Democrats? Acting more aggressively? Probably a pipe dream, but worth a post at least.

This is a slightly rosy assessment of policy options, especially in imagining there'll be a transition as we've known it; again tonight Donald Trump trolled the country about not going away peacefully. 

And all my white Republican friends were silent like tombs. I believe categorically that what we're witnessing at the present time is (a) the cancerous decay of late-stage capitalism; (b) the equally malignant pathology of decadent capital accumulation; and (c) a fanatical determination on the part of white America to remain the dominant caste, come what may.

I've no firm idea how I can help those in need, given that the bulk of you insist on identifying with the abysmal, corrupt two-party system.

But I'm open to suggestions.

Republicans will replace RBG but Democrats hold the trump cards – no, really, by David Litt (The Guardian)

Progressives should not worry about what will happen if they mimic McConnell’s constitutional hardball. Their representatives need only act with a little less restraint

... For one thing, America’s political institutions are currently biased – in many cases quite aggressively – in favor of conservatives. Restrictive voting laws make casting a ballot disproportionately difficult for lower-income, non-white and young Americans. Unprecedented gerrymandering gives Republicans a built-in advantage in the race for the House, and according to FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, the Senate’s bias toward rural states makes the chamber about seven points redder than the nation as a whole. Thanks to the electoral college, two of the past five presidential elections have been won by Republicans who lost the popular vote – one reason why even before Justice Ginsburg’s death, 15 of the past 19 supreme court justices were appointed by GOP presidents.

The conservative movement, in other words, already had it pretty good. The average American disagrees with Republican orthodoxy on every major issue: healthcare, climate change, gun violence, immigration, taxes, Covid response. Yet thanks to the biases embedded in the American political process, Republicans have not just remained viable, but secured extraordinary amounts of power. We can’t know for certain who would benefit from upending the status quo that existed at the time of Justice Ginsburg’s passing – but we do know which party has the most to lose.

Collaboration: "Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?"

Wolfgang Leonhard and Markus Wolf were from similar backgrounds. Both were privileged members of the East German Communist ruling class. Why did Leonhard defect to the West, while Wolf stayed to climb the ladder as the East German spy chief?

Republicans Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham both vociferously opposed Donald Trump in 2016. Why did Romney vote to find Trump guilty in his impeachment trial, while Graham has become perhaps The Donald's ranking bootlicker?

Collaboration versus dissent; how do they occur? The author explores the motivations involved, concentrating on collaboration. It's a long read and an extremely worthwhile use of your time. Thanks to FT for the nudge.

History Will Judge the Complicit, by Anne Appleaum (The Atlantic)

#FreeDistrict3: Is a two-party political duopoly "fit for the purpose of representing and reconciling the diversity of opinions in a modern and complex country?"

This article is about the Conservative and Labour parties in Great Britain, but the parallels with Republicans and Democrats in America are obvious. Particularly at the grassroots level, why are parties even necessary?

#FreeDistrict3 

Why the sickly ugly sisters of our politics deserve to suffer the splits, by Andrew Rawnsley (The Guardian)

Once broad churches, both the Tory and Labour parties have become increasingly sectarian. Breakaways will be the result

If they did not exist, would we invent them? Given the chance to start from scratch, would Britain regard the Conservative and Labour parties, the two old and ugly sisters of our politics, as the best we can do? Are they fit for the purpose of representing and reconciling the diversity of opinions in a modern and complex country? And for offering it a choice of decent governments? A growing number of us have been saying not and for a long time.

Even before Brexit split both parties and scrambled voter allegiances, much of the electorate was expressing its dissatisfaction with the big two. The Tories have not won a solid parliamentary majority since 1987. The last Labour leader who was not called Tony Blair to secure a healthy Commons majority was Harold Wilson in 1966.

The number of voters who enthusiastically identify as red or blue has been in long-term decline. Party membership has also been shrivelling. The Tories, who once boasted that they were a million strong, bump along at around 100,000. Labour enjoyed a trend-defying surge in its membership during the Ohhh Jeremy Corbyn phase of his leadership, but that is going downhill as the magical uncle turns out not to be so wondrous after all.

It is true that the big two can still gather up a lot of votes. After decades of decline in their combined vote share, it blipped up at the last election. But I don’t think that truly indicated renewed enthusiasm for either of them. It was a false positive induced by an electoral system that compels many voters to make a forced choice between the unappetising and the inedible. It doesn’t mean that these nose-holding voters like what’s put before them. The current choice on offer is so disdained that, when pollsters ask who would make best prime minister, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are regularly beaten into second and third place by Neither. More than half of the electorate say their views are not properly represented by the existing political parties.

Many politicians can’t stand the parties they represent. Some actively and publicly rage about what has become of them. I cannot recall a period in my lifetime when so many MPs have expressed so much disgust and despair with the state of their own parties. For every Tory who expresses agony about what Brexit has done to the party they used to love, there is a Labour MP voicing anguish about what Corbynism has done to the party that they have spent a lifetime serving ...

Republican women over the age of 65 are most hostile to #MeToo.

Odd that we must rely on a razor company to make a statement of principle, but on the other hand, apart from Christmas presents, I'm guessing few Republican women over the age of 65 are buying Gillette razors.

What group of people is most hostile to #MeToo? (The Economist)

Republican women over the age of 65

No group has swung against #MeToo more than older women who voted for Donald Trump. They have gone from barely worrying about false accusations of sexual assault, with only 8% agreeing in November 2017 that these were worse than unreported assaults, to 42% saying so, according to two polls conducted for The Economist by YouGov, a pollster. They are now the most likely group to agree that a man who harassed a woman 20 years ago should keep his job, and that a woman who complains about harassment causes more problems than she solves.

Two things stand out. First, even though Americans on average, and Republicans in particular, have become more negative about #MeToo over the past year, the change among this particular group is spectacular (chart). Second, a generational gap now yawns between Republican women who are over 65 and those under 30, the cohort least hostile to #MeToo within the Republican Party.

The conclusion is unexpectedly brutal.

One explanation of this partisan gap is that it reflects a difference of opinion over what true feminism is. Some conservative women resist what they see as special treatment for women as vaguely patronising. There is another explanation, too. Ms Pierotti Lim of Republican Women for Progress remembers campaigning in Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016 and being astonished by the number of older women who were afraid to even talk to her and who let their (Republican-voting) husbands fill in their ballots.

George Will pegs Jeff Gahan dead to rights: "A Vesuvius of mendacities." Or maybe it was Trump.

Be careful.

Because:

But at least Megarian got an answer.

I've always respected George Will for his writing style and erudition. I appreciate the argument he's making here, and I'd like to believe it matters. Ultimately it does not. Part of it is that Donald Trump's core supporters don't concern themselves with Will, whether they know who he is or not.

Far larger in importance is the irrelevance of his argument. The majority of our current issues as a nation at present pertain to symptoms of diseased capitalism.

My guess?

Will's just fine with that.

Vote against the GOP this November, by George F. Will (Washington Post)

Amid the carnage of Republican misrule in Washington, there is this glimmer of good news: The family-shredding policy along the southern border, the most telegenic recent example of misrule, clarified something. Occurring less than 140 days before elections that can reshape Congress, the policy has given independents and temperate Republicans — these are probably expanding and contracting cohorts, respectively — fresh if redundant evidence for the principle by which they should vote.

The principle: The congressional Republican caucuses must be substantially reduced. So substantially that their remnants, reduced to minorities, will be stripped of the Constitution’s Article I powers that they have been too invertebrate to use against the current wielder of Article II powers. They will then have leisure time to wonder why they worked so hard to achieve membership in a legislature whose unexercised muscles have atrophied because of people like them.

Consider the melancholy example of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), who wagered his dignity on the patently false proposition that it is possible to have sustained transactions with today’s president, this Vesuvius of mendacities, without being degraded. In Robert Bolt’s play “A Man for All Seasons,” Thomas More, having angered Henry VIII, is on trial for his life. When Richard Rich, whom More had once mentored, commits perjury against More in exchange for the office of attorney general for Wales, More says: “Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . But for Wales!” Ryan traded his political soul for . . . a tax cut. He who formerly spoke truths about the accelerating crisis of the entitlement system lost everything in the service of a president pledged to preserve the unsustainable status quo.

Ryan and many other Republicans have become the president’s poodles, not because James Madison’s system has failed but because today’s abject careerists have failed to be worthy of it ...

The nature of the diversion: "Noam Chomsky Diagnoses the Trump Era."

It's a long interview, and I've chosen to excerpt only the first question, and to underline a few key passages. In large measure, Chomsky articulates reality in a way that informs my daily perusal of headlines, most of them idiotic.

In fact, this is what I'm thinking as I read these headlines: This is idiotic, and you're missing the point.

My overall position is that the main "problem" probably isn't the topic you're currently screaming about. Rather, it's the escalating accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of the very few, as opposed to the many. You are marginalized by this fact on a daily basis, and yet we're arguing about proper respect for the flag.

And: The very few remain delighted that you choose to eviscerate one another over diversions, rather than seek balance.

Noam Chomsky Diagnoses the Trump Era, by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian (The Nation)

The president has abetted the collapse of a decaying system; Chomsky explains how.

David Barsamian: You have spoken about the difference between Trump’s buffoonery, which gets endlessly covered by the media, and the actual policies he is striving to enact, which receive less attention. Do you think he has any coherent economic, political, or international policy goals? What has Trump actually managed to accomplish in his first months in office?

Noam Chomsky: There is a diversionary process under way, perhaps just a natural result of the propensities of the figure at center stage and those doing the work behind the curtains.

At one level, Trump’s antics ensure that attention is focused on him, and it makes little difference how. Who even remembers the charge that millions of illegal immigrants voted for Clinton, depriving the pathetic little man of his Grand Victory? Or the accusation that Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower? The claims themselves don’t really matter. It’s enough that attention is diverted from what is happening in the background. There, out of the spotlight, the most savage fringe of the Republican Party is carefully advancing policies designed to enrich their true constituency: the Constituency of private power and wealth, “the masters of mankind,” to borrow Adam Smith’s phrase.

These policies will harm the irrelevant general population and devastate future generations, but that’s of little concern to the Republicans. They’ve been trying to push through similarly destructive legislation for years. Paul Ryan, for example, has long been advertising his ideal of virtually eliminating the federal government, apart from service to the Constituency—though in the past he’s wrapped his proposals in spreadsheets so they would look wonkish to commentators. Now, while attention is focused on Trump’s latest mad doings, the Ryan gang and the executive branch are ramming through legislation and orders that undermine workers’ rights, cripple consumer protections, and severely harm rural communities. They seek to devastate health programs, revoking the taxes that pay for them in order to further enrich their constituency, and to eviscerate the Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed some much-needed constraints on the predatory financial system that grew during the neoliberal period.

That’s just a sample of how the wrecking ball is being wielded by the newly empowered Republican Party. Indeed, it is no longer a political party in the traditional sense. Conservative political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have described it more accurately as a “radical insurgency,” one that has abandoned normal parliamentary politics.

Much of this is being carried out stealthily, in closed sessions, with as little public notice as possible. Other Republican policies are more open, such as pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, thereby isolating the US as a pariah state that refuses to participate in international efforts to confront looming environmental disaster. Even worse, they are intent on maximizing the use of fossil fuels, including the most dangerous; dismantling regulations; and sharply cutting back on research and development of alternative energy sources, which will soon be necessary for decent survival.

The reasons behind the policies are a mix. Some are simply service to the Constituency. Others are of little concern to the “masters of mankind” but are designed to hold on to segments of the voting bloc that the Republicans have cobbled together, since Republican policies have shifted so far to the right that their actual proposals would not attract voters. For example, terminating support for family planning is not service to the Constituency. Indeed, that group may mostly support family planning. But terminating that support appeals to the evangelical Christian base—voters who close their eyes to the fact that they are effectively advocating more unwanted pregnancies and, therefore, increasing the frequency of resort to abortion, under harmful and even lethal conditions.

Not all of the damage can be blamed on the con man who is nominally in charge, on his outlandish appointments, or on the congressional forces he has unleashed. Some of the most dangerous developments under Trump trace back to Obama initiatives—initiatives passed, to be sure, under pressure from the Republican Congress.

The most dangerous of these has barely been reported. A very important study in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published in March 2017, reveals that the Obama nuclear-weapons-modernization program has increased “the overall killing power of existing US ballistic missile forces by a factor of roughly three—and it creates exactly what one would expect to see, if a nuclear-armed state were planning to have the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.” As the analysts point out, this new capacity undermines the strategic stability on which human survival depends. And the chilling record of near disaster and reckless behavior of leaders in past years only shows how fragile our survival is. Now this program is being carried forward under Trump. These developments, along with the threat of environmental disaster, cast a dark shadow over everything else—and are barely discussed, while attention is claimed by the performances of the showman at center stage.

Whether Trump has any idea what he and his henchmen are up to is not clear. Perhaps he is completely authentic: an ignorant, thin-skinned megalomaniac whose only ideology is himself. But what is happening under the rule of the extremist wing of the Republican organization is all too plain.

Taibbi: "Democrats in general have lost the ability (and the inclination) to reach out to the entire population."

Fantasy Island for local DemoDisneyDixiecrats.

You know, the sort of superheroes who engineer secretive public housing putsches.

Jefferson-Jackson Dinner Will Be Renamed, by Ashley Southall (NYT; 8 Aug 2015)

An Iowa Democratic Party panel voted on Saturday to change the name of the popular Jefferson-Jackson dinner, joining several state parties in distancing itself from the legacies of the two former slave-owning presidents for whom the dinner is named.

Not here in Floyd County, and not on Mr. Sticky's (or Jeff Gahan's) watch. Meanwhile ...

The Democrats Need a New Message, by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone)

After another demoralizing loss to a monstrous candidate, Democrats need a reboot

How low do you have to sink to lose an election in this country? Republicans have been trying to answer that question for years. But they've been unable to find out, because Democrats somehow keep failing to beat them ...

... The electoral results last November have been repeated enough that most people in politics know them by heart. Republicans now control 68 state legislative chambers, while Democrats only control 31. Republicans flipped three more governors' seats last year and now control an incredible 33 of those offices. Since 2008, when Barack Obama first took office, Republicans have gained somewhere around 900 to 1,000 seats overall.

There are a lot of reasons for this. But there's no way to spin some of these numbers in a way that doesn't speak to the awesome unpopularity of the blue party. A recent series of Gallup polls is the most frightening example.

Unsurprisingly, the disintegrating Trump bears a historically low approval rating. But polls also show that the Democratic Party has lost five percentage points in its own approval rating dating back to November, when it was at 45 percent.

The Democrats are now hovering around 40 percent, just a hair over the Trump-tarnished Republicans, at 39 percent. Similar surveys have shown that despite the near daily barrage of news stories pegging the president as a bumbling incompetent in the employ of a hostile foreign power, Trump, incredibly, would still beat Hillary Clinton in a rematch today, and perhaps even by a larger margin than before.

If you look in the press for explanations for news items like this, you will find a lot of them. Democrats may have some difficulty winning elections, but they've become quite adept at explaining their losses.

As an addendum, NAC has been unable to confirm whether New Albany Mayor Jeff M. Gahan or anyone working in the city's administration is under federal investigation or indictment for corruption, bribery or racketeering. It is standard policy of the U.S. Justice Department to refuse to confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of investigations or subjects of investigations. A similar policy exists at the F.B.I.

"President Mike Pence is proud to serve the white and Christian population of America for more than two decades."

As I've been saying ... When the GOP elders get what they want from Trump, he's gone -- and with him the blame.

They're happier with Pence, anyway.

President Mike Pence? Dems should be 'careful what they wish for', experts say, by David Smith (The Guardian)

The idea of Pence taking over from Donald Trump has lately gained traction, but his conservatism and his likely effectiveness pose a threat to the left

Visitors to officialmikepence.com discover an elaborate spoof website for “Mike Pence: the 46th president of the United States”. A banner at the top asks: “Are you a homosexual? If yes, click here.” (It links to hell.com.) A campaign logo refers to Pence and his running mate Christ with crosses and stars. “President Mike Pence is proud to serve the white and Christian population of America for more than two decades,” the page says.

SNIP

“You might now have created your worst problem because that might end up being a very productive president. You also are putting somebody in who is very socially conservative. So whereas Donald Trump talks about social conservatism but basically he can be talked out of almost anything by his daughter, Mike Pence actually walks the walk.”

Younge: "If the liberal left is going to challenge (Trump) effectively in the coming years, then it must learn the lessons of its defeat."

Let's view this sentence in bold.

"The Democratic machine does not need a tune-up—it needs a complete overhaul."

Has he quit yet?

Donald Trump Is Not Too Big to Fail, by Gary Younge (The Nation)

His victory illustrates the weakness of the Republican Party, not its strength. And despite his braggadocio, he’s vulnerable.

... Fortunately, while the right is emboldened, it is not ascendant. Trump’s victory illustrates the weakness of the Republican Party’s leaders, not their strength. They wanted anyone else, and now they are unable to control him. He openly derides and baits them. Notwithstanding his braggadocio, he remains vulnerable. His agenda is no more unassailable than his victory was unfathomable.

But there is nothing inevitable about his demise. If the liberal left is going to challenge him effectively in the coming years, then it must learn the lessons of its defeat. The Democratic machine does not need a tune-up—it needs a complete overhaul. For far too long, it has been too arrogant, complacent, or contemptuous (and sometimes all three) to make an argument beyond “at least we’re not them.”

The reason why Trump was able to attain power is not because he had better ideas, made better arguments, had greater organizational capacity, or even spent more money. The reason he was able to win was because those charged with opposing him offered not hope, but the status quo, in a country where inequality between rich and poor and black and white is growing. He won because his opponents believed their own PR. Hubris sent them to Arizona when humility would have kept them in Pennsylvania. He won because, emerging from a period of economic crisis, the multimillionaire businessman whose catchphrase is “You’re fired” looked less like a representative of the establishment than the liberal who claimed she represented the interests of the poor. If he is stupid, then what are we?

Democrats seeking an alternative to Trump: "You won’t have a choice but to try something new."

Trump-ready balconies?

"Whatever the cause, something is different here. One age is dying, and another is rearing its head."

Dan O'Sullivan writes like the love child of Alexander Cockburn and Hunter S. Thompson, and the result may be the single best summary I've yet seen of the recently concluded presidential election, as well as a thoughtful (and delightfully florid) assessment of where we are are, as a nation, right now.

Vengeance Is Mine, at Jacobin

Chaos reigns … fascist stooge finds his balcony … the resistible rise of Donald Trump … bomb crater America finds its Dauphin … Hillary Clinton: 10.0 Richter scale failure … the pinko revolt begins … digging ourselves out of the collapsed gold mine

(SNIP) The results will be radioactive. There is a perverse and hideous gift here. While the madness of a Clinton interregnum would’ve proceeded according to standard operating procedure, a banal yet sickening continuity with that of Obama and Bush, the colossal weirdness of Trump’s movement does represent something of an innovation. Frankly, Trump is too fucked up to ignore, and his core gang of freaks will make this country an extravagantly worse place.

You won’t have a choice but to try something new.

So, what is to be done?

For one thing, face the "alt-right" for what it really is, take a lesson from Bernie Sanders, and promote a genuinely alternative vision.

They may be loud and sinister; they may harass and impugn and assault those weaker than them. They are also cowards, emboldened by their tangerine stalking horse. I know them; they are young losers who crave the attention otherwise denied in life. Their will is as weak as their leader. Stop giving them for free what they dream of all day long.

No more of this narrow view of either wooing or abandoning “the white working class,” either. The zero-sum, emotionally bankrupt thinking on race that has dominated this country — one in which African-Americans see their voting rights stolen, while white Americans are incited against “welfare cheats” and other euphemistic scapegoats while further immiserated themselves — must be smashed. It is time to defend and support the entire working class — the black working class, the Latino working class, indigenous Americans, and the white working class.

There is no need to pick and choose between helping one group to the detriment of another; an alternative vision will answer Trump’s bigotry with an abiding antiracism, a radical compassion capable of freeing all Americans from the indignities of life today in this country.

There can be no dealing with this man. Bernie has lain down a gauntlet Trump cannot meet. Now, every day, and in every way, it is time to say “go fuck yourself” to Trump and his ilk, until the weapons capable of destroying him can be perfected.

Trump is, for all his monstrosity, just a symptom; as daunting as the challenge of frustrating Trump and the GOP’s agenda at every turn will be, of even graver importance will be constructing an alternative vision capable of contending with the crisis of American life.

It is impossible to select meaningful excerpts from an essay of this length, so please click through and read it all. You too, Adam.

Weekend history lesson: "Are the Republicans Going the Way of the Whigs?"

Just imagine printing your own ballots ...

Are the Republicans Going the Way of the Whigs?, by Michael F. Holt (Center for Politics)

... Does the Whigs’ sorry story provide a template pointing to what might become the GOP’s fate now?

There are striking similarities, but also some crucial differences, between what befell the Whigs in the 1850s and Republicans’ fractious situation today.

"Trump can't win. Our national experiment can't end because one aging narcissist got bored of sex and food."

Long live Matt Taibbi: It's hard to imagine a better summary.

The Fury and Failure of Donald Trump, by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone)

Win, lose or drop out, the Republican nominee has laid waste to the American political system. On the trail for the last gasp of the ugliest campaign in our nation's history

... Keeping up with Trump revelations is exhausting. By late October, he'll be caught whacking it outside a nunnery. There are not many places left for this thing to go that don't involve kids or cannibalism. We wait, miserably, for the dong shot ...

More soberly:

... Trump can't win. Our national experiment can't end because one aging narcissist got bored of sex and food. Not even America deserves that. But that doesn't mean we come out ahead. We're more divided than ever, sicker than ever, dumber than ever. And there's no reason to think it won't be worse the next time.

George F. Will helped bring us Donald Trump, but Will apparently does not patronize pottery stores: "You break it, you buy it."

The ubiquitous pundit George F. Will has spent the last 40 years serving as handy GOP shill, seldom questioning the party's varied 1% jihads and cultural dog whistles, as combining to give us Candidate Trump, the most odious of two awful major party presidential nominees.

As Charles P. Pierce observed last week, America has been waiting for Trump.

 ... If you have a party dedicated to vandalism and nihilism, how can you possibly be surprised when your presidential nomination is spirited away by a career vandal and a superior nihilist?

As an enthusiast of great polemics, and a Hoosier who understands how dreadful Poodle Pence has been for our state, I'm placing this bookmark by Will's opinion piece, but it is important to remember that he's savaging a monster of his own creation.

And it's hilarious to see and read.

Donald Trump is the GOP’s chemotherapy, by George F. Will (Washington Post)

... Trump is a marvelously efficient acid bath, stripping away his supporters’ surfaces, exposing their skeletal essences. Consider Mike Pence, a favorite of what Republicans devoutly praise as America’s “faith community.” Some of its representatives, their crucifixes glittering in the television lights, are still earnestly explaining the urgency of giving to Trump, who agreed that his daughter is “a piece of ass,” the task of improving America’s coarsened culture.

Because Pence looks relatively presidential when standing next to Trump — talk about defining adequacy down — some Republicans want Trump to slink away, allowing Pence to float to the top of the ticket and represent Republicanism resurrected. This idea ignores a pertinent point: Pence is standing next to Trump.

He salivated for the privilege of being Trump’s poodle, and he expresses his canine devotion in rhetorical treacle about “this good man.” What would a bad man look like to pastor Pence?

Guest columnist Nick Vaughn: We must stand together and renounce Donald Trump.

Editor's note: Owing to Nick's topical subject matter, I thought it best to publish these thoughts immediately and not as part of his periodic Friday column slot.

Initially, this article was going to be an update on what I had been up to regarding my college life, my studies, and other exciting ventures I am a part of. Unfortunately, that article will have to wait. Something much more important has happened in the last 24-48 hours that deserves the utmost attention.

Donald Trump yet again confirmed to everyone willing to listen (without Trump shades on) that he is categorically unfit to be President of the United States. Some of my friends and fellow Republicans will be questioning why I am not writing this same article about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal or even Bill Clinton’s alleged extramarital affairs (Lewinksy is confirmed). Shouldn’t that disqualify her too? Maybe, however, the bottom line is that no woman should be talked to, talked about, or acted upon in the way that Donald Trump has displayed.

There have been several high ranking Republican lawmakers who have rescinded their endorsements and/or asked Donald Trump to withdraw from the race and I have the utmost respect for those who have and I encourage more to do the same. Even Governor Pence seems to be dramatically recoiling from Donald Trump’s disturbing comments. Of course, the alt-right, Trump-or-go-home supporters are going to call those officials and probably even myself traitors, RINOS (Republican In Name Only), blind, sensitive, in some cases maybe even “beta males.”

I don’t have any obscene insults for those who have hijacked my party with down right insane and unfeasible plans and ideas. I have no fancy acronyms for the Tea Party leaches (is that too mean?) who have created a disgusting political environment and who have thrown my party into dismay.

You see, those who still, after all of this straight-up garbage, downright racist, completely irrational 100 days of Donald Trump’s nominee status have the worst case of confirmation bias I have ever encountered in my entire life. These people look at news sites like “Breitbart,” “Free Republic,” “The Volokh Conspiracy,” and “Campaign for Liberty” as well as listen to Ann Coulter and other right-wing conspiracy theorists like they are preaching the gospel.

I know that any Trump-or-go-home supporters still reading this have already written me off as a liberal media hack so what I am going to say next won’t be heeded by those it is directed at but: these news sites with clickbait titles are taking advantage of you. These sites spew whatever they can chalk up so that they can make money off of you. What these “news” sites “report” are conspiracy theories, straw man arguments, and do nothing but confirm your biases.

Donald Trump is a parasite that the Republican Party has put up with for much too long. It is time we all stand together and renounce Trump and force him to step down from the race. There are many other good alternatives we can pick from and while I already voted I know there are millions of others who want a better option in this election. So please, get off of your alt-right horse. Stop with the racist “build a wall” and stop and frisk banter. Stop with the conspiracy theories of Clinton murders and extramarital affairs that have no basis in reality. Stop and just think for yourself. Ask yourself what you would do if Trump was talking about your wife, your mother, your sister, your daughter. What then? Yes, people make mistakes, however, this type of regard for women has no place in the Oval Office.

In your heart, you know he’s wrong.

I leave you with this, the quote of the day: “The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking " -- AA. Milne.

SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: From prion to neurodegenerative in the lexicon of political disease.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why all these newfangled words?

Why not the old, familiar, comforting words, like the ones you're sure to hear when asking the city's corporate attorney why the answers to my FOIA/public records request for Bicentennial commission finances, due to be handed over on July 8, still haven't arrived on October 5?

Bicentennial commission financial trail? What's two (yawn) weeks (shrug) after 463 days?

October 5 update: Make that 13 weeks since the FOIA record request's due date and  539 days since I asked Bullet Bob Caesar to tell us how many coffee table books were left unsold, and how much the city's 200-year "summer of love" fest actually cost us.

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about intimidation through erudition. Rather, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even these very same iniquitous, paving-bond-slush-engorged municipal corporate attorneys who customarily are handsomely remunerated to suppress information can benefit from this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, as we contemplate what they knew and when they knew it, all we have left is plenty of time -- and the opportunity to learn something, if we're so inclined.

Today's word is prion.

prion

pri·on (prī′ŏn′, prē′-)

noun

A protein particle that is the agent of infection in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and scrapie. Prions are the only known infectious agents that do not contain DNA or RNA. They derive from a normal body protein that becomes irreversibly misfolded, and they proliferate in the body, possibly by acting as a template for further protein misfolding.

As often is the case, learning the meaning of one word leads to questions about a second. What does neurodegenerative mean?

What is Neurodegeneration?

The term neurodegeneration is a combination of two words - "neuro," referring to nerve cells and "degeneration," referring to progressive damage. The term "neurodegeneration" can be applied to several conditions that result in the loss of nerve structure and function.

This deterioration gradually causes a loss of cognitive abilities such as memory and decision making. Neurodegeneration is a key aspect of a large number of diseases that come under the umbrella of “neurodegenerative diseases.” Of these hundreds of different disorders, so far attention has been mainly focused on only a handful, with the most notable being Parkinson’s disease, Huntington disease and Alzheimer’s disease. A large proportion of the less publicized diseases have essentially been ignored.

If prion is the "agent of infection in a variety of neurodegenerative diseases," then who better than the inimitable analyst Charles P. Pierce to provide an example of usage, underline in bold below.

In fact, Pierce's satiric construction is a recurring feature of his marvelous columns in Esquire.

It's Not Fair to Simply Blame Sarah Palin

... It can be argued, and it has been, that the president trusted for too long in the good faith of the Republicans in Congress. (Myself? I thought 30 seconds was too long, but I understand that opinions on the topic vary.) I think the president's fundamental error lies in the fact that he fails to appreciate how far the prion disease of movement conservatism had progressed in the Republican party by the time he took office.

Republicanism as prion disease? It's brilliant, and that's why they pay Pierce the big money, while I diagnose local Democrats pro bono.

"For the good of the nation, the Republican Party as it is presently constituted has to die."

If the end of the GOP truly is near, and somehow I doubt it, it's causing me a great deal of unease. What will replace it?

Are You Ready for the End of the Republican Party? by Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

 ... For the good of the nation, the Republican Party as it is presently constituted has to die.

Ever since the late 1970s, when it determined to ally itself with a politicized splinter of American evangelical Protestantism, having previously allied itself with the detritus of American apartheid, the Republican Party has been reeling toward catastrophe even as it succeeded at the ballot box, and taking the country along with it. Crackpot economic theories were mainstreamed in the 1980s. Crackpot conspiracy theories and god-drunk fantasies were mainstreamed in the 1990s. Crackpot imperial adventures abroad were mainstreamed in the 2000s. And all of these were mainstreamed at once in opposition to the country's first African American president over the past eight years.

Modern conservatism has proven to be not a philosophy, but a huge dose of badly manufactured absinthe. It squats in an intellectual hovel now, waiting for its next fix, while a public madman filches its tattered banner and runs around wiping his ass with it. It always was coming to this.

The GOP and its actual record: "For the entire history of modern conservatism, its ideals have been wedded to and marred by white supremacism."

Typically, whenever I remind contemporary gated-community Christians about the legacy of the Crusades and the Inquisition, the hushing is audible -- and a bit angry.

I'm told not to distort history, and that while this may have been true at one time, much has changed.

Many of these same advocates of Republican White Jesus now inform me that the period of my life span, which after all I've observed with my own two eyes, didn't actually happen at all. They remind me that the GOP directly reflects the ideals of its founding prior to the American Civil War, and furthermore, insist that Democrats remain as firmly unreconstructed as those representing the Deep South in the 1920s.

As the guy denouncing the two-party system, and now has little use for either "side," allow me to remind you this argument is a farrago of bullshit, perpetuated by folks who might read books other than the Bible every now and then. Most man-on-the-street Republican voters wouldn't buy it, because they know full well why the GOP appeals to them.

The subterfuge isn't necessary. My sense is that it's an ideological security blanket constructed by suburban white conservatives to keep their cognitive dissonance manageable.

But you needn't trust me.

Rather, take it from a Republican.

A Republican intellectual explains why the Republican Party is going to die, by Zack Beauchamp (Vox)

 ... “Conservative intellectuals, and conservative politicians, have been in kind of a bubble,” Roy says. “We’ve had this view that the voters were with us on conservatism — philosophical, economic conservatism. In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.”

Conservative intellectuals, for the most part, are horrified by racism. When they talk about believing in individual rights and equality, they really mean it. Because the Republican Party is the vehicle through which their ideas can be implemented, they need to believe that the party isn’t racist.

So they deny the party’s racist history, that its post-1964 success was a direct result of attracting whites disillusioned by the Democrats’ embrace of civil rights. And they deny that to this day, Republican voters are driven more by white resentment than by a principled commitment to the free market and individual liberty.

“It’s the power of wishful thinking. None of us want to accept that opposition to civil rights is the legacy that we’ve inherited,” Roy says.

And ...

This soul-searching led Roy to an uncomfortable conclusion: The Republican Party, and the conservative movement that propped it up, is doomed.

Both are too wedded to the politics of white nationalism to change how they act, but that just isn’t a winning formula in a nation that’s increasingly black and brown. Either the Republican Party will eat itself or a new party will rise and overtake its voting share ...

 ... For the entire history of modern conservatism, its ideals have been wedded to and marred by white supremacism. That’s Roy’s own diagnosis, and I think it’s correct. As a result, we have literally no experience in America of a politically viable conservative movement unmoored from white supremacy.

"If this isn't the end for the Republican Party, it'll be a shame. They dominated American political life for 50 years and were never anything but monsters."

Chaplin, via Wikipedia. 

For the section below, alone.

R.I.P., GOP: How Trump Is Killing the Republican Party, by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone)

Donald Trump crushed 16 GOP opponents in one of the most appalling, vicious campaigns in history. His next victim? The entire Republican Party.

... In the weeks surrounding Cruz's cat-fart of a surrender in Indiana, party luminaries began the predictably Soviet process of coalescing around the once-despised new ruler. Trump endorsements of varying degrees of sincerity spilled in from the likes of Dick Cheney, Bob Dole, Mitch McConnell and even John McCain.

Having not recently suffered a revolution or a foreign-military occupation, Americans haven't seen this phenomenon much, but the effortless treason of top-tier Republicans once Trump locked up the nomination was the most predictable part of this story. Politicians, particularly this group, are like crackheads: You can get them to debase themselves completely for whatever's in your pocket, even if it's just lint.

That's why the first rule of any revolution is to wipe out the intellectuals. Trump is surely already dreaming of the vast logging camp he will fill with the Republican thinkfluencers who are at the moment making a show of being the last holdouts.

WITHIN CITY LIMITS: Episode VI, In Defense of Paul Ryan.

WITHIN CITY LIMITS: Episode VI, In Defense of Paul Ryan.

By Nick Vaughn, Guest Columnist

With Donald Trump being the presumptive GOP nominee, the supposed goal of the national party is to begin to “heal and unite.” But with this being the new goal of the national party, how come Speaker Paul Ryan, the most powerful elected Republican, is going against this strategy set forth by Chairman Reince Priebus?

Ryan has said that he is not ready to support Trump and I do not blame him. Now, before my conservative friends jump down my throat for that, let me clear one thing up: he said he is not ready to support him yet. Honestly, neither am I. Although I am not sure I will ever be ready and willing to support him.

Now, we can think of this in two different ways. On the one hand we could paint Paul Ryan as a fake conservative, establishment, politically correct, bought and paid for politician. You know, the stuff that is exactly wrong with DC. Or, we can be reasonable individuals and realize that Paul Ryan is most certainly not a fake conservative (if he isn’t conservative I am not sure what conservatism is), he is instead a pragmatist willing to point out and understand the flaws of a candidate that supposedly is what the majority of Republicans want (even though 60% of Republican voters voted for someone other than Trump).

Paul Ryan may very well eventually support Trump, he might not. The bigger question is why is pragmatism such a rejected idea among the Republican base? I saw it to a lesser extent in the 2014 midterms, but it has finally come to a head here in 2016. This idea that we shouldn’t work with Democrats and when we do it’s a sign of weakness is the biggest tragedy in American politics. In an interview with the Associated Press, Ryan said: "We will need a standard ­bearer that can unify all Republicans, all conservatives, all wings of our party, and then go to the country with an appealing agenda, and we have work to do on this front, and I think our nominee has to lead in that effort."

This quote is meaningful because it points to the inclusiveness and pragmatic ideals that Ryan holds. It is especially telling when we see Donald Trump go and say that he doesn’t want Ryan’s support anyway and he wants to unite most Republicans but some he “doesn’t want.” Is this the man we want leading our party into the future? Because his direction isn’t pointed anywhere but down. Donald Trump is the most immature candidate ever nominated by a major party and his supporters are so rabidly in love with him that they can’t see they are being led straight off a cliff.

Paul Ryan is trying to salvage this mess that has become the Republican Party. I definitely do not blame him for holding off on supporting someone who has broken Reagan’s 11th commandment time and time again, who has appealed to people’s deep seated fears, and has proposed plans extremely ludicrous and laughably unfeasible. The question is not why doesn’t Paul Ryan support Trump, because that is very clear. Paul Ryan is a pragmatist and wants to save his party. The real question is: why do you​ support him?

Don’t say he speaks his mind and rebukes political correctness, because those vague blanket statements won’t do here. Let me know in the comments why you do or don’t support Trump. I want to hear from you!

Also, thank you for your patience. For several different reasons I was not able to continue writing for the blog during the Primary. Have no fear, though -- I am back!

I leave you with this, the quote of the day:

 “Action is the foundational key to all successes.” -- Pablo Picasso

Pat Paulsen for President: Better a deceased comedian than "two despised frontrunners, two dying parties and a deeply broken system."

"With the elections just around the corner its time to bring back a candidate who embraces the challenge of this modern world. This is from the Smothers Brothers 20th Reunion Show in 1988. Pat Paulsen again leads the way in American politics."

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According to Nate Cohn in the New York Times: The Most Important Primary Is ... Wait, Indiana?

It may be Indiana or bust for Donald Trump.

If the polls are right, he will dominate in New York on Tuesday and in the coming races across the Eastern Seaboard. He could win nearly all of the delegates at stake — keeping him on a narrow path toward the Republican nomination. That would set him up for what will probably be the most important test of the race: Indiana on May 3.

It may sound strange, but when you start gaming out the rest of the primary contest, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that his quest to reach a majority of delegates before the convention could all turn on Indiana.

Hitting closer to the heart of the matter ...

Two despised frontrunners, two dying parties and a deeply broken system: How did we get here? by Andrew O'Hehir (Salon)

Our political system is profoundly broken, and although many of us have understood that for years, this has been the year that fact became unavoidable. Both political parties are struggling through transparently rigged primary campaigns that have made that ludicrous process look more outdated than ever. Nobody cares about the Democratic vote in Wyoming and it’s not going to matter, but when Bernie Sanders dominates the caucuses in that empty, dusty and Republican-dominated state and wins seven of its 18 delegates, doesn’t that sum up the whole damn thing?

Both parties are also struggling to control long-simmering internal conflicts that have come boiling to the surface this year, and in both cases the leadership caste is wondering whether it’s time to burn down the village in order to save it. In the larger analysis, both parties are struggling to ignore the mounting evidence of their own irrelevance. One of them is struggling with that in a more public and more spectacular fashion at the moment, but the contagion is general. In my judgment, Democrats would do well to cancel the Champagne and refill the Xanax.

Despite the unkillable Whack-a-Mole candidacy of Sanders — who, as I argued this week, has channeled an insurgent and quasi-revolutionary class-consciousness that other politicians didn’t even know existed — we are likely to end up with a general-election campaign between the two least popular major-party nominees in political history. OK, I suppose we can’t know that for sure: We don’t have polling data to consult from the infamous election of 1828, when Andrew Jackson accused President John Quincy Adams of procuring hookers for the Russian czar and running a gambling den in the White House. (Adams accused Jackson of being a bigamist and an adulterer, and also hinted that he might be partly black, despite his overtly racist views.)

"I feel that it is too directly bound to its own anguish to be anything other than a cry of negation, carrying within itself the seeds of its own destruction. However, to get to the meat of the matter, I will come right to the point, and take note of the fact that the heart of the issue in the final analysis escapes me."
-- Pat Paulsen (1927-1997)