Author: A.T.

It’s the story of a sitting Republican Congresswoman, her former Army-Ranger-top-federal-prosecutor-husband, and their son.

Love is love.

Read it here.

Of special note: the reaction of his 86-year-old abuelo (grandfather).

Is this a great country, or what?

[YOU ARE NOT SEEING DOUBLE; THIS POST ACCIDENTALLY WENT OUT AT THE SAME TIME AS WEDNESDAY’S. A SHINY OBJECT DISTRACTED ME FROM ENTERING THE CORRECT POSTING DATE.]

Responding to my recent post on gun safety, Bill Briggs writes: “Well regulated?  I don’t understand how those words of the Second Amendment are so universally overlooked by everyone in regard to the purchase and use of firearms. One of the definitions of ‘regulate’ is . . . ‘reg·u·late … 1. To control or direct according to rule, principle, or law.’ There is nothing ‘well regulated’ about people buying up weapons without any legal restrictions, registration, or permit. And the amendment does not seem to put any limits on the extent of regulation.”

☞ So if more than 90% of us want universal background checks, including 74% of NRA members — and pretty close to that want other common sense safety measures — maybe the NRA should allow Congress to pass them?

Five more months?  Can the tires on MSNBC even last that long?  Are there enough pixels in the universe to sustain the coverage?  Couldn’t we just do all this tomorrow?

Yet it’s not just a Democrat in the White House that we need, it’s a Democratic Congress — and reform of the rules in both chambers so that it’s possible to do the nation’s business.

I’m all for checks and balances, but the Founders could never have imagined this — and all the other crazy ways even a single senator can bring sensible governance to a halt.

“Holds” should not be secret and should not be of unlimited duration.  The filibuster — nowhere written into the Constitution — should at least be more difficult.  Instead of requiring 60 senators to end a filibuster, 41 senators sitting continuously in a room should be required to sustain one.  (See #3 in this analysis.)

And why are “discharge petitions” so difficult in the House?  If the Senate has passed something that the President and the nation — and a majority of House members — want, how can there be no way to get it to the floor for a vote?  Have you not seen Legally Blonde II?  When all hope for the bunny rabbits seems lost, and Reese Witherspoon is talking tearfully to a marble Abraham Lincoln (cinema at its finest), the whole movie turns on discovery by her staff of the “discharge petition” — clip here — which, this being a movie, is successful and the bunny rabbits are saved.

A happy ending.  But not, sadly, for Cassandra Butts. Entirely qualified for her post, as all agreed, her appointment was held up for more than 820 days — more than five times as long as between now and November 8 — and then she died.

“Read it and weep,” as they say.

Sad for her; sadder still for democracy.

I accidentally double-posted Friday . . . “Still Great” and “Trump the Conspiracy Theorist” . . . so to even things out, today I give you nothing:

“Always borrow money from a pessimist.  He wont expect it back.” — Oscar Wilde

“Everyone who believes in telekinesis, raise my hand.” — Emo Philips

My goal for 2016 was to lose just 10 pounds. Only 15 to go.

Ate salad for dinner! Mostly croutons & tomatoes. Really just one big, round crouton covered with tomato sauce. And cheese. FINE, it was a pizza. I ate a pizza.

Kids today don’t know how easy they have it. When I was young, I had to walk 9 feet through shag carpet to change the TV channel.

I agree totally with Bernie: whichever of them gets the nomination, Trump must be defeated;  loved Hillary’s “national security address” (theme: Trump is a huge threat to our national security); love clips of Republicans labeling Trump “a con artist” (Marco Rubio), “a phony” (Mitt Romney), “a complete idiot” (Karl Rove); and commend to you this Lawrence O’Donnell segment defining “pathological liar.” (The term apparently dates from 1891.) In it, Jon Favreau asks, “Right now, Trump’s targeting people with his big mouth and his twitter account; but what happens if he becomes President and he has at his disposal the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, and America’s nuclear arsenal?”

What indeed.

Meanwhile, you saw Paul Krugman in Friday’s New York Times?

. . . The outlook for climate change if current policies continue has never looked worse, but the prospects for turning away from the path of destruction have never looked better. Everything depends on who ends up sitting in the White House for the next few years.

. . . [T]errible things are in prospect, but can be avoided with fairly modest, politically feasible steps. You may want a revolution, but we don’t need one to save the planet. Right now all it would take is for America to implement the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and other actions — which don’t even require new legislation, just a Supreme Court that won’t stand in their way — to let the U.S. continue the role it took in last year’s Paris agreement, guiding the world as a whole toward sharp reductions in emissions.

But what happens if the next president is a man who doesn’t believe in climate science, or indeed in inconvenient facts of any kind? . . .

. . . No doubt Donald Trump hates environmental protection in part for the usual reasons. But there’s an extra layer of venom to his pro-pollution stances that is both personal and mind-bogglingly petty.

For example, he has repeatedly denounced restrictions intended to protect the ozone layer — one of the great success stories of global environmental policy — because, he claims, they’re the reason his hair spray doesn’t work as well as it used to. I am not making this up. He’s also a bitter foe of wind power. He likes to talk about how wind turbines kill birds, which they sometimes do, but no more so than tall buildings; but his real motivation seems to be ire over unsuccessful attempts to block an offshore wind farm near one of his British golf courses. . . .

The same people who for decades muddied the waters on tobacco — read Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming or watch the movie — have persuaded the Republican House and Senate science committee chairs that climate change is a hoax. Trump, who once tweeted, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” does not seem to be the man to persuade them otherwise.

Trump: So Wrong . . . In So Many Ways

As you know from Republican standard-bearer Donald Trump, things here are horrible.

(Not because his party blocked the Jobs Act that would have put millions to work revitalizing our infrastructure . . . or because his party blocked a higher minimum wage that would have boosted consumer demand . . . or because his party blocked the Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform that would have boosted the economy further . . . but because of the cunning Mexicans and Chinese and our stupid, stupid leaders. He’ll fix it all — and defeat ISIS.*)

Horrible!

Yet we’ve now had 65 consecutive weeks of initial unemployment claims below 300,000 — the longest such streak since 1973.**

And there are actually a lot of other measures by which we could feel, if not great (given the challenges we face and the roadblocks to prosperity the Republicans have imposed), at least pretty good.

Fareed Zakaria is so worth watching and reading.

Compared with the rest of the world, explains Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post, we’re actually doing quite well:

America Is Still Great — But It Needs to Stay Strong

Donald Trump’s positions on public policy have shifted over the years, months, even days. On Sunday, he managed to express two contradictory thoughts within one sentence: “I don’t want to have guns in classrooms, although in some cases teachers should have guns in classrooms, frankly.” But on one issue he has been utterly consistent: “This country is a hellhole. We are going down fast.” This notion of a country in decline is at the heart of Trump’s campaign and his message — to make America great again.

In fact, it is increasingly clear that the United States has in recent years reinforced its position as the world’s leading economic, technological, military and political power. The country dominates virtually all leading industries — from social networks to mobile telephony to nano- and biotechnology — like never before. It has transformed itself into an energy superpower — the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas — while also moving to the cutting edge of the green-technology revolution. And it is demographically vibrant, while all its major economic peers (Japan, Europe and even China) face certain demographic decline.

Joshua Cooper Ramo, the author of an intelligent new book, “The Seventh Sense,” argues that in an age of networks, the winner often takes all. He points out that there are nine global tech platforms (Google Chrome, Microsoft Office, Facebook, etc.) that are used by more than 1 billion people. All dominate their respective markets — and all are American. The dollar is more widely used for international financial transactions today than it was 20 years ago.

In a pair of essays, scholars Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth point out that China is the closest the United States has to a rising rival but only on one measure, gross domestic product. A better, broader measure of economic power, Brooks and Wohlforth argue, is “inclusive wealth.” This is the sum of a nation’s “manufactured capital (roads, buildings, machines and equipment), human capital (skills, education, health) and natural capital (sub-soil resources, ecosystems, the atmosphere).” The United States’ inclusive wealth totaled almost $144 trillion in 2010 — 4½ times China’s $32 trillion.

China is far behind the United States in its ability to add value to goods and create new products. Brooks and Wohlforth note that half of China’s exports are parts imported to China, assembled there and then exported — mostly for Western multinationals. The authors also suggest that payments for intellectual property are a key measure of technological strength. In 2013, China took in less than $1 billion, while the United States received $128 billion. In 2012, America registered seven times as many “triadic” patents — those granted in the United States, Europe and Japan.

In the military and political realm, the dominance is even more lopsided. There are many ways to measure this, but take just one: the most potent form of force projection, aircraft carriers. The United States operates 10. China has one, a secondhand Ukrainian ship that it had to retrofit. In the realm of high-tech warfare — drones, stealth — Washington’s lead is even greater. And perhaps most important, the United States has a web of allies around the world and is actually developing new important ones, such as India and Vietnam. Meanwhile, China has one military ally, North Korea.

The complexity of today’s international system is that, despite this American dominance, other countries have, in fact, gained ground. In 1990, China’s share of global GDP was 1.7 percent. Today it is 15 percent. Developing countries as a whole have gone from about 20 percent of the global economy to 40 percent in the same period. And while GDP is not everything, it is a reflection of the reality that no single country — not even the United States — can impose its will on the rest.

I tried to describe this emerging landscape in my 2008 book, “The Post-American World,” in which I wrote: “Washington still has no true rival, and will not for a very long time, but it faces a growing number of constraints.” China has large and growing influence in the world, as can be seen in its ability to create the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank this past year over Washington’s objections. Rising regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey assert their own interests in the Middle East, often disrupting U.S. efforts. Even Pakistan, an ally and aid recipient, quietly defies the United States in Afghanistan by supporting the Taliban.

The reality is that America remains the world’s leading power, but it can achieve its objectives only by defining its interests broadly, working with others and creating a network of cooperation. That, alas, does not fit on a campaign cap.

(Fareed Zakaria is so worth watching and reading. Follow him on Twitter. Subscribe to his updates on Facebook.)

Have a great weekend!

*Quickly. He knows how. But he won’t tell the Pentagon unless we make him president. 

**Particularly remarkable when you consider that we’re 50% more populous than in 1973 — 322 million of us now versus 211 million then — on which basis alone you’d expect routine unemployment claims to have climbed.

Trump: So Wrong . . . In So Many Ways

There’s the birther stuff, of course, but 57 others as well.  E.g. — #48 — that the “concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

Have a nice day.

Trump: So Wrong . . . In So Many Ways

Paul Lonac: “In your post About That Well-Regulated Militia last year, you wrote ‘…as one tries to divine the intent of the Framers...’ Regarding that intent, see this piece of scholarship. The short version: ‘James Madison wrote the Second Amendment to assure his constituents in Virginia, and the South as a whole, that the federal government could not disarm the state militia, which were the prime instruments for slave control in the South.’  He did this because slave-state votes were needed to get to the nine votes needed to ratify the Constitution. Borrowing from your post: ‘Did you know this?  I didn’t!’”

Russell Bell: “The untapped promise of the 2nd amendment is the defense of the country not by means of a standing army but citizen-soldiers. Every gun-owner is a member of his/her state’s ‘well-regulated militia’.  The Militia Acts of 1792 (passed by our first Congress! signed by our first president!) provided:

That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) . . . shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of power and ball . . . and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.

“Note also the lie this puts to the argument against the Affordable Care Act that the government had never before required citizens to buy something.”

☞ Clearly, it had: muskets.

Neither Bernie nor Hillary — or pretty much any other prominent Democrat alive today — has ever called for a federal law banning or confiscating guns.  (Assault weapons, tanks, anti-aircraft missiles — yes. Some have called for that. Maybe even armor-piercing bullets, as so few elk — or home invaders — wear armor.)

But Democrats — and 85% of NRA members, by the way, though not the NRA itself anymore — do favor universal background checks.

Indeed, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman met with actual upstate New York musket owners (they enjoy historical reenactment), earning trust with the NRA . . . and leading to agreements by which New York State gun shows voluntarily adopted a system under which anyone attempting to leave with more guns than she arrived with must show paperwork confirming a proper background check was completed for the new ones.

The world did not end for New York State gun owners; but it did get at least a tiny bit safer for them — and for the rest of us.

Most Americans would favor additional common sense safety measures as well. And as I read the Second Amendment, the Founders would have been fine with that.

IRRATIONAL FEAR

From Onion TV:  Millions Irrationally Feared Dead In Minor Train Accident!

In the decade following 9/11, there were 33 deaths in the US at the hands of Muslim terrorists; 150,000 murders generally.

It may not be rational to buy guns to protect your family against terrorists.

Not to say we needn’t explore every sensible means to keep those numbers infinitesimally small.  But, per Think Progress:

. . . a small band of so-called “experts” speak at conferences, appear on TV and radio, and write on various websites to “rail against Islam and cast suspicion on American Muslims,” all with the intention of hyping the threats emanating from the Muslim American community.

Reacting to the agenda of the Islamophobia network, Kurzman told us: “I think that our goal should be to increase cooperation with non-radical Muslims — in other words to increase a sense of inclusion, collaboration — rather than to blow up our fears of this small group into suspicion of a much wider group that isn’t involved at all.”

A RATIONAL FEAR: ZIKA

Did you see Paul Abrams’ Huffington post?

Reminder: The Right-Wing Owes Us $25 Billion

. . . With the havoc that could be wreaked by the Zika virus, the right-wing feel they must “find” money in the budget to offset the research and development necessary to be ready for it.

. . . Republicans owe the country $25 billion from a shutdown so absurd that their own Speaker, John Boehner (R-OH) lashed out at it, and the architects said they they knew in advance it would fail.

$25 billion.

U.S. taxpayers will, thank you very much, take the first $1.9 billion of that back to protect unborn children and mothers from the Zika virus. (Unborn children? Who, pray tell, pontificates their love for them?) . . .

Abrams faults Democrats for not shouting loudly and concertedly to force the Republicans to get this done — and, while they’re at it, highlight the contrast between our approach to government (make it work) and theirs (shut it down).

Given adequate support, government can often be effective in protecting us — whether from disease (the U.S., death toll from Ebola contracted here remains zero), unsafe food, air, and water, consumer fraud (the CFPB has already returned billions to 15 million consumers), environmental hazards (we’re restoring the ozone layer that protects us from skin cancer and cataracts) . . . and more. (When was the last time you lost someone in a U.S. commercial plane crash?)

Republicans are fond of saying government is the problem. Bad government is a problem, but Zika is  problem, too.  Maybe the Republican Congress should allow government to minimize it.

ANOTHER RATIONAL FEAR: TRUMP

Did you see Bob Garfield’s post? It mainly condemns the media for not putting Trump into sharper focus.

. . . He is racist. He is misogynistic. He is a xenophobe in the nation of immigrants. He has repeatedly incited violence. He shows neither understanding nor respect for the balance of powers, or any other aspect of the Constitution. To protect his personally thin skin, he has promised to weaken the First Amendment. He shows no appreciation for the role of government, but embraces a dictatorial vision of executive power, threatening to unilaterally scuttle international agreements, repeal legislation and default on the national debt.

He supports torture and war crimes against civilians.

He has played footsie with and failed to disown some of his most extreme supporters, including avowed racists and anti-Semites. He has ridiculed the disabled. He has disparaged the heroism of POW John McCain. He has defended the size of his junk on national television.

Oh, and he’s a pathological liar. . . .

AND YET ONE MORE

And now that I have you (or at least me) entirely frazzled, here’s one more.  Did you know we not so long ago came within a week of a modern-day Carrington Event? Or what a Carrington Event is?  (There’s been just one: in 1859.) I didn’t either.

Just to keep you on your toes.

Jim Burt:  “You may want to keep this on hand for reference. It is a scholarly paper setting out with elaborate documentation and minute calculation what we’ve both been saying for years:  The US economy does much better under Democratic presidents than under Republican ones . . .”

. . . During the 64 years that make up the core 16 terms, real GDP growth averaged 3.33% at an annual rate. But the average growth rates under Democratic and Republican presidents were starkly different: 4.33% and 2.54% respectively. This 1.79 percentage point gap (henceforth, the “D-R gap”) is astoundingly large relative to the sample mean.4, It implies that over a typical four year presidency the U.S. economy grew by 18.5% when the president was a Democrat, but only by 10.6% when he was a Republican. And since the standard deviations of quarterly growth rates are roughly equal (3.8% for Democrats, 3.9% for Republicans, annualized), Democratic presidents have presided over growth that was faster but not more volatile. . . .

☞ In fairness, “it appears that the Democratic edge stems mainly from more benign oil shocks, superior [productivity], and perhaps greater defense spending and faster growth abroad.” But it sure seems to me — in the broadest strokes — as though Democrats are inclined to drive toward the future while post-Eisenhower Republicans yearn for the past, throwing all but non-military government investment into reverse.

Trump may be a different kind of Republican, but even if he should want to build anything other than the military and his wall, he won’t be able to do anything a Republican Congress opposes; and the Republican Congress seems more focused than ever on blocking investing in the future.

Trump: So Wrong . . . In So Many Ways

Meanwhile, how old is this presidential historian — two?

Here is Dilbert creator Scott Adams on with Bill Maher explaining how Trump wins.

One of you writes: “I no longer believe we Democrats are up to parrying Trump.”

I don’t see it as bleakly.

Based on competence/temperament — and on the policy positions of the two parties — Democrats should sweep November with 85% of the vote.  Instead, we may struggle to get even 52%.  But if we have the resources, we will win.

So I continue to ask everyone I know for 1% of his or her net worth, because the Court, the country, and (given the role we play in the world and the challenges the world faces, climate change and nuclear proliferation prime among them) the whole world is at stake.

Still, I will enthusiastically and appreciatively take less than 1%.  Click here.

Have a great weekend.

A deep bow of respect Monday to those who gave 100%.