as of October this year we stood at 312. This may mean we'll do slightly better this year, and that has been attributed to the wider availability of Narcan on EMT trucks.

Of course, as many of the EMT folks have observed, the same addict tends to be rescued three or four times in a week, and these front line folks ask what is the purpose of rushing out to save a person who is determined to repeat the same behavior, until they do it in a place nobody notices.

2/ The problem of ongoing addiction: While the number of ambulance runs can be counted and recorded easily enough, the number of opioid users is a more difficult thing to quantify because people tend to not raise their hands when asked who is engaging in illegal behavior. 

3/ The problem of assessing efficacy of intervention: for which there is a well established set of techniques, from the scientific point of view, but there is incentive for both government and the "vendors" they pay to claim success where there may be none, like the old "body count" data from Vietnam, which always showed we were winning that war.

Programs to treat addicts basically come down to replacing one addiction--heroin/Fentanyl with another, to methadone or suboxone which are drugs which allow patients to return to normal work and life activities. This is called "medication assisted therapy" or MAT, because calling it "replacement addiction" would not, presumably, be welcomed by the governor or the legislators. 

The National Institute of Drug Abuse posts this on its website:

According to several conservative estimates, every dollar invested in addiction treatment programs yields a return of between $4 and $7 in reduced drug-related crime, criminal justice costs, and theft. When savings related to healthcare are included, total savings can exceed costs by a ratio of 12 to 1. Major savings to the individual and to society also stem from fewer interpersonal conflicts; greater workplace productivity; and fewer drug-related accidents, including overdoses and deaths.

But consider the source:  Would you expect employees of the NIDA to post a statement that says: "Oh, nothing we are doing is helping much" ?


There are about 300 clients for these MAT programs in Littleton, NH, but no figure is give for the state, oddly enough. Given the 24/7 nature of the programs, and the number of hospitals and EMT services which are involved, although most of these not full time, it is entirely possible that more people are, if not making a living, at least profiting from the opioid crisis than are actually being saved by the response.

Last year, at a Rockingham County Democrats meeting, Mad Dog asked Tom Sherman, MD , the New Hampshire state senator,  what evidence he had that the money spent was actually doing anything important to address the problems of drug deaths or drug addiction. At first he said there were statistics to support the benefit but when pressed, he finally admitted he could not bring any to hand and he asked, "But what's the alternative? Just giving up on these people?"

Bubbles 

Of course, there were parents of people who had died from opioid drug overdoses int he audience and they stared hate across the room at Mad Dog, but undeterred, Mad Dog alluded to the graph from the National Institute of Health Institute for Drug Abuse which showed, very clearly, that as long as drug addicts remained in their treatment programs they were apt to stop using drugs, but as soon as they left the programs, they became recidivists. 

This is true for alcoholics, of course and for that matter, for diabetics and hypertension.  The graphs shown above are from the NIDA website and the point is, of course, that as long as the patients remain in treatment, they do well, but as soon as they leave the treatment programs, they relapse, in the case of addicts, to the use of opioids. 

But the question is: Are we prepared to spend as much money on programs for addicts as we are on ongoing therapy for diabetes and hypertension?

You knew it was coming, but Mad Dog simply must refer you to the best single exploration of drug culture ever done: the TV series "The Wire."  Most people simply cannot endure the reality of this fictionalized show and stop watching. But that's the rub: If we, as citizens, are unwilling to actually face reality, but would rather throw money at it like some street beggar just to make it go away, we will never make progress in solving the problem we refuse to actually face.

The Inverse Ratio: Trump's Insight

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Boris Sends Us a Wake Up Call: It's Got to Be Amy

"The old assumptions—that truth matters, that lies shame the liar, that in a democracy the press and the public must have the right to interrogate those who seek those top jobs—have all been swept aside by the Tories’ convictions that in an inattentive, dissatisfied, cacophonous world, victory will go to the most compelling entertainer, the most plausible and shameless deceiver, the leader who can drill home a competitive and seductive incantation. Facts and details will be irrelevant so long as voters feel the politician is on their side…Mr. Johnson is not being exposed or embarrassed by his lies because the flood of them is overwhelming, because Britain’s powerful right wing press is backing him and because he’s dodging any format which could sustain a challenge to him.

Mr. Johnson’s team has seized upon a terrifying truth: that the old media, particularly the broadcasters and the establishment that has decided its rules of operation are no longer the gate keepers to communication. Cunning politicians can skip accountability, and British broadcasting’s rules on impartiality and balance by going straight for the voters’ emotional jugular. In place of public and professional scrutiny there’s Twitter and Facebook, where millions of micro targeted messages are flooding key voters.

These focused, ferocious evasions of democracy’s conventions and protections appear to be working…If the Tories win, they’ll shrug off critics: the demos has spoken."
--Jennie Russell, The New York Times 12/12/19

Mad Dog has been silent lo these many weeks.

He has been busy on Twitter, but after being sent to Twitter Jail yet again--this time for calling Lindsey Graham a political slut--he decided to reassert himself where the politically correct cannot reach him.
Slut? Really?  That's not even on George Carlin's list of the 7 forbidden words.

Twitter is so retro. It's the delusional platform where you may think you are engaging your fellow citizens, changing minds, putting new ideas out there, but nobody much on Twitter is interested in new ideas or having their opinions abridged. Twitter is a safety valve where steam is expelled and it's not even steam; it's more like flatus.

So back to the message in a bottle, the voice in the wilderness, the unheard mind, radiating out into the universe, where some light years from now, some civilization may receive the signal and wonder, "Who, or what, was Mad Dog? And what on planet earth was he talking about?"

Trump's Doppleganger

Yesterday, the Conservative Party swept Boris Johnson into office in a landslide, taking coal mining towns which hadn't voted for the Tories in generations.  The choice was between Boris Johnson and a socialist named Jeremy Corbyn. 

Jennie Russell, writing in the New York Times before the election, under the headline: "Can Boris Johnson Lie His Way Into Office?" was writing about the UK but any American can simply substitute names and recognize what she was talking about.

What this means for our own choices, here in New Hampshire, as we face the primary, now just over a month away is stark:  Much as we may love Bernie or Elizabeth, we have to face reality.

I last heard Bernie in South Church, and that was an entirely appropriate place to hear Bernie, a Unitarian church which is entirely secular, and Bernie was preaching that old time secular religion of power to the people, the rise of the proletariat and he was received with rapturous delight by young and old alike.

And I asked myself, "How could I have ever strayed from Bernie? He is my one true love." But, the fact is, both he and Elizabeth Warren insist that government must exclude private insurance from American healthcare and neither will hear a dissenting voice on this, nor will they explain why an American system could not accommodate both, as systems in Europe, and in England in particular, do.

Having just read "Dr. Zhivago" I could see in our most left candidates the intolerance of opinion, making the perfect the enemy of the good.

So, no, I'll not vote for either socialist. I'll reject Corbyn, Warren and Sanders and vote for the moderate.

But which moderate?  

Biden would be the obvious restoration candidate, but one duty of New Hampshire is to look at these candidates close up and inspect them for cracks and Biden is clearly failing, mentally, if not physically. Why trade a President Archie Bunker for a President Homer Simpson?

Mayor Pete is the most intelligent, articulate of the bunch, but he has that one weight around his neck which will sink him in the Midwest and the South: They will tolerate a Black President, who they can make an exception for, but not a gay President. And Black voters will not vote for him because Blacks go to church, as a rule, and their churches will and do preach against homosexuality. This is not a point you can reason with people about. You can rail at me, say I'm looking at Blacks as if they all think the same. But in politics what counts is characteristics which typify a group, and most Jews tend to revile Nazis and haters and most Blacks will not abide homosexuality.

Corey is a fine man, but for whatever reason, his Mr. Rogers persona has not caught fire with the electorate.  There is something cloying about him, too eager to please. He is the kumbaya candidate and the electorate is not about kumbaya this time around. They are out for blood. 

Which leaves Amy Klobuchar.  

Senator Klobuchar as several things going for her: She grew up in Minnesota, the American heartland. True, she went to Yale where she imbibed deeply from the cup of "the chosen ones" but she returned to Chicago for law school and to her home state for her political career. She's been an effective, law passing machine in the Senate.

Against all that, she is not a household name and unlike Trump, she has not spent decades marketing her brand to fans of the World Wrestling Federation and Fox News.  So, in that sense, she has not paid her dues.  Even JFK did his star making stint on national TV during the Jimmy Hoffa hearings. None of the women in my office have ever heard of her. They watch local news shows in the morning before going to work and none of them have any idea who Boris Johnson is, not to mention Amy.

The big knock against Amy is she is a mean girl, who punches down at her office staff which has the highest turnover on Capitol Hill. Of course, were she a man, this would not be a problem; the turnover of Trump's office staff does not seem to be a problem.

No, Amy's problem is a little different: She was asked at a local house party, "How do you run a campaign of policy against a candidate of charisma?" 

She laughed at that question, and seemed genuinely amused by it. Hadn't been asked that one before. Her response? You could predict it: "Well, I think I have charisma."

An acceptable answer, but a dodge, a place holder. The fact is, she needs work. 

At the last debate, her hair kept obstructing her left eye in a way which was so distracting it was often difficult to listen to what she was saying.

Oh, I know! How sexist! Nobody would ever talk about a man's hair style or his clothes. But this is not about fair. It's about winning.

She is going to have to dance backwards in high heels while her male opponent merely needs to push forward. 

She is clearly very bright. But she also clearly has her demons and she needs to overwhelm that with her rapier wit.

Her capacity for the funny put down is as yet untapped.

She needs to read more Churchill, and other politicians who could destroy an opponent with withering disdain.  She needs to have enough confidence in a coach to become devastating.

One of my sons was a wrestler. He had some strengths, but he had visible weaknesses. He was simply not as physically powerful as the champion opponents. But he found a coach who he trusted and he trained and practiced and the results were remarkable.

Amy needs the same thing.

Things I'd like to hear Amy Say In the Next Debate

Amy Klobuchar needs to save the Republic by gaining the Presidential nomination, given the clear inability of far left candidates to win elections in the 21st century, and given the disabilities and disqualifiers among the other moderate canddiates.
So, in the spirit of helpfulness, Mad Dog proposes she rehearse some of these lines for the next debate:

Pia Guerra

• Donald Trump has never met a fact he hasn't tried to molest.

• You could fill all the Macy's parade balloons with the air from inside  Mr. Trump's head.

• Mr. Trump doesn't hate Black People. He doesn't hate Brown People. He hates poor people, especially poor people from poor countries. He thinks they should have been smart enough to have been been born rich in Queens.

• Mr. Trump thinks poor children from South of the Border are an infestation. And he thinks the KKK is the name of an aerosol disinfectant. 

• Have you ever noticed Mr. Trump can never look you straight in the eye?  It's like holding a mirror up to Count Dracula.

• Mr. Trump thinks the G-7 leaders should all come to one of his resorts for their next meetings. The leaders were reluctant: They wanted to be sure they scheduled for a resort which won't go bankrupt before they have a chance to check out.

• Mr. Trump thinks Sean Hannity is best newsman since Walter Cronkite.

That's like saying The Hulk Hogan is the best hitter since Babe Ruth. 

• Our President has told us he has all the best words.  He must be afraid of spending any of those on us. 

• After Neo Nazis killed a woman protester in Charlottesville, Mr. Trump said some of those Nazis were "very fine people." He was careful, as always to use that great disclaimer "some." Still, he broke new ground. He is the first President to ever actually say that some Nazis are very fine people.

• Half the Republicans on the House Judicial Committee were not patriots in that they placed party loyalty and their own political futures ahead of their country to defend a President who obstructed Congress, and refused to recognize the fact he is not king. So that makes them, in my estimation, moral reprobates. But wait, no, that is to violate the Congressional rule against personal attacks against members of Congress. I rescind that remark. I disavow it. To correct myself: Half of the Republicans on that committee are NOT moral reprobates

• Mr. Trump takes credit for the booming economy, which of course started with Mr. Obama after the Republican crash of 2008. Every day the stock market soars he tweets, claiming credit. That is like a surfer claiming credit for high tide and great surf. Mr. Trump sees the beautiful sunrise over Queens and cries: "See, that's because of me! That's a Trump Sunrise!"  A Trump sunset would be more believable.