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Used to be my buddy

In the Sunshine State.

Turned into my rival

Now things don’t look so great.

 

Fighting in New Hampshire.

Scrapping on the news.

Everywhere I’m hearing

I’m really gonna lose.

 

Cause you stole my donors

And you stole my friends.

And my polls are slipping.

Will it never end?

 

Oh, Rubio

Man, it’s hard to forgive.

Oh, Rubio

Man, it’s hard to forgive.

To forgive.

 

Parody of “Baltimore” by Randy Newman.

A homeless man is loitering outside of Blair House.  A security guard comes to investigate.

G:  What are you doing?

HM:  I’m waiting for Biden.

G:  I’ve heard that he’s bidin’ his time.  (slaps knee)

HM:  I bet you’ve used that line before.

G:  What are you waiting for him to do?

HM:  To run.

G:  For what?

HM:  For President.

G:  For President of what?

HM:  America.

G:  What’s America?

HM:  The land of the free.  You, me, everyone and everything.

G:  Even Putin?

HM:  Well, not Putin.

G:  Why does he have to run?  Can’t he just walk?

HM:  Because it’s a race.

G:  What kind of a race?

HM:  I’ve heard it’s a marathon.

G:  He’s kind of old for a marathon.  Who else is running?

HM:  Hillary.

G:  Like the guy who climbed Everest?

HM:  Sort of.  Beating her will be climbing a mountain, too.

G:  Can he beat her?

HM:  With what, a stick?  Sure.  He’s a guy, after all.

G:  No, in the race.

HM:  Probably not, because his heart may not be in it.

G:  Well, if your heart isn’t in something, you probably shouldn’t do it.

A second homeless man walks by.

HM#2:  What are you doing?

HM and G:  We’re waiting for Biden.

 

Matt Yglesias on Vox.com has an excellent analysis of conditions in Denmark that should be required reading for all of you who want to feel the Bern.  I would like to add a few items to explain why the US will never, and probably should never, have the same sort of welfare state as the Danes:

1.  Religion is not an issue in Denmark.   There is a clear correlation in this country between evangelical Christians and hostility to the welfare state (consider Ben Carson’s recent remarks on charity, for example).  That kind of ideology is unimportant in Denmark.
2. Rural voters have less clout in Denmark.   Most of the population lives in or around Copenhagen; by all accounts, the rural population is dwindling pretty rapidly.  As a result, there is much less of a red/blue political and cultural divide than we have here.
3. The population is more ethnically homogeneous in Denmark.  I think Yglesias is wrong to soft-pedal the racist element of opposition to the welfare state in the US.
4. There is more small government DNA in our system.  Like it or not, our country was built by people who were fleeing government oppression elsewhere, not by people demanding “free stuff.”
5. The US is more dynamic than Denmark.  How many Danish artists, intellectuals, and political figures can you name?  Didn’t think so.  Our dynamism is partly the result of inequality that is limited by a large welfare state.

I’ve been to Denmark.  It is a beautiful country, and it has excellent public facilities.  It also costs $100.00 for two people to eat out there unless you go to a fast food restaurant.  That’s the tradeoff.

I wouldn’t mind it at all if we lived more like the Danes than we do now, but I think it is both wise and inevitable for us to accept a bit more inequality in exchange for a more vibrant society than they do.

The Democrat maverick named Bern.

For the days of Glass-Steagall he yearned.

He’d break up the banks

They responded, “No thanks.”

“To our Washington friends we will turn.”

 

For those of you who are eager to feel more of the Bern, Saturday, until further notice, will be “Sandersday” on this blog.

There are two Ronald Reagans:  one was the flesh and blood 40th President of the United States;  while the other is a figment of the collective imagination of today’s GOP.  Any resemblance between the two is mostly coincidental.

Consider the following:

1. Taxes:  “Reagan” would never, ever, ever raise any kind of tax under any circumstances.  Reagan cut taxes significantly, but subsequently raised them by a lesser amount.
2. Spending:  “Reagan” cut the size of the federal government.  Reagan substantially increased the defense budget, and largely gave up trying to cut domestic programs in the face of public hostility after the “ketchup is a vegetable” episode and the Stockman “Trojan Horse” interview.                                      
3. Negotiations with Adversaries:  “Reagan” never made deals with our enemies; he used American strength to impose our will on them.  Reagan negotiated with the Soviet Union and was responsible for Iran/Contra.
4. Foreign Military Adventures:  “Reagan” used American power to end the Cold War.  Reagan limited himself to a fiasco in Lebanon and a parade in Grenada.
5. Reputation Abroad:  “Reagan,” through his adept leadership, united the Free World.  Reagan was a highly polarizing figure in Europe due to his bellicose rhetoric, although his bark was much worse than his bite.

Will the GOP ever learn the right lessons from Reagan and “Reagan?”  As of now, the answer is no, and the party is not fit to exercise power as a result.

 

They’re gonna party like it’s 1969.

The ex-CEO for HP

Makes statements that don’t impress me.

Her cries on abortion

Are out of proportion

She’ll falter eventually.

 

While this may seem odd at first blush, the best historical analogy I can draw to Obama and his foreign policy involves Elizabeth I of England.  While popular history has treated her reign kindly, the fact is that she was viewed as a ditherer by many of her contemporaries because she consistently resisted efforts to push her into expensive and inconclusive ideological wars, and she preferred the use of proxies, subsidies, and unconventional forces (i.e., Francis Drake) to direct confrontations.  Based on the outcome of England’s military adventures in the century prior to her reign, she had plenty of reason to do so.

Consider the following;

  Elizabeth         v.              Obama

Political Obstacle         Mother Beheaded          African-American

Aspired to Throne        Mary Queen of Scots     Mitt Romney

Foreign Adversary       Philip II                            Putin

Terrorist Problem        Babington Plot                ISIS

Religious Opponent      Catholics                         Radical Islam

War Lessons Learned   France/Scotland            Iraq

Unconventional War   Privateers                        Drones

Agitated for War          Walsingham/Leicester   Graham/McCain

Left Office                      Died                                    Term Limits

And the winner is. . . Ask me in a few years.

 

A life insurance company is running a very revealing ad on TV these days.  In the ad, people were told to put blue and yellow stickers, representing positive and negative experiences, on two walls, one of which represents the past, and the other the future.  The wall for the past was a roughly even mixture of colors;  the one for the future was almost completely positive.

We as a species are wired to be optimistic.  We think that things in the future will be much better than the past even when experience tells us otherwise.  We can’t live without hope;  in fact, some of the happiest people I have known in my life have been the most self-deluded about their real condition.

So it is with foreign policy.  It is tempting to look at Syria or the Iran deal, for example, and assume that a more bellicose policy would have led to better results even though we don’t have any real evidence to believe that.   For example, we could have given the “moderate” rebels surface-to-air missiles to deal with Syrian air attacks, and they could ultimately have been used by terrorists to shoot down civilian airliners.  If we had launched air strikes on Iran, we might have been looking at $10 per gallon gasoline.  The bottom line is we don’t know for certain that these things would have happened, so we completely discount them, and compare the real problems of today with a Brigadoon that never was or would be.

Obama doesn’t get any credit for the problems that he didn’t cause by refusing to militarize our foreign policy, but he should.

Hey, kids, been fightin’ the recession?

You’re lucky that it didn’t start a big depression.

We’ll kill some Wall Street bankers now, so stick around.

You’re gonna hear some hedge fund whining, solid walls of sound.

 

Say Hill and O’Malley, have you seen them yet?

Oh, they are so freaked out.

Bernie and the Banks.

Oh, Hill is so far ahead of me.

Oh, Hill, she is a pundit’s dream.

She’s got missing e-mails

A suspicious tale

You know I read it in Time Magazine.

Oh, BBBBBernie and the Banks.

 

Bernie, Bernie, Bernie, Bernie and the Banks. . . .

(Parody of song by Elton John/Bernie Taupin)

Imagine for a moment that you are an American plutocrat (I know, it’s hard, but try).  You inherited a small fortune from your parents and grew it substantially; as a result, you view yourself as a largely self-made man.  You have a very healthy ego, but you have learned from bitter experience to stay out of the public eye whenever possible.

Due to the extent of your business interests, you cannot avoid acting in the political realm.  Your objectives are as follows:

1.  Maintain as much access as possible to global markets;
2.  Keep a large, inexpensive, competent, and servile workforce;
3.  Reduce taxes to the absolute minimum; and
4.  Eliminate as many regulatory burdens as possible.

Along comes Donald Trump-a brash, noisy, and egotistical member of your class-who makes populist arguments that are inconsistent with your positions on free trade and immigration, and develops a dangerously large following as a result of it.  Wouldn’t that really piss you off?  Wouldn’t you be willing to spend whatever it took to destroy him?

You bet you would.  And they will.

How ’bout those Cubbies!

No, really, it was more interesting than I thought it would be.  My overall impressions were as follows:

1.  It is far easier to have a meaningful discussion on the issues with five people on stage than with ten.
2.  None of the candidates was a complete embarrassment.
3.  Sanders has a clear and consistent message that is based completely on his assumption that he can mobilize millions of new voters to overthrow the political establishment.  Unfortunately for him, he can’t, so the entire rationale for his campaign is a mirage.
4.  The vapidity of Republican positions is simply taken for granted in this kind of a forum, which means that the most ideologically pure candidate has a significant advantage over a pragmatist.
5. I want to hear Sanders debate Jeb Bush on “free stuff.”

Winners, Losers, and Also-Rans:

Winner:   Hillary Clinton:  Was, as expected, fully conversant with the facts and the issues.  Sounded presidential without being stiff.  Has an amazing ability to change the subject seamlessly when confronted with an issue that doesn’t favor her.

Losers:  Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee:  Webb looked for all the world like a man who didn’t want to be there.  Chafee just sounds like a weenie.

Also-Ran:  Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley:  O’Malley had an extremely wooden opening, although he improved as the night went on.  He needed a big performance, given his poll numbers, but he didn’t get it.  Sanders looks authentic, has a clear message, and had a good moment with Hillary’s e-mail, but he didn’t press his advantage when she changed the subject on the banks.  His responses on guns, which probably cost him support in the audience, were actually reasonable and pragmatic.

The bottom line is that Hillary reassured her supporters, Sanders neither gained nor lost ground, and the others don’t matter.

David Brooks has a column, and Paul Krugman a post, on the GOP and conservatism in today’s NYT.  I would say that both of them are correct in their way, but neither has described the entire picture.

A “conservative,” by any common definition of the term, is someone who is suspicious of change, and objects to it except when circumstances make it unavoidable.  If you apply this definition to the various factions of the GOP in relation to current circumstances, here is what you get:

1.  The enormous tax and entitlement cuts and regulatory rollbacks that are the centerpiece of the PBP agenda are dramatic changes to the status quo which can hardly be called “conservative.”
2.  The CL attempt to radically roll back the powers of the federal government is not “conservative.”
3.  The Reactionary agenda to turn the clock back a minimum of 50 years from today’s social, political, and economic conditions cannot reasonably be called “conservative.”
4.  Only the CDs are in any way “conservative,” and they only make up about 10 percent of the GOP.

The process wherein the GOP became radicalized (some, but not all of it, after 2008) will be the subject of a future post.  Suffice it to say, however, that Krugman is right when he says that the Democrats are the true conservatives in today’s polity.

We have a running gag in our house in which I attribute natural disasters all over the world to a “lack of leadership” on the part of President Obama.  The point, of course, is that he has no control over these events.  The difference between, say, the state of the rebellion in Syria and a tornado is one of degree rather than kind.

“Leadership” is viewed by the MSM and some Americans as strong and decisive action, regardless of its ultimate implications for the country.  By that standard, Lee’s decision to ignore Longstreet’s advice and to authorize Pickett’s Charge was great “leadership.”  Or, to use a more contemporary example, George W. Bush’s decision to engage in a war of choice in Iraq in the face of international hostility was also outstanding “leadership.”

Demonstrating “leadership” is only important to people who confuse self-esteem with the national interest.  The real issue in foreign policy is not whether we are showing “leadership,” but if any given action is in the national interest–i.e., is it the best available way to promote our prosperity and enhance our security?  If so, whether we are perceived to be responsible for it or not is meaningless.

I haven’t written much about the Democratic side of the race because, frankly, it isn’t very interesting.  Hillary is going to be the nominee unless her campaign completely implodes over Benghazi or some other scandal TBD.  In addition, the candidates don’t disagree about very much, so there isn’t a whole lot to say.

That aside, look for the following tonight:

1.  How far left will she go?  Clinton, in my opinion unnecessarily, has been taking positions on issues like the TPP that will hurt her in the general election in order to deal with Bernie Sanders. Both the substance and the tone of her comments tonight will be important.

2.  How does Sanders argue that he can accomplish his wish list in a Congress largely dominated by the GOP?  The other candidates will maintain at least somewhat plausibly that they have a history of successfully reaching across the aisle.  Sanders, not so much.  Does he honestly believe that 2016 will be a tidal wave election, and that the GOP House majority will magically disappear?

3.  To what extent will the candidates distance themselves from President Obama?   Hillary certainly will on the use of American power overseas.  There probably will be some discussion about sticking it to Wall Street, and Sanders could bring up single-payer.  Otherwise, their only real objection to the President’s agenda is his inability to get it through Congress (see #2 above).

If that isn’t enough to keep your attention, you can be forgiven for changing the channel.  I probably will at some point.