Quotes of the week from the debate

1.   Bernie Sanders:  "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.  Let's talk about real issues."
     Said to Clinton in support of dropping the issue raised by the moderator.

2.  Bernie Sanders:  "Congress doesn't control Wall Street.   Wall Street controls Congress."
     No explanation needed.

3.  Hillary Clinton:  "No."
     The perfect answer to Anderson Cooper's asking if she wanted to respond to Lincoln Chafee's trying to revive the issue of her trustworthiness and character.   Nothing she could have said was as effective as that simple, dismissive word.

Ralph

Good News #5 No more drilling in the Arctic Ocean

The Obama administration announced on Friday that all offshore drilling operations in the Arctic Ocean will be shut down and no more drilling permits will be issued.

Shell Oil Company had such a lease and had spent billions of dollars exploring -- but found nothing worth going after.   They had recently announced they were closing their Arctic operations.

Whether the two are connected (as in, it's easy to deny drilling permits that nobody wants anyway) or whether it was a principled, environmental decision is not clear.   But, either way, this is very very good news.

Ralph

CORRECTION:  I overstated.  No drilling leases will be renewed and no new ones issued.   They did not say that currently drilling operations will be shut down.

Demagogueing the Syrian refugee crisis

Several Republican presidential candidates, most notably Donald Trump, have been engaging in demagoguery on the Syrian refugee crisis.  Trump says, if any Syrian refugees are in the U.S. when he becomes president, he will send them home immediately because they could be terrorists.

At first hearing, that sounds like a real concern;  and I'm sure the more paranoid, conspiracy-minded among us would latch on to that and never listen to any other side of the story.   But for more reasonable people, here is the other side.

1.  The U.N. has said that about 400,000 Syrians registered in its refugee camps need to be resettled, and it's from that group that the U.S. would take refugees into our country.

2.  Priorities for resettlement would go to torture victims, people with serious medical illnesses, children and teens on their own, and women and children at risk.   None of those sound like terrorists, do they?

3.  The resettlement process takes a long time and involves background screening.  As Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said:

"That doesn't make for an efficient method of terrorizing the United States. . . . Instead of sitting around hoping you win the refugee lottery and then wait years, then pass the background screening to get to America, it would be much easier for a terrorist group to send a person through Europe or put them onto an airplane to the United States."

4.  PolitiFact has rated Donald Trump's alarmist statement "False."

But it's those false statements that the demagogues are so fond of, because they rile people up and make them want to vote for you just because you pounded your chest and boasted that you would "send them home immediately."   Black/white over-simplification and boastful solutions are their stock in trade of demagogues.  Don't be fooled by them.  

Ralph

Good news 4: Prison debate team beats Harvard

Prestigious Bard College sponsors a program leading to a college degree for selected inmates at the Eastern New York Correctional Facility .   One feature of this program is that the Bard debate coach, David Register, also works with inmate-students on their own debate team.

In September, the Bard-Eastern team met the debate team from Harvard.  After an awe-inspiring performance from both teams, three of the world's most prestigious debate judges declared Bard-Eastern the winner over the Harvard team in a 2-1 decision. 

This win is naturally a source of pride and support for programs that provide education and opportunity as part a prisoner rehabilitation.   The Bard-Eastern debate team had to overcome extra hurdles in doing their research and preparation, given that it takes place within the confines of a maximum security prison with limited computer and printing time available.

They make up for this by dogged determination and tireless practice.  The Debate Union experience teaches them logical thinking skills as well as a robust civic education about self-governance -- topped off by enhanced self-confidence and pride of accomplishment.

Such rehabilitation programs based on education and opportunity should be part of any criminal justice reform.  Debate teams will not be the place for all inmates;  but the same principles can apply at all levels of ability and interest, whether the skill be plumbing, accounting, or logic and language.    Society, as well as individuals, will benefit.

Ralph

Confederate flag-waving crowd indicted for allegedly terrorizing black community

Last July, an African-Amercian family was hosting a birthday party for their young daughter at home in Douglasville, GA, a community in the greater Atlanta area.   A convoy of at least seven pickup trucks, sporting large Confederate flags flapping from poles mounted on their trucks, repeatedly drove by the house in what seemed an intentionally intimidating manner.

The person hosting the party says that people in the trucks shouted threats and racial slurs at their guests as they rode by and then parked on a grassy field next to the house.  At least one gun was flashed and someone threatened to "shoot the [racial slur]."

One of the truck drivers told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they were members of the group "Respect the Flag," who were leaving a nearby event and just happened to drive by where the party was being held.   He said that partygoers started the altercation by shouting at them and throwing rocks as they rode by.

I'm inclined to believe the residents whose party was interrupted.  Pickup trucks, Confederate flags, a bunch of protesters all fired-up from their "event," spotting a group of black people enjoying themselves . . . ??     If the flag-guys weren't looking to cause a little trouble, why didn't they just drive on by?

But here's the surprising thing and why this July event is back in the news:   The 15 drivers and passengers of the pickup trucks have been charged under the Georgia Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act.

This law has very broad parameters of who can be charged, and this is the first time it has been used for this kind of act.   But it is not hard to see how it might apply -- especially if you think of the history of white-robed and hooded vigilantes galloping through black neighborhoods with flaming torches to terrorize and often lynch blacks.  That is the historical context that, for this black family, must be considered in evaluating whether this constituted terrorism.

One more context:   This incident happened just eight days after the mass shooting in the Charleston church by a white supremacist zealot who also "respected the flag" and whose act led to the flag controversy that prompted such groups and rallies (probably the "event" the pickup-truckers were coming from).

Terror?   In these contexts?  You bet.   It'll be an interesting trial, if a judge doesn't throw it out of court first.

Ralph

Good news 3: Australia conquers gun violence

Nearly 20 years ago, Australia experienced one of the worst mass shootings ever, the Port Arthur Massacre:   35 dead and 23 injured.   The killer was a 28 year old man with a low IQ, who had two semi-automatic rifles he had bought from a dealer with no license.   People said "Never again," and they meant it.

It changed Australia.   Parliament passed laws that banned semi-automatic weapons and imposed rigid licensing.   The government bought back and destroyed nearly 1 million guns that had been ruled illegal.  All firearms must be registered to a licensed owner;  getting a license requires background checks that can take months.   There are strict gun storage requirements.

It's true that there are still some illegal guns and occasional shootings.   But, in the decade following the new law's implementation, the firearm homicide rate fell by 59% and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65%, without a concomitant increase in other forms of suicide.   And there has not been a single mass shooting in that decade.

Ralph

Other opinions on the debate: Clinton vs Sanders

Most beltway media and political insiders think Hillary Clinton won the debate.   But focus groups and instant polls were more impressed with Bernie Sanders and said he won.

The averages of fifteen professional political watchers at FiveThirtyEight gave Clinton an A-, Sanders a B, O'Malley a C+, Webb a D+, and Chafee a D.

ABC News: "Frontrunner Hillary Clinton reasserted herself as the dominant force in the race. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders played to his base, but likely didn’t do much to expand it."   Vox Policy and Politics:  "The consensus of political commentators is clear: Hillary Clinton won the first Democratic debate.  Her polished performance utterly outclassed her rivals, including Bernie Sanders, and reaffirmed her status as the obvious nominee."

CNN:  "Hillary Clinton proved without a doubt Tuesday night why she is the Democratic Party's presidential front-runner.  [She] remained unflappable throughout . . . showcasing her political experience and her command of the issues -- all the while deftly handling criticism of her flip-flops and displaying a humor that put a more human face to her oft-criticized candidacy."    The same commentator said that Sanders "didn't do anything to convince voters he can overcome the electability hurdles a self-declared 'democratic socialist' is sure to face in the general election."

On the other hand, the CNN Facebook poll (probably a very young-skewed demographic) showed 80% picking Sanders as the winner.    CNN online polls also showed overwhelming preference for Sanders.  A Time magazine survey of over 100,000 respondents following the debate, 64% favored Sanders, while a similar MSNBC survey gave him 84%, and 75% of Slate responders went for him.

Let's see how this sorts out in the coming days.   My guess is that these instant polls include people already committed to Sanders and people who are hearing his ideas for the first time -- and it is exciting.   Those who consider a broader picture than what they just heard (and heard not just for the first time) will also consider things like likelihood of being elected and, if elected, being able to get done the things that sound so appealing.

As Hillary Clinton describes herself:   "I'm a progressive who likes to get things done."  For me, at this point, it's a choice between heart and head.  I'd love to live in a country that ran on Sanders's democratic socialist ideals;   but I think Clinton is more electable in 2016, and I don't want to take any chances of having a Republican pick the next three supreme court justices.   Bernie has sold me on his ideals;   I need him to convince me he can win the general election.

Stay tuned.

Ralph

Democratic debate -- what a contrast ! ! !

The winner?    The Democratic Party and its entire field of smart, fact-oriented adults who could debate policy differences without insulting each other, without pandering, and without saying anything outrageous or offensive.

My rating:   The five of them wind up in the same order they've been in in the polls for months.

#1.   Hillary Clinton.   She was sharp but not too wonky or distant.   She challenged Sanders on gun control and a couple of other small issues.   She handled the question about her email very well.   She was policy-oriented and showed compassion.    She quietly and effectively drew the line between her and Sanders by declaring that she is "a progressive who gets things done" -- i.e. progressive and pragmatic, suggesting that his ideals sound great but can't get implemented.   And she laughed a couple of times and seemed human.  She needed a good solid hit, and I'd say this was a triple.

#2.  Bernie Sanders.   This was his first national debate, and he didn't seem quite as relaxed and self-assured as he does in campaign rallies.   He had some vulnerability on how far he would go on gun control.   He was a little johnny-one-note on his economic message, and his admiration for the far more progressive Denmark, Norway, and Sweden left him open -- and Hillary zoomed right in -- to the charge that you can't really compare what works in a small, homogenous country like those and our vast, diverse, complex country.   I still like Bernie and his democratic socialism, but he didn't really shine the way he needed to on the debate stage.   No gaffes, nothing bad -- just not quite convincing enough to take the chance on losing the White House.  But . . . the election is still more than a year away.

Two moments where he did shine:  Great line:  "Congress doesn't control Wall Street.   Wall Street controls Congress."    And his stepping in to defend Hillary by criticizing the media's obsession with her email problem:  "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about emails.  Enough about your damn emails;   let's talk about the real issues."

#3.  Martin O'Malley.  A very distant third place in the polls, but I though he helped himself a little.   His best hope is to be on the short list for a VP running mate.   He was well versed in the policies he focuses on -- especially climate change, gun control, immigration -- but he's not quite ready for the top spot.

#4.  Jim Webb.   Almost unnoticed by the media thus far, I even wondered last week if he was still in the race.    He defended -- without seeming defensive -- his more conservative views, and had some good answers.   Chris Matthews said he seemed like a very smart, moderate Republican.   I wouldn't go quite that far, but the others are all trending left;  and that seems the mood of the Democratic electorate this year.

#5.  Lincoln Chaffee.   Might appeal to the old George McGovern voters, but in this field he just seemed a little weak and out of his league.   Probably the only embarrassing moment of the debate was his explanation of his 1999 vote to overturn the Glass-Steagall Act when he was in the senate, which he would now oppose.   He said that it was his first vote as a senator, a position he had just been elected to to replace his father who died.   Essentially he admitted that he didn't know what he was voting for but went along with his party (which at the time was Republican).

My guess:    Hillary's poll numbers will go up 5 points or more;   Sanders will stay about the same.   O'Malley will go up a couple of points, but not nearly enough.   Webb might inch up a point or two, now that the small group of conservative Democrats know who he is.  But Chaffee might as well drop out now.

Probably the most significant outcome:   Hillary's solid performance really leaves no justification for Joe Biden to jump into the race.   If she handles her testimony before the Benghazi committee as well as she did the debate tonight, she has it sewed up.

But here's the thing:   Compare this debate tonight with what passes for a Republican debate.   The analogy that comes to mind is that one is a graduate school seminar in policy and philosophy of government;   the other is a middle school food fight.    I would vote for any one of these five over any one of the fifteen on the other side.


Ralph

Good news 2: Global child death rates decline

Nicholas Kristoff, of the New York Times, reported related good news:

1.  In 1990 more than 12 million children died before the age of 3;   that has now been cut in half.

2.  In the 1980s only half of girls in developing countries completed elementary school;   now 80% do.

3.  Specific diseases that affect millions in third world countries due to poor sanitation have been sharply curtailed, often through simple, inexpensive methods.   These include leprosy, elephantiasis, river blindness.

4.  In many parts of the developing world, birth rates have been sharply diminished, notably Haiti, Bangladesh, and Indonesia.

The world community is doing a good job on poverty;   not so much on sectarian violence and war.

Ralph

Good news . . . for a change

[NOTE:   With Congress on recess this week, perhaps the spate of political news will slow a bit.   I intend to put more blog time into reporting on some good news -- for a change.   Here's the first installment.]

The World Bank has forecast that less than 10% of the world's population will be living in extreme poverty by the end of 2015, a drop from 37.1% in 1990 to 12.8% in 2012 and 9.6% this year.   The United Nations has set the goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030.

The decline in poverty has not been uniform throughout the world, dropping much faster in South Asia (from 50.6% in 1990 to 11.9%), while Sub-Saharan Africa has declined only to 35.2% due to the area rapid population growth.

Ralph

Democrats' fact sheet proves Benghazi committee purpose is to hurt Hillary Clinton politically

When the House Select Committee on Benghazi was created, Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) was said to be a straight-arrow, former prosecutor who would run a fair investigation.   Sane people knew an eighth congressional investigation was unnecessary, but that's what congress does.

Nothing so far has happened to give the appearance of a fair and balanced investigation, however -- including Rep. Kevin McCarthy's inartful boasting on live TV that the committee had lowered Hillary Clinton's poll numbers.

Now the Democratic members of that select committee have released their own "fact sheet" to show what a partisan farce the committee has turned out to be.    This was reported by Daily Kos's Eric Lewis on October 6th.

1.  Before the Hillary Clinton emails became hot news last spring, Gowdy had outlined his plan for a wide range of interviews with all the agencies involved.   But since then, he has focused almost exclusively on Hillary Clinton herself and her advisers.    Gowdy never even invited heads of the Defense Department to testify, and the only interview with an intelligence official was with the CIA's head of Legislative Affairs regarding their delay in turning over documents.   No interviews with former Secretary(s) of Defense Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, nor with CIA Director David Petraeus, or with the key military officers.

2.  Gowdy's almost sole agenda has been investigation of Clinton's close associates in a witch-hunt.  Her long-time adviser Sidney Blumenthal was subpoened and questioned for seven hours, with 160 questions about his relationship and communications with Clinton and more than 50 questions about the Clinton Foundation, but fewer than 20 questions about the Benghazi attacks.    And not a single question about Ambassador to Libya Stevens, who was killed in the attack.

The only documents released to the public in the 17 months of the investigation thus far were the emails between Blumenthal and Clinton, which Gowdy ordered without consulting the Democratic members of the committee.   At the same time, Gowdy also unilaterally blocked the release of Blumenthal's actualy testimony, which could have exposed the committee's obsession with Clinton's emails rather than with Benghazi.

3.  Clinton's Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills was also interviewed for hours.   Immediately afterward, Republicans on the committee began leaking inaccurate information and isolated quotes designed to damage Clinton with unsubstantiated or previously debunked allegations.   Again, they refuse to release the transcript.    

This is the pattern that led Hillary Clinton to agree to testify before the committee only if it is a public hearing so that they cannot do that were her testimony.  As of now, she is scheduled for a public hearing on October 22nd;   but Gowdy does not plan to release the committee findings until "just months before the 2016 election" -- obviously timed for maximum negative impact on Clinton.

4.   In its 17 month witch hunt, Gowdy's committee has spent more than $4.6 million of tax payer money in what's being called one of the longest and least productive -- and most-unnecessary -- select committees in history.   It has lasted longer than the Select Committee on 9/11, longer than the Watergate investigation, or the John F. Kennedy assassination probe.   And of course every film clip or press release from Gowdy's office is fodder for the ad-makers for Republican political candidates -- which amounts to tax-payer funded political advertising for Clinton's opponents.

What are the chances that there will NOT be selective leaks of the committee's final report, without context or Clinton's explanation?   Even in the era of dirty-tricks politics, this is beyond the pale:   to use the official investigating power of Congress in a partisan witch-hunt to damage a presidential candidate.

The cynic in me says that Gowdy is veering away from the real substance of his committee's mission because he knows he will come up with nothing new on Benghazi, after seven other committees have already found no wrong-doing by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.    So he's playing the email card in hopes of coming up with . . . anything.

We can only hope this backfires on the Republicans.   With them in charge of the House, they can hold hearings on whatever they like.  It's certainly not the first time they've wasted taxpayer money on partisan pursuits -- i.e., spending millions on a defense of DOMA when the Department of Justice decided not to defend it before SCOTUS.

It's really up to the voters to turn these people out in 2016.   Unfortunately, they've fixed that, for most of them, by gerrymandering them into safe districts.

Ralph

How do Republicans keep winning the House when they are so out of touch with the voters?

On immigration, on abortion, on Planned Parenthood, on gay marriage, on war and defense budgets -- Republicans are out of step with the majority of Americans, as shown in poll after poll.   So why do they keep winning elections to congress?

Because of gerrymandering of House districts by Republican-majority state legislatures.   According to the New York Times, in 2012 Democrats cumulatively won 1.4 million more votes but lost control of the House, with 201 seats to the Republicans' 234 seats.

That's how they do it.   Increasingly those seats are safe for incumbents because they are custom-designed to favor their party candidate.   So don't expect the 2016 election to change who controls the House, no matter how crazy-out-of-touch they have become.

You have to admit:   Conservative Republicans were very very smart a decade ago when they designed their comeback strategy to begin at the grass-roots level.   They elected Republican majorities in state legislature, as well as Republican governors -- and then they redrew the lines of the congressional districts to set up safe districts where Republicans could easily win.   That gave them control of the U. S. House -- and it's going to be hard to get it back until we start winning back those state offices.

Ralph

The scariest gun story last week was not in Oregon

Of course the tragic mass shooting on an Oregon college campus was awful and should motivate, finally, our law-makers to pass sensible gun control legislation.

But it was not the scariest story of the week.    This one frightens me even more:

A shopper in a Home Depot parking lot in Michigan witnessed an employee trying to stop a suspected shoplifter, who drove away in his car.   This woman, who had a concealed carry license, pulled out her 9 mm handgun and fired repeatedly at the SUV speeding out of the lot.  Luckily she did not hit the driver or any other customers, although she may have hit one of the tires of the fleeing car.

What is the difference that makes the second one frighten me more?   The Oregon shooter was an obviously disturbed young man acting out of some distorted view of his place in the world.

Despite the media attention that makes mass shootings seem ever more frequent, they are actually relatively rare as handgun deaths go, considering the tens of thousands of gun deaths from domestic violence, drug deals, robberies, suicides, and accidents with a gun in the home.    And we have solutions, if we only had the will to implement them:   sensible gun control laws, increased public awareness of danger signals in disturbed individuals, and more accessible mental health services.   It worked in Australia.

The woman in the parking lot scares me more, because this incident reflects, not emotional disturbance in an individual intent on killing, but a gun culture gone wild.  That Wild West belief that it's always a potential shoot-out every time we go to the mall, or a movie theater, or a college campus is just crazy in 2015.

We have to (1) stop glorifying the man -- and increasingly, the woman -- with a gun as the solution in every exciting, action-driven movie and tv plot;  (2) we have to educate the public about the dangers of untrained and overwrought individuals thinking that the solution to gun threats is more guns, more readily available.   Arming kindergarten teachers is a very bad idea.   Random strangers with guns in parking lots playing at being an action hero is also a very bad idea.

In contrast, on the Oregon campus, there was a student at the scene who had a permit and was carrying his gun, and he wisely chose not to start firing.   He was a military veteran, trained in the use of his gun;  and he knew the dangers:  (1) he did not have a good, clear opportunity to hit the shooter;  (2) he might hit someone else;  and (3) in a crowd scene like this, if the police arrived and saw him standing there with a gun, they would likely assume that he was the shooter -- and shoot him.

Ralph

GOP invents supply-side Jesus - so says Bill Maher

TV comedian and commentator Bill Maher is known for his irreverence in making sharp political points.   He's at it again, as reported by Egberto Willies on Daily Kos,  Following Pope Francis' popular U.S. visit, Bill Maher called out right-wing supply-side Republicans for their anti-Jesus model.

"They talk about the Pope like he's gone rogue . . . [like] He is off the reservation and inventing his own brand of socialist Christianity.  No—he is just quoting Jesus. . . ." 

He then further made his point, saying "how little these so-called Christians of the far right believe in what Jesus actually said. . . . 

"How could they? There is not a tent . . .  big enough to fit both Jesus and Ayn Rand.  In order to be both Republican and Christian they had to create an entirely new Jesus.  We don't only have two Americas, we have two Jesuses now. It's true. Liberals have the traditional Jesus who hated rich assholes and wouldn't shut up about how they should give away all of their money.  And conservatives made up a completely new Jesus.  A small businessman from Galilee whose main gripe is big government and who wants to make Nazareth great again. I call him supply-side Jesus. He'd love to help the less fortunate but he's got investors to think about. Like the time supply-side Jesus performed a miracle and created a bounty of loaves and fishes and then gave them all to the top one percent so they can trickle down to the takers. ..."

As I often say:   Listen to the comedians if you want to hear the truth.

Ralph