A Fight for Control

On Facebook, I came across an early manifestation of the coming struggle for the Democratic Presidential nomination. We're in for two difficult years. The conflict will be between the New Deal & democratic socialist wing of the party and the overpowering centrist big money wing. The difference in ideology is genuine, but behind it are the thousands of staff careers and millions of dollars that go to the winners in the Democratic primaries. Think of the party as a giant corporation where you can make a good living and sometimes get Clinton rich if you support the winning faction. That's not all of the conflict, of course, but that is a major aspect of it.

I hope the Democrats nominate someone people like. Voters liked FDR, JFK and Obama. If voters actually like the candidate, it gives him or her an edge. But for the power brokers in the party, winning control of the party money is what counts most, not winning the election in November. So Democrats sometimes end up with a candidate most voters dislike. So do the Republicans. It's a strange outcome of our system.

Louis C. K.

The much-admired comic Louis C. K. apparently lost followers last year because of transgressive  sexual misbehavior. I don't know the details. I didn't watch him. Anyway Louis seems to be getting ready for a comeback, and below is a sample of his new comedy material, which is addressed to the Parkland Farms kids.

“You’re not interesting because you went to a high school where kids got shot. Why does that mean I have to listen to you? How does that make you interesting? You didn’t get shot, you pushed some fat kid in the way and now I need to listen to you talking?”

Who Is Captain Marvel?

Who Captain Marvel is depends on when you were young. My encounter with the good captain came in the 1940s when Billy Batson was more popular than Clark Kent. Captain Marvel was a handsome beefy dude who could fly etc. until the creators of Superman sued him for a copyright infraction and took away his power of flight. In my memory, though, Superman could leap tall buildings with a single bound, but that's not flying. It's jumping. He didn't flap his arms or flutter his feet.

In the the 1960s Superman bought Captain Marvel and restarted him in lesser comic roles, the ultimate revenge. Recently he turned Captain Marvel iinto a transsexual named Monica Rambeau, who appears as Captain Marvel in books published by Marvel Comics. 

If you're old that may surprise you. 

Captain Marvel led the Avengers for a while, so don't get the idea that she is the Other--she's one of us, only better.

Jennifer Rubin

I see a lot of Jennifer Rubin on MSNBC, where she is one of the anti-Trump conservatives I put up with temporarily  I kind of like her, but I figure Rubin will soon return to attacking the New Deal etc. 

This morning I read one of her columns, and in it she claims that our three greatest human losses in the last year were George H. W. Bush, Barbara Bush and John McCain. Forget about Stephen Hawkings and Aretha Franklin.

In short, the nation should be mourning a colorless, Wall Street, CIA President no one remembers, his frighteningly unpleasant wife and John McCain, a war lover who had an independent streak and moments of honor and decency. The Bushes will be remembered, if at all, for their boys, an awesomely repellent governor of Florida and an uninvolved, dried-out-addict President who killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by mistake. The couple who raised these creeps should have been mortified.

My point is that Jennifer Rubin's thinking must be an inch deep.

Spanky's Foe

President Spanky is currently holed up in the White House negotiating the building of a fence with his nemesis, himself (aka Agent Orange). He's going back and forth, playing the red checkers and the black ones, taking turns. Meanwhile the government is partly shut down. 

Congress is at home, drinking eggnog and singing the songs of the season, while Spanky frantically tweets offers back and forth. He's promised to give up concrete and change the name "wall" to "steel oblongs," but Agent Orange won't budge. 

Keep in mind that President Spanky is the greatest financial negotiator alive. He made a small fortune by inheriting a large one and losing most of it. Negotiating with himself is a can't-lose proposition on Twitter. Soon he will declare himself the winner and go home, where he dines on the best chocolate cake you can imagine.  

Four Walls for Spanky

Curtis Lambert of Santa Rosa has proposed setting up a go-fund-me to build walls around President Spanky's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. For unknown reasons, this star has been singled out to be frequently crushed by hammers and rinsed with loogies. There are four prototype walls developed by our government, awaiting only funding from Mexico to become useful. Lambert suggests that we place a different protective wall on each side of Spanky's star, but what if most people still object to building walls? We could unite behind steel slats instead. 

Trump's Immigration Plan

President Spanky, of course, has no immigration plan and could hardly care less. He likes undocumented workers . He hires them at his mansions because they work for starvation wages and are helpless when he cheats them. 

The immigration issue means nothing to Spanky but a lot to the bone-stupid Trumpers, who do have a plan. They want immigration to end.

To end immigration we will have to cancel flights, trains and boats from foreign countries and build walls along the Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific coasts to keep foreigners out. Then we'll need  a wall along the Canadian border to keep people in. 

The Dirty People

Yesterday I heard someone say that the city was dirty because immigrants like the Chinese are a dirty people. He watches Fox News. This morning I read that Tucker Carlson of Fox is losing advertisers because he suggests on air that our immigrants make the cities "poorer and dirtier." I'd like to suggest that Fox News does the work of the Devil, but I am not into Manichaeism.

People like Carlson attach "dirty" to groups in racist or religious categories. My wife is a dirty Jew, my student is a dirty Mexican, the Chinese are a dirty people and so on. This has little to do with reality except in cases where poor people lack access to showers. In the old West, underpaid cow herders bathed once a year in a creek. They did this in the late spring, whether they needed it or not.

Old Yellow Hair

There's a sense in which President Spanky is not a liar. To lie is to consciously mislead. Much of the time Spanky does not appear to grasp what he's doing. 

Instead, as new, damning facts come to life, Spanky instantly incorporates them into the delusional state in which he has lived his protected, billionaire's life. New damning facts, twisted on arrival, become added proof he's been innocent all along. Spanky does this effortlessly, automatically. He seems intent on convincing himself and maybe his dead father that he isn't a mental degenerate.

Today Spanky was saying that General Flynn is tough. But if Flynn rats him out, it's because the Feds scared him into making up false stories against the gorgeous victim, the ancient man with white hair dyed a urine yellow, the delusional dotard who is currently President of the United States of America.

Upstairs, Downstairs in Roma

Netflix's big hit came out last week. Roma has the same name as Fellini's somewhat autobiographical film about growing up in Italy, but this Roma is somewhat autobiographical about growing up in a middle-class barrio in Mexico City. (You can't copyright a title.) 

The children growing up in Roma don't get much attention. The movie has one developed character, a servant, a young Mixtec, who lives in the big house. We learn nothing about her culture, her education, her goals. The first half of the film is a slice of her hard-working life. She picks up dog waste (most of us have done that). The children seem to accept and like her. The mother blows hot and cold. The father isn't competent or nice. The movie gets off to a long dull start.

Then all hell breaks loose. And so on.

That structure--a long dull start and then hell breaks loose--is rare. In general movies want to grab your interest right away and keep you involved. The director took a big chance. There is something painfully honest in the film: life can be long and boring, followed by horror. 

Roma has received high praise from everyone  It's a contender. I'm not sure it works, but it is memorable and real in a way that movies nearly always are not. It ends with a shot of the back part of the family home, and all the structures are canted expressionistically. 

The Cost of Killing Andy Lopez

About five years ago a frightened training officer shot Andy Lopez, a Latino boy, seven times and killed him and then was promoted to sergeant. The sheriff responsible for all this, having somehow grown unpopular,  backed away into retirement and was replaced by someone similar. The new sheriff appears to be pushing a movement to block civilian review of killings committed by scared  white male law enforcement shooters.

Fine--if that is what citizens want. But this week county officials are meeting to deal with the lawsuit by the dead boy's parents. It took five years to get this far, but at last the county has to face what it and the sheriff sanctioned and rewarded.  So far this year the county has coughed up 3.6 million dollar of our money to people with civil rights lawsuits. I'm talking about tax money that might have been used to repair roads or buy supervisors new swivel chairs. 

I want to see the Lopez family paid for their incredible pain. They were cheated out of seeing Andy Lopez grow up and become a better man than the law enforcers and supervisors who abruptly  ended his childhood. But damn the sheriffs and supervisors and voters who made this happen--and now we get to pay for their heartless cowardice.

Apparently my comment on the killing of Andy Lopez was removed by someone on Facebook with the power to censor me and cover for errors in criminal justice. 

In any case, Sonoma County has agreed to pay the parents of Andy Lopez 3 million dollars of taxpayer money. The county and sheriff still refuse to accept any blame for their training and shoot first policies. "A county spokeswoman said the $3 million settlement, which the board unanimously approved in a closed-door session, includes legal fees but does not admit liability or fault on the behalf of the county.

"Andy’s tragic death five years ago was a heartbreaking moment for the entire community," said James Gore, chair of the Board of Supervisors, in a statement. "The settlement today is a moment to move forward in the healing process."

Not really. Andy Lopez is still dead. James Gore may feel healed, but how much did he care to start with?

Fully Clothed

It is a curse of each aging-out generation to  discover that younger people have found better ways in which to enjoy romance. I was reminded of this last night while watching a cutting-edge romantic comedy in which the young couple (in this case a male and female) were enjoying premarital conjugal relations (so to speak), and the woman was fully clothed. Not only was she wearing a bra but also a blouse. I believe she had removed her down coat. 

I've seen a lot of clothed congress in films over the last decade, but I don't suppose it is actually new. People living in chilly caves probably did it while wearing leather and perfume; and then fire was invented and clothed sex fell out of favor for 100,000 years. It was likely forgotten until recently revived by imaginative youngsters in the film industry.

(also on Facebook)

A Few Dollars More

President Spanky is planning changes that will allow cars to emit additional pollution, increasing the speed at which global warming is altering the world's climates. What does he care? His mansions are air-conditioned, and he'll be dead soon. 

The automakers have argued against these changes, which tells us one thing about corporations. They can behave responsibly,  thinking about long term interests. But Big Oil lurks behind the move by Spanky, which also tells us something about corporations. 

Our balmy Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people. But what kind of people? I think it's fair to say that Big Oil is a sociopath, addicted to greed, so dedicated to money grubbing that they'd kill a billion people to make a few dollars more. We, as has been done in many countries, should nationalize Big Oil. Oil is a natural resource that belongs to our nation, particularly if it is being mismanaged. We can use the profits to rebuild our roads and bridges. 

Spanky Kills a Seven-Year-Old

President Spanky has boasted that he could kill someone in full view on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.

Recently a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl and her father crossed a desert on foot to reach the United States, where they were picked up by the President's Border Patrol. The little girl was dehydrated and exhausted. No one helped her, and eight hours later, in American custody, her heart stopped and she died; the Border Patrol apparently turned their backs to her until it was too late, much as Spanky has turned his back to black people and Latinos.

We don't have all the facts yet, and I don't know this girl's name, but in her unknown name I ask the incoming House of Representatives to impeach the monstrous borderline slob in the White House. The Republican Senate might vote to keep Spanky in office for another two years. Such a vote is a legitimate part of the legitimate process; and if the Republicans save Spanky's gigantic  ass, that will be on them. 

What Trump Wants

Individual-1 wants to fight. That's a main key to his behavior, although not the only key.

As Ezra Klein pointed out, Individual-1 does not want to build a wall along our border with Mexico. He wants to fight about a wall. Fight or flight is as far as his eft-like mind will reach. (In time he will choose flight.)

Individual-1 does not care about policy. He isn't mentally organized enough to recognize a policy. But winning a shouting match makes this troubled, cheating golf-child feel better. And if he loses, he will tell himself and us that he won. 

Yesterday he told a few people that he isn't concerned about getting impeached. He thinks the American voters still love his pussy-grabbing-evangelical style. He counts on voters from Cowskull, Texas, population 149,  to save him.  And if they don't save him from impeachment, he will say it doesn't matter. 

Free College

In 1957 I graduated from UCLA debt-free, because tuition cost nothing for state citizens at the state universities. No red tape, no loans. That was helpful to untutored people like me in working class families. Californians understood that a strong education led to better understanding of life and a richer economy. 

I graduated from a university that ranks second among public universities in the United States (Berkeley ranks first). I went on to become a college professor.

Today a year's tuition at UCLA for a California resident is a little over $13,000 in a state whose economy would rank fifth among the world's nations. There are many families that can't deal with that. Republicans took us steeply backwards in funding education.

Several assembly members have a bill now pending (AB 2) that would, in effect, allow many full-time students to study tuition free at our junior colleges. That would be a step in the right direction. What we had 60 years ago, we can have again. And the better educated California becomes, the stronger our economy will be. 

The Agony in Spanky's Face

I record  TV news-entertainment shows. When I watch it, I silently speed through the parts that disgust or bore me. This morning I was speeding through the President's usual appearance, the walk to his motorcade or helicopter (I guess), where he shouts nonsensical guff at reporters, in lieu of a genuine encounter. In this speeding along, Spanky's face seemed to jump from one agonized rictus to another. Has there ever been a more unhappy chump? 

As a youngster this fool learned to deny his criminal incompetence by proclaiming each of his mistakes a grand victory. If your father is rich enough, you can surround yourself with toadies; you can live like that, and Spanky did live like that until he entered politics, not to win but to build his brand. 

There he goes, lurching across the White House lawn, his bloated guts encased in formal tent-like man suits, his transplanted, boond-dyed back hairs growing backwards on the top of his ugly dome, but they are his hairs, each one, and no one has ever cared about him or will as long as he lives. 


(also on Facebook)

Someone Died Recently

The grapevine is saying that G. H. W. Bush died recently.  I'm writing this because  I think we should, in some small way, acknowledge his passing. It should not go unnoticed, although Bush meant nothing to me and I don't give a damn. I'm just wondering why I haven't seen anything about this on TV. Will there be a funeral?

I'll grant you Bush was no Zachary Taylor, but he did volunteer and fight in the Big One, and he kept his own obligatory Presidential wars short. I once had a brilliant, gay brother-in-law who died of AIDS, perhaps because of the ineffective advice the President gave (Bush advised gays to change their ways). Also Bush invaded tiny Panama and killed several thousand people there for reasons that even the survivors don't remember. There was good and bad, but I hope that our media can take a few minutes to at least mention that Bush, born rich in a noble Yale dynasty, has left us to become a footnote in a history dissertation.

Impeachment

The Democratic leadership, intensely pragmatic, has made itself clear. When it comes to impeaching President Spanky, they will not be found in the lead. Why take a chance, eh? 

The leaders have promised on TV to lag behind public opinion. That's who the Democrats are now. If the voters and the Republicans someday decide our nation needs a good impeachment, the Democrats will pretend to lead it. Until then they are committed to waiting for some other penguin to test the safety of the possibly shark-infested sea.

A Brief Explanatory History of the Republican Party after Ike

Trump is the Nixon's floater.

The Goose with the Golden Eggs

Economists learned three hard lessons from the Great Depression. Money doesn't trickle down--it gets sucked upward. You kill a depression by flooding it with government money (budget cuts make the economy fail even worse). Banks and businesses need to be carefully regulated, or they will gamble wildly, cheat and go bust.

As a consequence President Obama and the leaders of Europe knew exactly what to do when faced with the Great Recession in 2008. Obama did about half of it, and the European leaders did almost none of it. They reverted to policies that fail every time. As a consequence Europe's economy has yet to recover, America's economy recovered weakly, and Trump's idiotic trade wars are pushing  much of the world's business over a cliff. Apparently our elected officials don't have the will to correct this.

FDR showed us what to do. We've blown it and continue to bleed ourselves. As historian Joseph Ellis said, when asked how we can get America back on the right track: "Perform one hundred million frontal lobotomies."

Money Grubbing "Centrists"

Central California newspapers sometimes publish a column written by Dan Walters. I seldom read it. Walters is basically a servant of money grubbers, men (mostly) who have dedicated their lives to acquiring so much money that it eventually becomes a meaningless number in the cloud. They waste their entire lives on greed and then die. 

What interests me is that white-wing money grubbers and their parasites invariably talk of themselves as political centrists. Centrists?  Dan Walters considers himself a centrist and a defender of centrism. He's worried that in California (which has one mildly progressive party, one dead party and many independent voters) money grubbers or "centrists" are under-represented. 

Beneath this position lurks the weird assumption that the central goal of a centrist majority of Americans is to get rich. The grubbers who do get rich (according to this theory) are those who have been especially  blessed by Mother Nature with smarts or maybe blessed by Jesus Himself. 

Did Jesus devote his life to getting rich?

My experience is that I've known maybe 300 people, and perhaps three of them set out to get rich. Money grubbers are a tiny minority, not central in any sense and about as tolerable as boys vice principals. Grubbers and vice principals serve a function, but who wants to smoke a joint with one?

Political Beliefs about Israel

I support the right of Israel to exist, but Chuck Schumer is co-sponsoring an ugly bill that that deserves attention. I doubt if this bill is constitutional, nevertheless. . . .

There's been a clamor to replace Nancy Pelosi (after her enormous victory in the last election), but Schumer is the leader who needs immediate replacing. What follows is quoted from the Huffington Post.
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According to the ACLU, the Cardin legislation would “bar U.S. persons from supporting boycotts against Israel, including its settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories (emphasis mine) conducted by international governmental organizations, such as the United Nations and the European Union. It would also... include penalties for simply requesting information about such boycotts. Violations would be subject to a minimum civil penalty of $250,000 and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison....This bill would impose civil and criminal punishment on individuals solely because of their political beliefs about Israel and its policies.”