A sparrow landed on Bernie Sanders’ podium while he was making a speech. Here are some of my favorite reactions to the event:
Monthly Archives: March 2016
This Week in the Republicans War on Everything
What a week this has been for Republicans! I probably need to do this feature every week, but I didn’t think of it until today, so this first entry may not be a full week’s worth of stuff. Still, there are a few items in the list of things that Republicans have done to hurt people and/or the country:
- Arizona slashed the number of polling places they had from 200 to 60, then pretended to be shocked at the long lines. I haven’t yet put anything up about topics like redistricting, and cutting down on the number of polling places (among other tactics.) This is a method of voter suppression. Expect to see a lot of it during the 2016 election. Particularly in democratic-heavy areas of the country.
- Indiana became the second state (after North Dakota) to pass a bill banning abortion due to birth defects.
- The next time that right-wing terrorists take over a bird sanctuary, House GOP members are trying to make sure that the federal government doesn’t get involved in law enforcement. This plays into the basic Republican theme of not wasting valuable, potentially-profitable land on things like bird sanctuaries when they could be used for drilling, ranching, or any number of other things to line their pockets.
- House Republicans are attempting to use their so-called “Planned Parenthood investigative committee” to intimidate researchers.
- North Carolina Republicans passed a bill, at the state level, to overturn any LGBT protections that had been passed at the local level. Disney promptly threatened to take their business elsewhere (and I hope that they do.) They were joined by a few other little companies, like the NFL, Time Warner Cable, Coca Cola, and so on.
- One of the reasons that the bill is important is not only because of the LGBT implications, but because it sets precedent for Republicans to overturn local laws at the state level. Some city passes a $15-per-hour minimum wage? Republicans don’t like it, away it goes. There are a lot of things that have been set at the local city level that Republicans really want to overturn. Watch for further initiatives involving favorite straw-man topics such as abortion, gay marriage, education, and so on.
- There’s a lot more talk about how the Republican Party is planning to steal the nomination away from Donald Trump. As Daily KOS points out, they’re used to Voter Disenfranchisement being used on other people.
- There’s a petition going around to make the RNC convention (where they will pick their nominee and where there are rumors about the “GOPe” stealing the nomination from Donald Trump) an open carry event. I admit that I’m feeling torn. On the one hand, there is Not. Enough. Popcorn. In. The. World. On the other, this is a really, really bad idea.
Other Stuff:
This only covers about two days worth of items. It’s been a busy week for Republicans!
Prayers for Brussels
Explosions have been reported in Brussels. I have heard that casualties stand at around two dozen. There is not a lot of other information at this time.
Please keep Brussels in your thoughts and prayers.
Rachel Maddow Agrees With Me
Not much time to write today, so super-short post.
Yesterday I was writing about the Republicans changing the rules at the convention. Rachel Maddow has much more on this and, naturally, her analysis is always worth listening to.
I did notice that Mitt Romney had reactivated his campaign structure, and I mentioned Ron Paul’s delegates in yesterday’s post, but all the implications hadn’t quite occurred to me.
Below is the link to Rachel’s excellent piece. It is well worth a look!
Thoughts on Rule 40: Trump has Won 16 States, Cruz Only 6
By my back-of-the-envelope math, in the Republican nominating contest so far, Trump has won 16 states, while Cruz has won only 6. Kasich and Rubio have been involved in all of this, of course, but for the purpose of this particular discussion, I am interested only in a basic “who won” between the top two contenders. Here’s about how things stand today:
March 5: Trump 2, Cruz 2
March 8: Trump 3, Cruz 1
March 15: Trump 4, Cruz 0
Super Tuesday: Trump 7, Cruz 3
As I said: Trump 16, Cruz 6. If things continue on in this vein, it’s possible that the contenders could become involved in a Republican nomination rule known as Rule 40. What, you ask, is Rule 40?
Let’s hit the time machine and take a look at the Republican presidential nomination process circa 2012. At the time, Republicans wanted to defeat President Obama more than anything else in the world, and there were a dozen or so candidates who threw their various hats into the ring. One of these candidates was Mitt Romney. Another was Ron Paul.
The primary process was much longer in 2012, and the Republicans ran through a series of front-runners who collectively came to be called “Not Romney”s. One “Not Romney” would rise to prominence for a week or two, then fall away again when they were deemed “not conservative enough,” and their support would drop. The next one would become popular for a few weeks, then fall away again, and so on. By the time that the Republican convention rolled around, it was clear that the nominee would be Mitt Romney, by virtue of the sheer stubbornness required to hang on through all that nonsense.
One of the other delegates at the time was Ron Paul. After such a contentious and drawn-out primary, the Republicans wanted to present a unified front behind Mitt Romney. They didn’t want a vote that showed the party deciding between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Thus, they implemented a rule now known as Rule 40, which essentially states that a candidate must win 8 states for his name to be on the ballot at the convention. Trump has won 16 states and easily qualifies, but Cruz hasn’t met the minimum. If the convention was held at this moment and rule 40 was followed as it currently stands, Cruz’s name wouldn’t be on the ballot.
In all honesty, I don’t expect this to be an impediment in real life. There are a lot of states yet to vote, and Cruz may possibly win two more of them. (Although he might not. Cruz planned his entire strategy in relation to Evangelicals, who are (mostly) concentrated in the Southern states that have already voted. The upcoming states to the north and west are not nearly as Cruz-friendly as those he has just… well… lost. Not to put too fine a point on it.)
At any rate, pretend as if Cruz didn’t win two more states. The Republicans would simply change the rule at or before the convention. Cruz only got six states? Well then, you need six states to to be on the ballot, instead of eight. Problem solved, right?
What I wonder about is the fallout of that type of scenario. There is some possibility that Trump might not win the magic number of delegates he needs to be coronated at the Republican convention. (That magic number is 1237, by the way. At the time of this writing, Trump has 695, Cruz has 424, and Kasich has 144.) For example, if Trump was to lose California, the Republicans would be likely to have to make an actual, real decision at their convention.
If things were to get that far, any and all rule changes would be under a microscope. There would be no possibility of a fair compromise between the Trump and Cruz supporters; a rule-related change of any kind would be likely to send them kicking and screaming to their collective corners. Rule 40 is the example that comes immediately to my mind, but there are other rules that could be altered. If the general convention voters were to get any idea (true or not) that the rules were being “rigged,” in the favor of one candidate or another, things could run off the rails in a hurry.
When the Republicans changed the rule in 2012, the Ron Paul supporters were incandescently livid, but there weren’t really enough of them to make much of a structural difference in the contests, no matter how furious they were. That’s not the case this time. There are a lot of Cruz supporters. There are a lot of Trump supporters. They’re all angry about everything, and we’re only about halfway through the process. Metaphorically speaking, the Republican nominating contest has been doused in kerosene.
All it needs now is a match.
The Reason I am Kinda-Sorta Rooting for Donald Trump, and Hating Every Second
At the time of this writing, the American Republican party is in such shambles that their main two nominees for the Presidential nomination are Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. I’m not sure where or whether the Republican party could have found two more loathsome individuals. I am thankful that on the Democratic side we have two excellent candidates, either of whom would make a fine president, so I am watching the Republican circus entirely from the sidelines.
There is a lot of well-deserved press at the moment on the Trump phenomenon, which generally coalesces around the idea that he is dangerous and must be stopped. While it is true that Trump is dangerous and can never be allowed near the oval office, I consider Ted Cruz to be the far greater danger. Trump is a narcissistic and bombastic salesman. Ted Cruz is evil. Let me explain.
I would like to begin by apologizing to certain movie monsters, who made fine films and really deserve better than to be compared to these individuals. I’m sorry, guys. I need you to make my point. I promise I still love your movies!
The candidacy of Donald Trump is a bit like a typical Godzilla movie. Think about how these films usually progress. Godzilla appears unexpectedly from the sea and from the moment he is spotted, he commands all the attention on screen. Small wonder! He is gigantic! He roars! He breathes fire!
And the damage he does to whatever city is unlucky enough to be in his path (usually Tokyo) is horrifying. Godzilla breathes his flame breath, or wrestles with other monsters, or stomps around with his big feet, and it seems that nothing can stand in his way. Goodbye, power plant! There goes the downtown skyline! Oh, that was the highway! Not the power lines, not the power lines, not the power lines… GAH! The romp of Godzilla leaves the city in flames and pebbles.
But, here’s the thing: eventually Godzilla goes back to the sea and disappears as if he had never been there at all. Humanity is basically intact. The city gets rebuilt, the power lines get restrung, the power plant rises from the ashes, the highway gets reconstructed. Although the city will never fully recover from the attack of Godzilla, and will bear the scars forever, it is still a more-or-less functional city, and people still live there. People lead lives again in the wake of Godzilla’s passing.
Like Godzilla, Trump is loud. He is dangerous. He commands all the attention. This is what worries me, because while Trump is loud, Cruz is evil. People aren’t really focused on the evil of Ted Cruz because they are mesmerized by Godzilla’s deafening roar and his big, stomping feet.
The Ted Cruz candidacy might best be compared to the classic film, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
When the Pod People invade, they do so subtly. There are no burning cities, no vaporized power plants, no collapsed highways. It is the people that change, that become pod people with weirdly burning eyes. The city keeps its structure but loses its soul. The few survivors wake up one day to discover they are surrounded by pod people, that their friends and neighbors and loved ones are gone, replaced by humorless copies who have no life, who do not sing, do not dance, do not laugh. They shuffle around like zombies, doing their jobs by day and converting humanity by night, thinking of nothing but how to make more pod people.
When the Pod People get a city in their grip, there is no hope at all of recovery. Ever. The survivors, if there are survivors, must either try to blend in, living in terror of discovery, or flee. The city and the world and humanity are lost forever. This is already taking place with Evangelicanism and particularly those who lean towards a Fundamentalist bent. The movement that Ted Cruz champions is evil in every sense of the word.
The irony of all of this is that the Pod People are currently being stomped by Godzilla. I am not at all pleased to see Godzilla stomping his way through the Republican primaries, and yet it is strangely satisfying to see him flattening the Pod People in his path.
The Republican party has offered the country a choice: would you rather have Godzilla destroy country and party, or would you rather that this destruction be carried out by the Pod People? Their clarion call is that you, lucky voter, get to decide!
A choice of “I don’t want to destroy country and party at all” is not an option on the Republican side. That selection can be found only with the Democrats.
So: given only the choice between Godzilla or Pod People, I would take Godzilla every day of the week, and twice on Sundays. This puts me in the position of Trump being the lesser of the two evils. Needless to say, this is irksome. Trump and Cruz are detestable and I wish they would both lose, but given that our political structure demands that one of them come out on top, it is Ted Cruz that is truly dangerous and must be stopped at all costs.
And Trump? With luck, he’ll be stopped cold in November by the Democratic candidate, go slinking back into the sea, and we’ll never catch a glimpse of him again.
Red State Runaway 