Sunday Funnies

Michael Flynn, Trump's new NSA

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was fired from his last job in the military, sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin after giving a paid speech in Moscow, called for Hillary Clinton to be imprisoned, and said President Obama was a “liar” with no plan for defeating ISIS.

As of Thursday, there’s something new to say about him: Flynn will be moving into the West Wing as President-elect Donald Trump’s national security adviser.

This fellow's ethics aren't situational; they're non-existent.

(Flynn) began receiving classified national security briefings last summer while he was also running a private consulting firm that offered “all-source intelligence support” to international clients.

Flynn’s relationship with his overseas clients is coming in for new scrutiny amid recent disclosures that two months ago, during the height of the presidential campaign, his consulting firm, the Flynn Intel Group, registered to lobby for a Dutch company owned by a wealthy Turkish businessman close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.

More from the link embedded in the graf above:

... Kamil Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish businessman with real estate, aerospace, and consulting interests, told The Intercept on Thursday that one of his companies, Inovo BV, paid Flynn’s company “tens of thousands of dollars” for analysis on world affairs. On election day, Flynn published an opinion piece for The Hill urging U.S. support for Turkey’s controversial strongman president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and pushing for the extradition of Erdogan’s political rival, Fethullah Gülen, who now resides in Pennsylvania. “From Turkey’s point of view, Washington is harboring Turkey’s Osama bin Laden,” Flynn wrote, on Nov. 8.

This is what draining the swamp looks like.  At least we might not get into a war with Russia (beyond our current proxy one in Syria, that is), but the drone bombing and assassinations will continue until morale improves, despite Flynn's stated opposition.  He has said in the past that the they create more terrorists than they eliminate (shockingly, Flynn is correct about that).

So Trump’s almost inevitable string of drone murders will be conducted under the guidance of a man who knows they produce terrorism rather than reducing it, that they endanger the United States rather than protecting it. In that assessment, he agrees with the vast majority of Americans who believe that the wars of the past 15 years have made the United States less safe, which is the view of numerous other experts as well.

Flynn also advocates for torture and indefinite detention but is conflicted about its 'productivity'.  There are certain inconvenient truths about what Flynn gets right -- in blind hog/acorn fashion -- and what he gets wildly wrong.  Colin Powell did not mince words about Flynn in a leaked DNC email (aren't we glad now we have those?).

“I spoke at DIA last month,” the former secretary of state wrote in a hacked email released this summer. “Flynn got fired as head of DIA. His replacement is a black Marine 3-star. I asked why Flynn got fired. Abusive with staff, didn’t listen, worked against policy, bad management, etc. He has been and was right-wing nutty every [sic] since.”

Flynn could have been vice-president, you may recall, but he's in a position to do much greater damage now.  The only thing he seems to lack is a family connection, like Jared Kushner.  There's a reason why James Clapper pulled the chain yesterday.

In 2014, two years into what was supposed to be a three-year term, Flynn was summoned to the Pentagon by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers and told that he was being removed from his post.

Vickers was a central character in the book and film Charlie Wilson's War, you might remember.

According to the Washington Post, Flynn tried to salvage his job by sidestepping his superior officers and making a direct appeal to the vice chief of the Army. When Clapper found out, he warned Flynn that he would fire him on the spot if Flynn made another attempt to do an end-run around his bosses, according to the newspaper.

Clapper, arguably Flynn’s biggest bureaucratic adversary, announced his resignation Thursday, just hours before Flynn’s appointment.

Your seat backs and tray tables need to be locked in the upright position.

Scattershooting the Greens, the US Senate, and the TXGOP

-- Both DBC and Gadfly have analyzed the 'what went right/wrong' for the US Greens and the Texas Greens, which beats the hell out of Kuff's theory of numbers or whatever he's deep into a spreadsheet about this week.

This isn't brain surgery: the Greens will take a quantum leap of sorts if/when a number of prominent Democrats give up on a Revolution from within, bolt that party, and take over the GP, bringing professional infrastructure with them.  I wished hard for it to be Bernie Sanders almost two years ago, but as you may recall it was Tad Devine that convinced him, against his inclination, to run for president as a Democrat.

So there must be some collective and public exodus of elected officials and their operatives, not just a few political scientists like Dr. Cornel West.  A prominent name at the top of the ticket, like Ralph Nader was in 2000, is critical.  As we blog today, there simply aren't enough Donkeys who believe that it's anything but a pipe dream to build something viable outside the two-party box, and that's because the media exposure won't be there for them, and because the presidential debates are run by a cabal of duopolists.  Those two things have to change before the GP can take the next step.  Media exposure will come if the name is big enough; the CPD must be made obsolete by replacing it with something else first.

Update: As a reminder for those such as Dan Savage who don't really get what the Green Party represents beyond Jill Stein, Politics of Courage supplies a list of all Greens who ran for Congress, state, and local offices in 2016 and the vote percentages they earned.  It's also worth noting that Laredo city council member George Altgelt, first elected with Green Party support and just re-elected in that city's non-partisan municipal contests, endorsed Gary Johnson for president.

-- For those Democrats still transitioning from denial and anger toward acceptance ... this isn't going to make you feel better.  Charles Schumer was the wrong guy at the wrong time to lead this charge, but you're stuck with him now.

Senate Democrats are the last line of defense against Trump's agenda because of the chamber's supermajority hurdle. They're expected to oppose any attempt to repeal Obamacare and slash tax rates, among other policies. At the same time, they want to work with him to pass a massive infrastructure package and crack down on Chinese currency manipulation.

On top of that, Democrats must defend 25 Senate seats in 2018, including five in deeply conservative states and another five in traditional battlegrounds that Trump won.

It's going to get worse in 2018 before it gets better in 2020.  Hopefully.

Update: Twenty-twenty is the big enchilada, with an imperative to turn Trump out of office and electing a slew of Democrats in the statehouses, as the census is performed and redistricting moves to the top of the priorities list.

Speaking of going from bad to worse...

-- The Texas Legislature is readying for next year's session with a conservative agenda that makes Trump's look liberal.  Dan Patrick is going in for the kill.

Patrick's top two priorities are passing a balanced budget — which is required by state law — and reforming the state's property tax system, which he said is "taxing people out of their homes and hampering business growth." The rest of the list is filled with ideas that will be stringently opposed by Democrats and, in some cases, moderate Republicans, including limiting which bathrooms transgender people could use; imposing more restrictions on abortion; strengthening the state's voter ID law, and allowing parents more choice in the schools that their children attend.

[...]

The rest of his list included plans to ban local governments from refusing to cooperate with immigration agents or enforce immigration laws; prevent student-teacher relationships; cap increases in state spending, and rein in insurance lawsuits after hailstorms. 

No mention of addressing, much less fixing, the state's funding for its public school system.  Nothing about improving the healthcare of Texans.  And as in Washington, there's nothing on the horizon that suggests 2018 will be anything but another red wave at the statehouse again.  The Castro brothers aren't stupid enough to run for anything in two years.  (They were not the attack dogs that Wendy Davis could have benefited from in 2014 and they won't be of much use to anybody who dares to run in 2018.  Their precious political capital is invested in non-liquid assets.)

Texas Republicans may be the absolute shittiest in the country, but it's Texas Democrats who keep losing to them.  Who will be the sacrificial lambs Democrats proffer for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and so on down the list of statewide executive offices?  Could they at least find someone to challenge Sid "C-word" Miller, for crine out loud?  Or will it be another assembly of no-name stooges that can manage 38% or so on the basis of straight-ticket voting, like Jim Hogan or Grady Yarbrough or Betsy "Combat Boots" Johnson?

Who wants to run against Ted Cruz?  Besides Michael McCaul, I mean.

Sad!

-- Rick Perry for Department of Oops.  Only Donald Trump would consider our illustrious, longest-serving governor in history to run a Washington bureau that was on his list to eliminate, but which he could not remember the name of.

Scattershooting Trump's first week as president-elect

-- It's been a bumpy ride for everybody.  Those on the Train and not.

Here's how the day went for the Trump transition: pic.twitter.com/XGV41WgvZj

— Andrew Prokop (@awprokop) November 16, 2016

Via Mother Jones.  NYT:

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s transition was in disarray on Tuesday, marked by firings, infighting and revelations that American allies were blindly dialing in to Trump Tower to try to reach the soon-to-be-leader of the free world.

One week after Trump scored an upset victory that took him by surprise, his team was improvising the most basic traditions of assuming power. That included working without official State Department briefing materials in his first conversations with foreign leaders.

Two officials who had been handling national security for the transition, former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and Matthew Freedman, a lobbyist who consults with corporations and foreign governments, were fired. Both were part of what officials described as a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser.

The dismissals followed the abrupt firing on Friday of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was replaced as chief of the transition by Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Kushner, a transition official said, was systematically dismissing people like Rogers who had ties with Christie. As a federal prosecutor, Christie had sent Kushner’s father to jail.

Prominent American allies were in the meantime scrambling to figure out how and when to contact Trump. At times, they have been patched through to him in his luxury office tower with little warning, according to a Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations.

Amateur hour all day yesterday.  In the evening, Trump ditched his media contingent to go out to dinner with his family.  Their top-secret security clearances have been requested.  Though not officially, apparently.  'Conflicts of interest' being what they are.

Make sure your seat belts are securely fastened.

-- I wrote the day before the election that North Carolina was going to be pivotal, but as the returns came in solid red for Trump and Sen. Richard Burr, it just seemed like another prediction I missed.  Today, the outcomes there have regained importance.  For one thing, it looks like the incumbent Republican shitheel governor, Pat McCrory, has lost but still isn't conceding.  So that election may not be decided until after Turkey Day.

Early (morning one week ago), North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) declared victory over Gov. Pat McCrory (R), the embattled incumbent who has signed into law some of the most retrograde legislation in the country since his term began in 2013.

But McCrory refused to concede, saying the race was too close to call. Cooper was leading by slightly more than 4,300 votes on Wednesday. As of Friday, the state attorney general was ahead by more than 4,900 votes.

McCrory initially said the outcome of the race wouldn’t be clear until Nov. 18, once provisional and absentee ballots had been counted. But now it seems an answer might not be available until after Thanksgiving.

58,000 provisional and absentee ballots have yet to be counted. But most of the provisional ballots were cast in Democratic-leaning counties. Cooper won eight of the 10 counties with the most provisional ballots. McCrory was favored in two of those counties, and in several others not in the top 10, according to The News & Observer.

If the race is within 10,000 votes once all of the state’s ballots are tallied, then McCrory or Cooper can ask for a recount ― a procedure that likely wouldn’t happen until after Thanksgiving.

McCrory followed the Texas model during his one term in office.

Shortly after he took office in 2013, McCrory repealed the Racial Justice Act of 2009, which allowed inmates on death row to appeal death sentences that were sought or imposed on the basis of race. He reasoned that it “created a judicial loophole to avoid the death penalty and not a path to justice.” That July, McCrory ended unemployment benefits for tens of thousands of people and signed a bill mandating that abortion clinics meet the same standards as surgical centers.

McCrory signed one of the nation’s strictest voter ID requirements into law in August 2013. The law was struck down by a federal appeals court in July after three judges determined that GOP lawmakers had chosen to implement specific ID requirements ― as well as to reduce the number of early voting days and to change registration procedures ― in order to keep black voters from the polls.

In March, McCrory signed HB 2. The law prevented local governments from passing any anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay and transgender people, and mandated that individuals can only use restrooms that correspond to the sex on their birth certificates. The bill, which is one of the most far-reaching in the country, has caused the state to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Weeks later, McCrory signed an executive order widening the law to include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. The order did not reverse the bathroom portion of the bill.

McCrory also signed a bill in July that removed police camera footage from the public record. 

There's bound to be a place for McCrory in the Trump administration.  Two more things; first, North Carolina's legislature has a plan to subvert the will of the voters and maintain a conservative majority on the state's Supreme Court.

Even as Donald Trump won the state, North Carolina voters chose last week to elect a new liberal majority to the state supreme court. The new North Carolina Supreme Court would provide a check on the power of the GOP’s veto-proof super-majority in the state legislature. But the legislature has come up with a scheme that would add two seats to the court and allow Gov. Pat McCrory (R) to appoint two justices — maintaining the conservative majority.

And second: "Hi, America.  NC here.  We know what you're about to go through."

-- Hey Donkeys: here's another wake-up call.  Wrap up the pity party and get back to work.

Democrats have one final shot to flip a Senate seat -- but in order to pull off an upset, they need to quickly rally around the Louisiana candidate whose victory could be a bright spot in an otherwise dismal year. Public Service Commissioner – and jovial cattle farmer – Foster Campbell will face off against Republican State Treasurer John Kennedy, a twice-failed Senate candidate, in a Dec. 10 runoff.

On the surface, it might seem like a lost cause: A Democrat running a statewide campaign in Louisiana in the Year of Trump. On the contrary, though, Campbell has a legitimate shot to upset his opponent the same way Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards did in 2015. Yes, Louisiana has a Democratic governor. He's busy at the moment cleaning up the fiscal mess left by his predecessor, failed presidential candidate and Kenneth-the-Page avatar Bobby Jindal.

Edwards pulled off an upset in part because of Jindal's failures, and in part because he ran against David Vitter, a less-than-charismatic politician tainted by a bygone prostitution scandal. But Edwards prevailed not only as an anti-Jindal and anti-Vitter. As an Army veteran with family law enforcement ties and a calm demeanor, he was a strong candidate in his own right.

Campbell, too, is a good bet; he has a wicked sense of humor and speaks plainly. During a recent debate, he rebutted false allegations of ties to ex-KKK leader David Duke, saying, "I have nothing in common with David Duke other than we're probably breathing."

[...]

Electing Foster Campbell is the most immediate way to rebuke President-elect Trump. A Campbell victory would mean a 51-49 split in the Senate. This is the last best way to make a difference in 2016.

Campbell is a fighter. During his career, he's fought for ethics reform, lower energy rates for rural consumers, and for victims of domestic violence. Guided by a love of family and a deep-seated faith, he fights for the little man -- and woman.

Campbell is a man of the people; Kennedy is counting on the elite. This year alone, he was the beneficiary of $400,000 from a political action committee funded by one Chicago family.

With a Campbell upset, fifty-one to forty-nine means almost the same thing as it meant in 2001, when Jim Jeffords switched parties.  That could be a real earthquake once more if, say, Susan Collins of Maine were to be persuaded to cross over.  And/or maybe Rand Paul as an indy?

Trump's cabinet: 'unconventional'

(Ed. note: after various manipulations, Brains' new look is going to be viewed best in Mozilla Firefox at 125%.  Give me feedback in the comments).

Donald Trump's transition is being marked by sharp internal disagreements over key cabinet appointments and direction, both for internal West Wing positions and key national security posts, sources involved in the transition team tell CNN.

One source with knowledge of the transition described it as a "knife fight."

The split has put traditional Republican operatives such as Reince Priebus -- named Trump's chief of staff Sunday -- against more non-traditional influences such as Steve Bannon -- the alt-right leader of Breitbart News -- who will be Trump's chief strategist. A particular challenge is lack of clarity about the division of power among Priebus, Bannon and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who also has a key role in transition decisions. Another source tied to the transition described the resulting confusion as "buffoonery."

There's going to be a lot of things worth protesting in the coming years, which is why I think some people have picked the wrong battle by going into the streets over the election result, as well as those who think they can petition the Electoral College to not elect the president chosen by the people at the ballot box.  Or to be tossed, as with a wave of the hand.

Fool's errands (but remember, many of these people voted for Hillary Clinton because she is female.  And because she could win).

The divisions are being played out as Trump considers key appointments in the national security and diplomatic sectors, including secretary of state, with mainstream conservatives supporting John Bolton against Rudy Giuliani, who is seen as a loyalist to Trump.

On other key national security appointments, there is more agreement. Sen. Jeff Sessions is now the leading contender for attorney general, and is in the mix for secretary of defense as well, say multiple sources with knowledge of the transition.

Retired Lt. General Ron Burgess, former director of the DIA, is a leading contender for director of national intelligence. Retired General Michael Flynn is leading candidate for national security adviser.

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, the juniah Senatah from the Greht Steht of AlaGodDamnbama.

He's no Scaliawag!

No matter who gets what job, one description seems to fit the makeup of the short list: unconventional. And it highlights the dilemma faced by Trump, who is now torn between a campaign promise to shake up Washington and a need to build a national security team with policy experience.

The presence of so many political backers could signal that Trump values loyalty over experience and is keen to have people on board who share his worldview and are willing to depart from conventional wisdom.

The names conjure the fondest of memories of Walker Bush's rejects.

While more conventional picks had initially been rumored for State and Defense such as the head of the Council of Foreign Relations, Richard Haas, and George W. Bush's National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, most analysts are beginning to believe that the odds favor a more conventional choice.

One of the reasons for the non-traditional short-list is that many of the Republican Party's most senior national security experts denounced their presidential candidate during the campaign as too reckless to lead the nation safely, somewhat limiting the pool from which to draw.

But some foreign policy luminaries have suggested that Republican experts should put aside their differences and Brent Scowcroft, George H.W. Bush's national security adviser national security adviser and who backed Hillary Clinton for president, told attendees as a ceremony at the Aspen Strategy Group Monday that "If you're asked to serve, please do. This man needs help."

Don't we all.

Update: Here's what Benjamin in the comments is referring to.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance ruefully observes that Giant Meteor 2016 really did win the election, and has some trepidation about the fallout for the next four years.

Off the Kuff reminds us again that climate change is not going to be kind to Houston.

Socratic Gadfly analyzes the election and offers up a Clinton post-mortem, along with one for the Democratic Party. (He'll have a Green Party post-mortem later this week.)

South Texas Chisme passes along the news that a Border Patrol agent has been caught lying about narcotics confiscation. The war on drugs leads to public corruption.

A post-election to-do-list was posted on Election Day by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs, and one item on it -- stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- has already been checked off.

Neil at All People Have Value points out the distinctions between Trump's voters and Trump with respect to racism. AHPV is a part of NeilAquino.com.

The Lewisville Texan Journal editorialized against the Electoral College.

jobsanger says that the onus to fix the US economy is now squarely on the GOP.

And John Coby at Bay Area Houston is still a little sore at people who voted for Trump, and Egberto Willies is only slightly recovered from an election result nobody saw coming.

===============

More Texas news for columnists and bloggers from around the state!

The Dallas News notes Trump's stated intent to overturn the Supreme Court's long-established precedent on a woman's right to choose, and the Austin American Statesman sees the widening rural/urban divide exposed by the 2016 election.

The San Antonio Express-News finds a bright spot: after years of flux, the city's statehouse delegation is finally set for 2017's legislative session.

Better Texas Blog wonders what's next for Obamacare.

Texans for Public Justice has a new report (.pdf) about the Texas Railroad Commissioners and candidates who are awash in cash from the oil and gas industry.

Grits for Breakfast also shares a fresh synopsis from the Texas Public Policy Foundation abut more reforms still needed in the grand jury system.

The Texas Observer went to a rally for Austin's immigrant rights activists, and the message was "Don't Mess with Texas' families."

The Digital Heretic finds that liberals slamming evangelical support of Trump are exercising another shameful and myopic attempt to set themselves above those who elected him.

The Somervell County Salon found her county's election results and noted that she was one of 23 who voted for Jill Stein.  And DBC Green has some interesting statistics that compare TXRRC candidate Martina Salinas' votes with Stein's from various Texas counties.

Zachery Taylor thought Donna Brazile's lapses in ethics and integrity were problematic, but trivial in the grand scheme.

And in a show of post-election bipartisan magnanimity, CultureMap Houston was on the scene as Vice President Joe Biden spoke at MD Anderson's glittering 75th anniversary fete, and warmly praised former president George HW Bush.

Something we can expect from President Trump: the unexpected

"Oh shit; we won.  Now what?"  The dog chasing the car has caught it.

During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, President-elect Donald Trump offered an interesting answer about one of the most significant promises he made during his presidential campaign.

After stating that he might end up amending the Affordable Care Act instead of repealing and replacing it, Trump was asked about numerous issues and developments tied to his campaign platform. One thing that came up was that the question of whether Trump would follow through with his second debate promise and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton over her private email server.

This shifting with the winds is likely to continue.  You might recall I suggested his having Her prosecuted was something he would have to follow through on.  He could still change his mind back, but I'm out of the forecasting business w/r/t our new leader.

After Trump won on Election Night, his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway seemed noticeably ambiguous on whether Trump would do what he promised throughout the last months of his campaign. When asked about the matter himself, Trump only said this:

“It’s not something I’ve given a lot of thought, because I want to solve health care, jobs, border control, tax reform.”

Trump was also asked about his incendiary campaign rhetoric, which has now prompted protests of his victory across the country over the last few days. “I want a country that loves each other,” Trump said, but, when asked if he thinks he might have taken his campaign rhetoric too far, Trump answered with "No. I won."

Nobody's certain what he's going to say or do next.  But he sure tells it like it is.

Trump has already contradicted himself while addressing the protests. Trump first dismissed the demonstrators as professionals “incited by the media,” only to later praise them for their “passion.”

What he's thinking on any topic is based on the last person he talked to.  It appears that 25.5% of Americans has chosen a spoiled brat without much in the way of actual conviction to lead us.

(I'm not arguing against the Electoral College; I believe it should be revised to count states' votes as proportional to the winner in each Congressional district rather than winner-take-all.  And for the record, I do not support those who are petitioning and protesting for Electors to deny their oath on December 19th, when the College convenes in each state to elect the president.)

Yes, Trump is almost certainly going to be guided by the lousier angels of our country's nature in the GOP to their ends.  But if he keeps dropping campaign promises this quickly, he's bound to upset those who have installed him in the White House.  I suppose we'll have to wait for them to figure out that the joke's on them.  Unfortunately, we might be waiting a very long time for that to occur.

In the middle of composing this post, I found Echidne had said it all better, so go read her.  Also, Trump has chosen RNC head Rinse Penis as White House chief of staff and Breitbart scumbag Steve Bannon as counselor and chief strategist, calling them "equal partners".  I see Preibus as being of heavier import, which means steadying Congressional relations with the likes of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell will be more important than extremist ideology and throwing red meat to the goons.

Sunday Funnies

Racists, misogynists, and homophobes voted for Trump.

The sooner people realize that it's not blue vs. red but rich vs. poor, 

elitist vs. common man, the better off we'll be.

But not all Trump supporters are, as such.

If the headline were true, then everyone who voted for Obama (which I did in 2008, but not in 2012) would own his bombing seven countries, as well as the deaths of innocent women and children standing in drone bomb radius proximity to the suspected or "pre"-terrorists, his lack of will to get behind a public healthcare option when he had a Congressional majority in 2009-10, his "most transparent administration ever", and so on.  I reject that, and ultimately over the course of the years since have been forced to reject the Democratic Party for failing to represent me and my interests adequately.  That rejection by itself invalidates the premise of calling everyone who supported Trump a racist, et.al. which, as careful people already know, is false.

Calling them all racists is almost as bad as cheering on the protests of a legitimate election outcome when, if Clinton had won and the Trumpkins were in the streets ... you would be denouncing such as fascist and undemocratic.  But nobody in this space has accused the Hillbots of using logic effectively over the past 18 months.

An associated problem is how we are lately defining 'racist'.  Here, this explains that.

As we confront our nation’s election of a man who dwells blithely in stereotype and caricature, many of us are wondering what we are to do as responsible citizens faced with what many of us regard as a political and moral catastrophe. One thing someone opposed to Donald Trump’s unenlightened, “mean boy” perspective on women, nonwhites, the disabled, Muslims, and others might consider doing is to avoid imitating him.

It may seem perhaps the least likely thing an anti-Trumpian would do, but there’s a word we might consider tempering our usage of in the coming years, given that the way we use it opens us to certain charges involving kettles and the color black. I refer to the word “racist.”

The Martian anthropologist would recognize no difference between the way those accused of being witches were treated in 17th-century Salem, Mass., and the way many innocent people are being accused of “racism” today. Those appalled by the way people were tarred with the Communist label in the 1940s and 1950s must recognize that America has blundered into the same censorious mob mentality in assailing as “racists” just recently, people such as Ellen DeGeneres — for Photoshopping herself riding on Jamaican gold medal sprinter Usain Bolt’s back in celebration of his win — and Hillary Clinton — for referring to the black men terrorizing poor black neighborhoods as “superpredators” in describing plans for protecting people in those neighborhoods from such crime.

Or, many of us have for days been furiously dismissing Trump’s victory as the action of “racists.” However, many of the people who voted for Trump did so for populist reasons, amid which to them, Trump’s take on black people and women was unseemly, but still less of a priority than to most who voted for Hillary Clinton. Regret this though one may, do all of these people deserve to be casually tarred with the same “racist” label that we appropriately apply to David Duke and Donald Sterling?

The way we use the word “racism” has become so imprecise, abusive, and even antithetical to genuine activism that change is worth addressing. More to the point, it widens the cultural divide between the elites and the people too often breezily termed the ones “out there.”

Read on here, please, for the definition and the detours from the definition's application.

However, to understand that racism is real is not to pretend that humans will ever be perfect. If there is a way to eliminate implicit bias entirely, there are no studies showing that the way to do it is to tar and feather anyone displaying the slightest sign of any kind of insensitivity on the Internet for weeks. This new practice is more about self-congratulation than change, turning what began as an unprecedentedly mature understanding of the nature of racism into a grown-up version of tattletale-ing and cops and robbers. What happened to simply noting civilly that someone has made a mistake?

I also question another usage — take a deep breath — the hallowed term “societal racism.”

Read on for the associated "problematic habits of mind".

This can only play a part in the vague but pervasive notion nowadays that part of activism on behalf of people who need concrete assistance is primly patrolling people’s personal racist sentiments. We, as it were, think we must teach “society” not to be “a racist.” Thus it is thought more interesting to teach whites to acknowledge their “privilege” than to espouse reading programs that have been proven effective in teaching (black) kids how to read. Thus the last celebrity caught on tape saying something tacky about black people, because they have a face to hate on, is more interesting than answering poor women’s calls for easy access to long-acting reversible contraception in order to be able to plan when to have children. The war on drugs has been ruining black lives for decades — but only attracts serious attention from black activists when Michelle Alexander phrases it as “The New Jim Crow,” putting a Bull Connor face on it.

Read on for 'why nobody wants to talk about racism'.  Bold emphasis is mine.

The idea that America “doesn’t talk about” racism is absurd, and is actually a euphemism from people who feel that too few Americans talk about racism in what they would consider the right way. That is, they worry that not enough Americans consider racism to be a definitive obstacle to black advancement, and that too many are weary of people’s broaching the issue and dismiss it as unnecessarily “stirring that stuff up.”

To parse this, however, as “Nobody wants to talk about race” channels a kind of smugness. It implies that the people “out there” are actually closing their ears to any discussion at all of race and racism as if it were roughly 1947. This is unfair to a great many people who don’t deserve to be labeled Cro-Magnons for not agreeing with The Nation’s take on race, and also lends a portrait of America that sacrifices empiricism for self-congratulation. We can do better.

In our moment, my comments will elicit from many the question as to whether I consider Donald Trump a racist. The answer is yes — his feigning lack of familiarity with the opinions of David Duke and his explicit statements about black people’s purported laziness decide the case rather conclusively for me, and I am revolted that he will be our president for this and countless other reasons. However, the problem is treating Ellen DeGeneres, Hillary Clinton, or even Trump voters as if they deserve being discussed in the same vein as he does.

They don’t, and only the mission creep the word racism has undergone lends any impression otherwise. Meanwhile, the melodramatic quality in designating well-meaning people who slipped up a bit as “racists” is clear to most observers, and it dulls their receptiveness to genuine, serious accusations of bigotry. Rather, “racist” starts to come off as a mere angry bludgeon used by a certain set of people committed to moral condemnation and comfortable with shutting down exchange. A common idea among Blue Americans is that the people “out there” shirk the racist label out of what could only be naïve denial. That happens — but what if a lot of them get weary of being commanded to pretend that Ellen DeGeneres is a bigot?

Social justice is about being honest and outwardly focused. Our language must encourage us in that. The way we currently use the term racism does not.

TL;DR?  Here: Trump is a racist, a misogynist, and a homophobe.  Virtually all racists, misogynists and homophobes voted for him.  And some have been and are now using his upset victory to recruit.  But not all Trump voters are racists, misogynists, and homophobes.

It would be nice to see some stand up publicly and say that; to demonstrate their sincerity with honesty, conviction, and verifiable conduct, but in the meantime Clinton supporters should cease the blanket and false condemnation.  They lost an election they should have won on the basis of failures like that.  Why repeat past mistakes?  Until they can own their loss, we're going to keep hearing and seeing things like this.

Scattershooting other people's post-election BS

-- Let's get this out of the way first: anybody not named Michael Moore who tells you they saw this coming is telling you a story (unless, of course, they can produce a public opinion that appeared before July 21st of this year).  As you read -- or listen to the same talking heads on teevee who never saw it coming try to explain it -- keep in mind that the those with the most access to the best insider information lost 4 million pounds euros (thanks to DBC in the comments) betting on a Hillary win.  You should have no shame and you have lots of company if you are able to admit to being wrong.

-- And it would go a long way toward accepting the outcome (five stages of grief and all) if you could demonstrate some sign of being awake.  Here's another poor analogy.  Why would anyone choose to rebuild in a flood zone (aka the Democratic Party) when the hundred-year floods come every year now?  You're not a tree; move.  Take off the blinders and start thinking outside the two-party box.  All you have to lose is the next election, after all.

-- The Democratic Party should purge itself of charlatans like Donna Brazile, but we all know they won't.  If you're one of those people who simply cannot bear the thought of voting for someone besides a Democrat or a Republican; if you'd rather keep trying to reform one of them from within, here's a reform you can steal from the Greens.  It just passed in Maine.  Unfortunately you'll have to change the Texas Election Code (Title I, Chapter 2, Subchapter B; IANAL) first.  Several not-so-liberal sources advocated for ranked choice/instant runoff voting in the wake of Trump's winning the GOP nomination, so perhaps the Republicans in Austin can get on board.  As our attention turns to the forthcoming legislative session, let's ask our new state representatives -- and the old ones, too -- and see what they think.

Why did Hillary lose to Trump? Vol. III Final

Yesterday I blogged the post-election to-do list offered by David Swanson, but left off the "If Trump won" part.  Because, like everybody else, I simply didn't see it coming.  Oh, I made it plain a couple of times that if she did lose, it would be her own fault, just as it was Al Gore's in 2000, but I honestly didn't think it would happen.  Even though my 303 EC vote call was more conservative than many others -- I was still seeing people predicting 352 on Monday, after all -- the possibility of Her snatching defeat from the jaws of victory was simply too remote for me to give credence to.

But as the reality unfolded last night, I found myself less and less surprised, and with a lack of empathy to its political ramifications (not the social ones, mind you).

Some can say that's my white privilege.  I will say that it feels like my conscious uncoupling from the Democrats as the year passed has left me with a profound indifference to their plight.

Yes: Obamacare will be repealed, voting rights will be curtailed, a woman's right to choose will be eliminated as the Supreme Court veers hard right for another twenty years, Social Security will be privatized, cops will go on randomly killing people of color, the planet's ice will keep melting and its deserts will grow and its storms become more powerful.  The rich will get richer; the poor poorer.  And if I were advising Hillary this morning, I would recommend -- like Steve M -- she take a nice long vacation in a country without an extradition treaty with the United States, because I think Trump made a campaign promise that he has to at least try to keep about locking her up.

I care about the people who will be damaged by Trump's policies.  But I do not care about the Democrats who pretended to care about them, and went about the lousy business of coronating Hillary by any means necessary.  They earned their failure, and their reward is just.

Anyway, back to life.  Back to reality.

IF TRUMP WON

1. Build a movement that includes all the Democrats eager to get active.

2. Build a movement that includes a focus on rights of refugees / immigrants

3. Build a movement that resists racist violence at home.

4. Demand a swift end to NAFTA and NATO.

5. Oppose all the horrible nominations for high offices.

6. Break up the media cartel.

7. If win came through voter suppression, seek prosecution immediately.

8. If win came through fraudulent counting, launch massive campaign to compel Democrats to admit it and protest it.

Notice how little it differs from Clinton's list.

Harris County, Texas is shining, with its Democrats having won most of their races and looking nice and bluish-purple.  City council races will gear up very shortly; the HGLBT Caucus will soon start questioning candidates and making endorsements before spring arrives.  It'll be another banner year for the neoliberals.  Speaking of them, you should read this from Thomas Frank at The Guardian about who's at fault for last night's debacle.  Here's a taste, and don't forget to substitute the word 'neoliberal' for 'liberal'.

(Trump) has run one of the lousiest presidential campaigns ever. In saying so I am not referring to his much-criticized business practices or his vulgar remarks about women. I mean this in a purely technical sense: this man fractured his own party. His convention was a fiasco. He had no ground game to speak of. The list of celebrities and pundits and surrogates taking his side on the campaign trail was extremely short. He needlessly offended countless groups of people: women, Hispanics, Muslims, disabled people, mothers of crying babies, the Bush family, and George Will-style conservatives, among others. He even lost Glenn Beck, for pete’s sake.

And now he is going to be president of the United States. The woman we were constantly assured was the best-qualified candidate of all time has lost to the least qualified candidate of all time. Everyone who was anyone rallied around her, and it didn’t make any difference. The man too incompetent to insult is now going to sit in the Oval Office, whence he will hand down his beauty-contest verdicts on the grandees and sages of the old order.

Maybe there is a bright side to a Trump victory. After all, there was a reason that tens of millions of good people voted for him yesterday, and maybe he will live up to their high regard for him. He has pledged to “drain the swamp” of DC corruption, and maybe he will sincerely tackle that task. He has promised to renegotiate NAFTA, and maybe that, too, will finally come to pass. Maybe he’ll win so much for us (as he once predicted in a campaign speech) that we’ll get sick of winning.

But let’s not deceive ourselves. We aren’t going to win anything. What happened on Tuesday is a disaster, both for liberalism and for the world. As President Trump goes about settling scores with his former rivals, picking fights with other countries, and unleashing his special deportation police on this group and that, we will all soon have cause to regret his ascension to the presidential throne.

What we need to focus on now is the obvious question: what the hell went wrong? What species of cluelessness guided our Democratic leaders as they went about losing what they told us was the most important election of our lifetimes?

Start at the top. Why, oh why, did it have to be Hillary Clinton? Yes, she has an impressive resume; yes, she worked hard on the campaign trail. But she was exactly the wrong candidate for this angry, populist moment. An insider when the country was screaming for an outsider. A technocrat who offered fine-tuning when the country wanted to take a sledgehammer to the machine.

She was the Democratic candidate because it was her turn and because a Clinton victory would have moved every Democrat in Washington up a notch. Whether or not she would win was always a secondary matter, something that was taken for granted. Had winning been the party’s number one concern, several more suitable candidates were ready to go. There was Joe Biden, with his powerful plainspoken style, and there was Bernie Sanders, an inspiring and largely scandal-free figure. Each of them would probably have beaten Trump, but neither of them would really have served the interests of the party insiders.

And so Democratic leaders made Hillary their candidate even though they knew about her closeness to the banks, her fondness for war, and her unique vulnerability on the trade issue – each of which Trump exploited to the fullest. They chose Hillary even though they knew about her private email server. They chose her even though some of those who studied the Clinton Foundation suspected it was a sketchy proposition.

To try to put over such a nominee while screaming that the Republican is a rightwing monster is to court disbelief. If Trump is a fascist, as liberals often said, Democrats should have put in their strongest player to stop him, not a party hack they’d chosen because it was her turn. Choosing her indicated either that Democrats didn’t mean what they said about Trump’s riskiness, that their opportunism took precedence over the country’s well-being, or maybe both.

Maybe all those #BernieorBust people meant it.  Maybe that #DemExit thing in the wake of the convention was, you know, a thing.

Blame the media, blame the polling, blame James Comey (who is surely not going to be fired now), blame the Greens and the Libertarians for taking a combined four percent of the total everywhere I looked.  Just don't blame yourselves.  Or Hillary.  Because that might compel some self-reflection.

Clinton’s supporters among the media didn’t help much, either. It always struck me as strange that such an unpopular candidate enjoyed such robust and unanimous endorsements from the editorial and opinion pages of the nation’s papers, but it was the quality of the media’s enthusiasm that really harmed her. With the same arguments repeated over and over, two or three times a day, with nuance and contrary views all deleted, the act of opening the newspaper started to feel like tuning in to a Cold War propaganda station. Here’s what it consisted of:

• Hillary was virtually without flaws. She was a peerless leader clad in saintly white, a super-lawyer, a caring benefactor of women and children, a warrior for social justice.

• Her scandals weren’t real.

• The economy was doing well / America was already great.

• Working-class people weren’t supporting Trump.

• And if they were, it was only because they were botched humans. Racism was the only conceivable reason for lining up with the Republican candidate.

Turns out it was the economy, stupid.  Again.  Specifically it was all those Rust Belt hardhats who bought into Trump's line of blaming job losses on free trade.  The polling somehow missed it.  Maybe those guys don't have landlines any more after being unemployed for so long.

Put this question in slightly more general terms and you are confronting the single great mystery of 2016. The American white-collar class just spent the year rallying around a super-competent professional (who really wasn’t all that competent) and either insulting or silencing everyone who didn’t accept their assessment. And then they lost. Maybe it’s time to consider whether there’s something about shrill self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns people away.

The even larger problem is that there is a kind of chronic complacency that has been rotting American liberalism for years, a hubris that tells Democrats they need do nothing different, they need deliver nothing really to anyone – except their friends on the Google jet and those nice people at Goldman. The rest of us are treated as though we have nowhere else to go and no role to play except to vote enthusiastically on the grounds that these Democrats are the “last thing standing” between us and the end of the world. It is a liberalism of the rich, it has failed the middle class, and now it has failed on its own terms of electability.

Clinton Democrats failed to fucking get it, every day of the year and much of last year, and when I finally bailed on them it was for good.  They're still curled up in a fetal position, hung over emotionally if not from the drowning of their sorrows.  There will be much reckoning, some recriminations, probably no atonement.  A few are, shockingly, presumptuous enough to say they knew it would happen all along.

Among my blogging brethren, Neil and Egberto were so motivated by their fear and hatred, respectively, of Trump to abandon the progressive cause after Bernie Sanders quit on it, too, and pushed all in on Hillary.  Fear is a loser's motivation; it almost always leaves you holding your little sack of nightmares even after you've dodged its worst blow.  I can't feel sorry for people who are controlled by the monsters under their bed.  Hate is even worse because it makes you no better than those who supported Trump for their abhorrence of Clinton.  Kuff is stunned speechless, Campos stunned but unfortunately not speechless, and Dos -- despite having posted more about Tejano music than politics over the last six months -- asserts, on the morning after, that he saw most of it coming.  And then congratulates former clients on their victories.  And their defeats.  (Folks, that's called hackery, and I'm forced to avoid it in the future.)

Most of the Texas so-called Progressive Alliance gassed on this election from the get-go, but fellow member and non-Democrat Gadfly nailed it.  Click that link and take note of the embedded Tweet, which shows that more Democrats voted for Trump than Republicans did for Hillary.  There goes your blame game out the window, neoliberals.  If you're not looking for your pain/anxiety meds yet, try on Ted Rall.

It'd be called tough love if I still loved you, Democrats.  But you fucked that up too.

Shock and awe

This egg on my face won't seem to come off.  But this isn't about me.

Yeah, the polls were wayyyy wrong and the election really was rigged by the outrage of white people living in the exurbs and rural parts of the country -- but especially in the Rust Belt, Great Lakes states -- that went unmeasured.  Then again, if you're at an Adele concert celebrating your 69th birthday in Miami on October 26 instead of campaigning in Flint, or Green Bay, or Allentown -- you might have some recriminations to take ownership of.

While the outcomes in Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire and Arizona are still being determined, Trump secured at least 279 electoral votes — smashing through Hillary Clinton’s blue wall in the midwest by taking Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, as well as winning Florida, North Carolina and Ohio — to win his long-shot bid for the presidency.

Not a single poll ever showed Trump winning in Wisconsin. Ever. https://t.co/hI49J0OEuB

— Natalie Jackson (@nataliemjb) November 9, 2016

This election saw the two lead candidates fail to resonate with many young voters. Based on the CNN exit poll, 9 percent of voters ages 18-29 went for third parties.

Update (with some revisions): The kids own the future we leave them, and they're inheriting a terrible mess.  And they don't seem to think  that Democrats or Republicans are the best way to get it cleaned up.  Stop and think for a moment what the results might look like -- and what we might be talking about today -- had every age demographic cast 9 percent of its vote for a third party.

In contrast, Texas Democrats had a raft of good news, especially in Harris County, where their voters swept out the Republican trash (and, some of those judges, I assume, were good people).  But the Reds continue to have home court advantage statewide.

Trump carried Texas by a 52-43 margin, stunning when you consider all that hee-haw about Her winning it a few weeks ago (what was it that happened less than two weeks ago, again?) and Republicans held onto all the bench seats on the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals, and also the SBOE.  Straight-ticket voting remains a strong, stupid, lazy way to go in this state.

The regional Appeals Court Democrats came up just short, by less than a 5-point margin generally in each race.  The outlying suburban and rural counties overcame the urban blue strength, Harris' in the case of the First and the Fourteenth.  Leticia Hinojosa in the 13th and Irene Rios in the 4th were the exceptions to this rule.  And in the only real contest in Texas for a congressional seat, Pete Gallego couldn't beat Will Hurd.

The Democrats locally benefited from the one-button selection, with Clinton sweeping Harris and Trump by twelve points, 54-42, and the downballot slate of county executives and judicials prevailing.  Kim Ogg is the new DA, Ed Gonzalez the new sheriff, and Ann Harris Bennett -- the only countywide Democrat trailing after the early vote was counted -- pulled ahead late in the evening.  Dan Patrick's son lost his race, the 177th District Court.

And the HISD recapture initiative -- explained best here for novices -- was knocked down hard.

Voter participation on Election Day in Harris County did not meet high expectations, but followed the long pattern of being bluer than the EV.  Texas will still be last or next-to-last in turnout compared with the other 49 states.

So ... what of a President Trump?  That's next.

Post-election to-do list

Mad props to David Swanson at Washington's Blog for this.

1. Stop the efforts to ram through the Trans-Pacific Partnership during the lame duck.
2. Stop the efforts to ram through a supplemental war spending bill for assorted future wars during the lame duck.
3. Stop the efforts to repeal the right to sue Saudi Arabia and other nations for their wars and lesser acts of terrorism during the lame duck.
4. Build a nonpartisan movement to effect real change.
5. Ban bribery, fund elections, make registration automatic, make election day a holiday, end gerrymandering, eliminate the electoral college, create the right to vote, create public hand counting of paper ballots at every polling place, create ranked choice voting.
6. End the wars, end the weapons dealing, close the bases, and shift military spending to human and environmental needs.
7. Tax billionaires.
8. End mass incarceration and the death penalty and the militarization of police.
9. Create single-payer healthcare.
10. Support the rule of law, diplomacy, and aid.
11. Invest in serious effort to avoid climate catastrophe.
12. Apologize to the world for having elected President Clinton or Trump.

That's a heavy lift.  I might settle low, for Hillbots being able to stop Her from starting a war with Iran, or Russia, or North Korea or China.  Maybe they could convince Her to hold it to seven, the number of countries Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama has bombed.  Since people like me apparently don't have the "moral currency" to demand any change from Her.

Once again, your progressive independent voting card for 2016.  It contains mostly Greens at the top of the Harris County ballot for statewide and regional offices and Democrats at the county and state legislative level.  It contains no Republicans or Libertarians.  Many Democrats and independent progressives chose to vote for a Libertarian for the Texas Railroad Commission, but Gadfly shot that guy down in flames.

If Trump wins ... never mind.  He won't.

After Clinton declares victory tonight:

1. Build a movement that includes all the Republicans and Libertarians eager to get active.
2. Build a movement that includes a focus on rights of refugees / immigrants
3. Build a movement that resists racist violence directed at nations abroad.
4. Demand serious action on climate change.
5. Oppose all the horrible nominations for high offices.
6. Break up the media cartel.
7. If win came through fraudulent counting, support Trump’s noisy denunciation, and if it did not, then reject Trump’s noisy denunciation.

If Jill Stein had been able to win:

1. Support the independent media that made this possible.
2. Support all the wonderful nominees for higher office.
3. Help people in other countries turn their disastrous political systems around too.
4. Volunteer for public service.

And remember: rehearsals start tomorrow morning for Houston's municipal elections in 2017, the midterm and Texas elections in 2018, and ...

Electoral College prediction: Clinton 303, Trump 233

As conservative as I can get it to be.

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Note again that in this forecast, as with last Wednesday's, the Buckeyes belong to Trump.  Also North Carolina and New Hampshire.  Further, I don't think the Beehive State winds up going for Evan McMullin.  Florida and Nevada don't seem all that battleground-ey to me any longer, but if Trump won them and everything else I've given him here, the Electoral College would be tied, 268 apiece, and the House of Representatives could very well elect McMullin president on a Grand Bargain, and the Senate would/could pick Tim Kaine as VP.  This very narrow (and slightly bizarre) path to a still-not-Trump presidency was one of the things motivating Nate Silver and Huffington Post DC bureau chief Ryan Grim having a geek fight on Twitter over the weekend.  More on that from Vox.

So let's see what I get right or wrong tomorrow evening.

Update: My call in NH has the greatest chance of being off, as the very latest of numbers suggest it might be safe for Clinton.  If that's the case, then Gadfly and I are only one electoral vote (in Nebraska or Maine) apart, at 307-229.

Larry Sabato has a 322-216 victory for Clinton and a 50-50 Senate.

My states to watch tomorrow evening are New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Florida.  If they all go blue, you can start celebrating early.  Like Chuck, I'd like to see some gains in the Texas House, a clean sweep at the Harris County courthouse, and Pete Gallego taking his Congressional seat back (with some indication that the Latin@ vote that carries him this year can help hold it in two years.  In other words a fat margin, something like 55-45 or greater).

I'll also look for that 5% nationally and statewide for Jill Stein and the Green Party, but my hopes have been somewhat dimmed, with all of the vigorous and hostile pushback I've seen from Democrats all year but particularly in these last few weeks.  I am certain I will have more to say about that later in the week, but I'll wait for the numbers to come in.