A skeptical leftist's, or post-capitalist's, or eco-socialist's blog, including skepticism about leftism (and related things under other labels), but even more about other issues of politics. Free of duopoly and minor party ties. Also, a skeptical look at Gnu Atheism, religion, social sciences, more.
Note: Labels can help describe people but should never be used to pin them to an anthill.
As seen at Washington Babylon and other fine establishments
Carl Beijer recently wrote related thoughts about "left entryism," that is, the issue whether the Democratic Party can be moved leftward, reformed leftward, from inside. He is at least somewhat skeptical. He notes the bar has to be set high. And he's right, with Andrew Sullivan identifying as a quasi-Democrat while openly saying he voted for Obama because:
(I) found in Obama the moderate Republican I’d always admired.
Per my piece on DSA, I'm as skeptical as Beijer that that high bar will be maintained. (I'm also skeptical about Beijer at times; see below.)
That's why, like this gent, I support principled undervoting of individual races, or even not voting at all, if current non-duopoly options implode. Or, as Chris Hedges put it, focusing on the New Jersey Senate race but applicable elsewhere, there's lots of scum vs scum races.
There's a good argument to be made for at least selective undervoting as a refusal to give approval to a corrupt system. On a Disqus thread for a 3 Quarks Daily piece, somebody chided me over this, raising a version of the compact theory of government. I said much of what a lot of people knew or thought they knew about 1783-89 wasn't totally so, first, and second, nobody had renegotiated this compact with me, or offered to.
Given what I've seen both pre- and post-election in comment forums, I think it's probably about right to despair. The DSA roses that do get into office won't quite be ConservaDems, but they likely will become AccommoDems. And, if other roses run in 2020, they may get the message to cooperate first.
Let's also remember that the DSA roses' "Green New Deal" is a pale imitation of the Green Party's offering. Andrew Stewart also talks about the original Green New Deal at Counterpunch. Carl Beijer (who allegedly worked on two Nader campaigns) says, "but the Democrats are the first to talk about the global climate issue."
That may well be true.
At the same time, it's not "the Democrats," Carl; it's a small subsection of Democrats, not a party stance. And, per those links, we'll see how well that small segment does at avoiding being co-opted by national leadership. Given that centrist New York Democratic hack Hakeem Jeffries beat out Barbara Lee (albeit in a close vote) to chair the DNC caucus, I wouldn't hold my breath. Let's not forget, as shown in cases such as Sema Hernandez endorsing Beto O'Rourke without any guaranteed single-payer pledge from him, some DSA roses and their allies are more willing to be co-opted than others.
Indeed, the face of the Roses, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has continued to move rightward since lauding John McCain and backing away from BDS-related issues, as this longform from Mint Press notes. Among specifics on her Twitter? Pulling the old national Democrat tough on crime bullshit by calling Republicans "weak on crime." (And, no, she didn't qualify that by talking about white-collar crime or anything like that. Don't try to rescue her, folks.)
Meanwhile, if a Great Recession 2.0 or whatever hits in the next two years, is there anything that will prevent Dems, who still won't hold the presidency, from going Obama and bailing out the finance sector? Ditto if timing on this is when some Dem replaces Trump?
This is not cynicism, contra a person commenting on a public Facebook page. It's skepticism. The Democratic Party still has a ways to go to prove it has reformed. And the DSA roses entering Congress for the first time have even more to prove that they can stand up to being co-opted (or that some of their talk wasn't PR in the first place).
That was before said person claimed that "wisdom of the goddess" type voting for women would usher in world peace. I reminded her of Hillary Clinton's war on Libya and Margaret Thatcher's war on working-class Britons. And that's not to mention the godawful Theresa May.
Meanwhile, doorknob forbid that a DSA rosey like Sema Hernandez be criticized on Twitter for making a calculated political decision. Scap, who I've thought is overrated in his and other minds, says I called her a liar.
No, Scap, what I said was, was that Sema officially endorsed Beto Claus without any explicit guarantee in public, during the campaign, that he would endorse even Bernie's weaker S 1804 version of single-payer if he were elected. I said at the time, on the update of the "Beto a ConservaDem" piece, that Beto had gone out of his way to trash it early in the campaign cycle, so even if he did promise to endorse it, I'd believe it when I saw it. I also said on it, and hinted to you, that Sema made a calculated, buttering up Texas Democratic Party hierarchy, decision related to a possible 2020 Senate run. That's no secret that she's considering that, and I am not the first person to make the connection between the two, as I also told you.
So, Scap, or Sema, send me a URL dated after Sema's letter in which Beto explicitly backs single payer (and not "universal health care") in public. More on that issue and other such things here.
Andrew Stewart also remains skeptical of the AOC "wave election" and other things related to it.
And here are some posts of interest from other blogs and
news sites.
The Texas Observer discusses SB 9 and other attempts to
restrict Texas voting. (NPR notes that other Rethuglican-controlled state governments are considering similar laws.)
Robert
Rivard bemoans the continual lack of interest in San Antonio
municipal elections.
The Tribune reports on new “tent cities” about to open for
detained illegal immigrants.
For better AND for worse, the Metroplex is estimated to have
led the nation’s metro areas in 2018 growth.
The Trib also reports on how Plano State Rep. Jeff Leach, a
Republican himself, is facing unspecified security threats for not letting Tony
Tinderholt’s nutbar bill criminalizing all abortion to leave his committee.
Brains updates his 2020 weekly presidential thoughts,
focusing on some “downballot” Democrats.
Juanita
remains the go-to source for Louie Gohmert news.
Dan Crenshaw is doing his best to catch up to Louie Gohmert,
aka Gohmert Pyle, as Texas' most nutbar congresscritter. Wardah
Khalid also calls out Crenshaw's hypocrisy.More establishmentarian Rethug Roger
Williams decided to throw his hat in the nutbar ring too.
How National Dems at the DNC suck, Part 101:
Lotsa "power brokers" tried to get Lil Joe Kennedy to run for Prez.
BuzzFeed’s Anne Helen Peterson gets Waco more correct than
she did Beto when she talks about the rise of the cult of Chip and Joanna
Gaines. That said, she does still
give them, and some aspects of Waco, a bit of a pass. She also ignores Bernard
and Audre Rapoport’s history in Waco. How you can do that even while mentioning a Rapoport Academy I have no idea.
(In a Twitter exchange, to one of two separate tweets, in all fairness, Peterson said a lot of stuff ended on the cutting room floor, and it was a long read. I encouraged her to do something else, even if it doesn't fall under her "culture" gig, about the history of the Texas Observer, as few non-Texans know about it. In fairness for me, she didn't respond to the other Tweet, and she never responded to any of my Tweets last fall about her Beto Bromance, which has led to my skepticism about her writing in general.)
The first time, in the preseason, I said you never have enough pitching, while adding that many Cards fans who wanted to chase Bryce Harper were delusional about both him and the team's 2019 pitching staff.
The second time, was just before the start of the regular season, when the team shelved Carlos Martinez for two weeks at the start of spring training due to shoulder issues — and player-management issues about his offseason prep and more lying behind that.
Where are we at nearly a month into the season?
Martinez is still rehabbing.
Adam Wainwright, as I said then, is not only is not a sort-of No. 1 starter, he just semi-sucks. But he doesn't suck nearly as bad as Dakota Hudson, on whom those nutter fans above were going ga-ga two months ago.
And Miles Mikolas semi-sucks himself. That has to be of longer-term concern given his extension after just one year returned to MLB from Japan.
Michael Wacha is not a No. 1 starter; he's a recurring injury waiting for a new outbreak. However, with an ERA+ of 90, he's the best Cardinal starter on a team where none of them are above 90 on ERA+ or below 4.00 on FIP. Waino is actually lowest there, while Mikolas is near the top, despite having a decent WHIP, which leads me to think (whew) it could be just bad luck for him.
And, Wacha's now that injury recurred, on the shelf with knee tendinitis. Supposably, he'll just miss one start. Call me back in about a week and let's see if that's true.
On Keuchel, I was
thinking in my original posts that a 3/$50M base, maybe 3/$55, with innings and awards incentives
for each year and a fourth-year option at $15M plus same incentives
structure.
I was not sure if that was enough to land him,
but it's certainly enough to be a good starting point. And, at the same
time, it certainly doesn't feel like an overpay.
But, per Buster Olney, he reportedly would be open to a "good" one-year deal.
That's all, Mo! Give him one year plus two performance-incentive-laden options.
How fucking cheap can John Mozeliak and Mike Girsch be? Plenty.
That said, as of May 7, two weeks after I posted this, somebody's lying. Contra Buster's tweet, Keuchel tells Yahoo's ace baseball columnist Tim Brown that he has told agent Scott Boras to reject multiple offers.
Seriously.
Keuchel could be in MLB shape before Martinez completes his rehab.
You have a mediocre 11-9 record, compounded by Christian Yelich, who I still won't forgive you for not trying to sign, owning your ass, even while you DID overpay for knowingly bum-shouldered Marcell Ozuna, who appears to have found some blind hog batting acorns while still being a throwing travesty in left field.
The other pitchers, as far as actual or possible starters? Jack Flaherty is as mediocre as the rest of the starters. Dakota Hudson has been like dumpster diving remnants. Alex Reyes has been a tire fire out of the bullpen so far. And, after getting sent back down to Memphis and sucking there, too, on April 28, he broke his left pinkie in a pique of anger.
Sign Keuchel.
If not, watch ticket sales plunge as the Birds finish out of the playoff running again.
We already know that President Donald Trump is running for re-election.
But he's now got not one, not two, but three guaranteed opponents. (I am not expecting more.) Those three, with Trump playing chickenhawk (as he is doing more and more with a servile RNC's help) will debate Sept. 24.
Bill Weldformed an exploratory committee about a month ago, shortly after officially changing his party affiliation from Libertarian back to Republican after being that party's Veep nominee in 2016. And he's now officially entered. In ABC's report on his candidacy announcement, he made it clear he's targeting independent voters, whether ConservaDems or mild libertarians who can't swallow the Libertarian Party. He noted 20 states have open GOP primaries, including first-in-the-nation New Hampshire.
Problems exist, though. He really is a libertarian. or a liberal Dem, on social issues. More and more Republicans might be OK with him on marijuana, but not on abortion or gay rights.
Second, he's 73 years old, and looks every day of it at times per his picture, though he looks younger with a more subdued version of Trump's hair coloring. That said, he is a year older than Trump.
Third? He's been out of elective office for 20-plus years, and his last three campaigns — 1998 Senate in Massachusetts, 2006 Governor in New York and the 2016 race, the first as Republican nominee, the second as GOP primary candidate — have all been losses.
That said, even if some would hold their nose at his social libertarianism, there's a Never Trumper legion waiting for him. April 24, Weld wrote a column calling on Trump to resign. It ran in The Bulwark, a hodgepodge of primarily neocons left over from Bill Kristol's The Weekly Standard. In addition, polls continue to indicate dissatisfaction with Trump from both inside registered Republicans and independent conservatives. Of course, such polls, that don't list a named opponent, often are of little value.
Update, April 30: In a new interview with Reason's Matt Welch, Weld said he felt before the Mueller Report went public that Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice worse than Nixon's. He also chided Mueller (whom he hired as a deputy when he ran the criminal division of DOJ under Reagan) for relying on the old DOJ internal memo that a sitting president can't be indicted. (Sidebar: While in the Reagan DOJ, he thought Ed Meese should be prosecuted, and resigned in protest over Meese's conduct. So, he knows ethics issues.)
And? Weld called Trump a RINO! (He's wrong; fiscal irresponsibility was a hallmark of Reagan and Shrub Bush, even if Poppy tried to be realistic. That said, Poppy was closer to libertarian-lite than his son or St. Ronald were.)
Beyond that, he essentially called out both John Kasich and Larry Hogan for fence-sitting.
Update, Aug. 12: Weld is actually on the campaign trail in Iowa, even as Trump relies on cultish followers, the White House apparatus and Twitter to be a lazy ass.
Sadly, it appears that's going to remain the case. Kasich had previously disavowed making a 2020 run at Trump while not totally shutting the door on an independent bid. Could he decide to go the GOP route after all? (Update, June 27: As of the end of May, Kasich had all-but-totally ruled himself out.) Larry Hogan has never even followed through on ginned-up speculation.
Update, Aug. 22: Wingnut ex-Congresscritter Joe Walsh (a vote for him is a vote for Teh Stupidz, not the rock star), is reportedly going to jump in.
Of course, he does have egg to wipe off his face:
And, as many others have joked, sadly, not THIS Joe Walsh, who DOES have THE campaign theme song nailed down.
Update, Feb. 7, 2020: Walsh has dropped back out, and has said he'll back any Dem over Trump. Update, Sept. 6: Mark Sanford, after drawing (or self-promoting) rumblings about entering a month ago, has made it official. He's playing up the "real Republicans control spending" schtick (Reagan and Shrub didn't, as everybody knows.
Being in the South, could he undercut Trump support there? Probably not much.
As for the Fox interviewer asking Sanford if he can do better than Weld in polling? Well, Weld would be better known if the Fellators at Faux actually wrote more about him. Since he's not a winger, fat chance of that. Note update directly above this. There's also been a lot less polling of Rethugs than of Democraps.
Besides, that's arguably a "glass half empty" at best, "lie" at worse, take. Real Clear Politics has Weld in double digits in many polls, despite minimal coverage. Maybe that will climb after his first Iowa visit.
Next is the context.
This is the most serious intraparty challenge of an incumbent since at least 1992, when Pat Buchanan ran against Poppy Bush. And, while the U.S. was in a fairly mild recession, there was nothing else functionally wrong with the country, at least by Beltway steno eyeballs. Bush had won the Gulf War, seen the old USSR crumble into Evil Empire dust, and, while giving Beijing a pass over Tiananmen Square, hadn't screwed up anything else abroad. He did look a bit insensitive on the recession, but ... that could have been fixed.
Speaking of (Sept. 6): for the first time since Buchanan in 1992, a party with a sitting president facing an actual challenge from within has state parties canceling primaries or caucuses. Kansas, South Dakota, South Carolina and Nevada are doing so. Nevada's explanation is laughable.
“It would be malpractice on my part to waste money on a caucus to come to the inevitable conclusion that President Trump will be getting all our delegates in Charlotte,” said Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald.
And, this is a wingnut who surely has no problem claiming, for political hay, that the DNC rigged primaries for Hillary vs Bernie in 2016.
On Sept. 22, Alaska's GOP made it five on cancellations.
Read the trio of candidates writing a joint- op-ed about Chickenhawk Trump in the Bezos Post, via Down with Tyranny. (Some of the newer paywalls, like its and the Snooze's, I haven't figured out how to dodge.)
Sanford, former governor and Congresscritter from the Palmetto State, seemingly is most hurt by that cancellation. But, The Hill reports the state GOP executive committee might not have had the authority to do that; only a party convention can. Some state GOP insiders are supposedly worrying about lawsuits. A state GOP comms flak responded by citing another party bylaws chapter and verse that talks about the spirit, not the letter. Well, Chris Jackson, we know what spirit was driving the GOP Ex Comm. Your bosses want to defend that in court.
Update, Oct. 1: Former Palmetto State Congresscritter Bob Inglis is leading a lawsuit against the South Carolina GOP. Nice to have a heavy hitter involved, and, unlike Nixon 1972 or Reagan 1984, who had little opposition, Trump has real opposition this time.
In 1992, for Buchanan, a man with no elected political experience but a Religious Right following, Bush needed to be challenged.
That said, Poppy Bush was not a great political campaigner. He'd shown that in spades in 1980.
Trump, on the other hand, while not a "conventional" Beltway-style politician, has strong, if crude, political strategery impulses.
OTOH, Never Trumpers have a fairly strong candidate in Weld.
Bill Weld is not THE most libertarian of libertarians on social issues, but he is far more of one there than Rand and Ron Paul. Given the Religious Right is totally in Trump's corner, running on fumes of high-octane hypocrisy, Weld has nothing to lose by calling the GOP to tolerance. As an economic libertarian, he can appeal to big biz types over Trump's undermining of the economy on trade issues, and probably on immigration as well.
That would leave room for Kasich, a strong social conservative without being a foaming warrior, to enter in on the other side, claiming he can feel blue collar workers' pain from within a Rust Belt state while more authentically walking the walk on social issues.
I don't think Weld alone can mount too serious a challenge to Trump, but I think he's smart to take himself back inside the GOP to do what he can. If he drew Kasich in, Trump would face a more serious challenge. The cult would still back him, but with nothing to lose, Weld and Kasich would both stay in the race as long as they had money and a ghost of a chance.
If Kasich did get in, it would be the most serious intraparty challenge of an incumbent since 1968, when Gene McCarthy, then Bobby Kennedy, both challenged LBJ before he withdrew. (Ted Kennedy challenging Jimmy Carter in 1980 is first in some ways, due to the strength of Kennedy as a challenger, but with the criteria of multiple semi-serious challenges to an incumbent president, you have to go back to 1968.)
That said, will that happen? I highly doubt it.
Social conservatives, even those with a fair degree of Trump loathing, remain afraid of the rank-and-file backing, and even more, afraid of the way many others have become toadies to Trump. Kasich is already being attacked by kiddie pool wingnut media for his response to the Mueller Report.
Would Kasich follow through on hints to run as the "mom and apple pie true GOP" independent candidate? I don't think there's more than a 10 percent chance of that. He is seven years younger than Weld and just left the office of Ohio governor. Unless he wanted to be a deliberate contrarian, he'll weigh his position within the GOP carefully. Walsh's entry probably won't swing him one way or the other, but Sanford might make it less likely.
That said, the trio of Welsh, Walsh and Sanford may collectively be fleas on the back of Trumpus Porcinus, but, per things happening in the Rust Belt and GOP rank and file discontent, they might draw enough votes to actually force him to work — and to force him into stupid enough intraparty comments that the risk of him losing Rust Belt undervotes in the general looms high.
Weld, on the other hand, has said he would "be flattered to be Kennedy to (Trump's) Carter," per a Fortune roundup of actual and potential candidates, quoting Rolling Stone.
So, enjoy Bill Weld while you can. Enjoy his campaign showing both the depth of Trumpism and the shallowness of actual libertarianism in today's GOP.
The Fortune piece says current Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan could also jump in. Hogan is a moderate, for a modern Republican, on some issues, though a social conservative overall. As a sitting officeholder in a state a bit more blue than Kasich's Ohio, but not as blue as Weld's Massachusetts, if he got in, but lost, and faced a shitload of Trump Train surrogate attacks, it could actually boost his chances for a future Senate bid or a 2024 presidential run.
The biggest lost is further delays in addressing the massive problem of climate change.
I've discussed AOC's aspirational Green New Deal, the one started by neoliberals who are the youth division of Gang Green environmentalist org Sierra Club, versus the Green Party's better but not perfect version, three times already, with a fourth in the hopper. Part three, with links to one and two, is here.
My personal purple iris Earth Day gift.
Among problems with the Gang Green New Deal is, beyond it generally being aspirational and not concrete, it talks little about a carbon tax and nothing at all about a carbon tariff. A carbon tariff rightly addresses the political question of "why should we shoot ourselves in the foot?" and the moral issue of "we need to all be on the same page." It would not harm developing nations, as many, especially in subSaharan Africa, have not committed to a 20th-century style western grid or industrialization in the first place.
Second, to riff somewhat on other people, and without saying Ocasio-Cortez doesn't care about other environmental issues, climate change is only one issue.
Habitat degradation and species extinction beyond what's being caused by climate change are another. Potential Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins discusses this and more.
With our Gen Z kids, device addiction and nature apathy is also big. Actually, it's big for their parents and even older adults as well.
If you're at an Earth Day event, whether one affiliated with the national Earth Day group or not, turn your phone OFF. Not just to "silent" but OFF.
If you don't, you're part of the problem. It's hard to care about nature if you can't occasionally focus on it.
That said, the planet WILL be around. And, the planet will recover — eventually — from most human degradation.
But, we may not. This is like an asteroid 66 million years ago, but we're aiming it at ourselves. Only the mega-rich of libertarian ilk could seriously tout the idea that we as a civilized, settled species could just pack up and relocate our entire civilization from its largely coastal and riverine current location.
