All posts by Jim Daniel

A Modern Trail of Tears

History, Politics, Rants, , ,

It has taken me some time to come to grips with my feelings today after I heard about the ‘deal’ we have cut with Turkey over the lands of the Kurds in Syria. I was of many mixed emotions and was quite puzzled on what to say. Finally it hit me that for even poorer reasons than just hating ‘Injuns’ like Pres. Andrew Jackson, Pres. Trump has started on the way of having the USA to have a new ‘Trail of Tears’.

Like many many Sooners (or Okies), that is people born in Oklahoma and have much family still there. I have a strong family tradition of having Native American heritage. Also like them I have no sold ‘proof’ of this heritage. But I was raised by a wonderful woman who instilled in me a strong love my my mixed heritage. She thought me to take pride in my Scots heritage and, at the same time take pride in my Cherokee heritage. She instilled in me a bias against the wrongs done to all of the Native American peoples. A bias is so strong that I still consider Pres. Andrew Jackson a genocide in a time that he was looked upon as one of the ‘Great’ Presidents.

Like many Americans I thought that we had been making progress in not only acknowledging the wrongs done but making what little amends that can be made. I hope and prayed that we had left this kind of action behind us. Congratulations Pres. Trump, congratulations MAGA, you have ended that dream. With the agreement you have made with Turkey you are setting up a new trail of tears, this time for the Kurds. You have show once again just what the word of American is worth. It is worth nothing.

So my fellow Americans you now get to join our ancestors in bearing the guilt for the actions our government is doing in our name. An what do we, as a nation get out of it? NOTHING. What does Donald Trump get out of it? EVERYTHING. For that is the true America tragedy of the Indian Removals thru all our history. Be they land speculators, gold hunters, railroads, or Real estate developers, the many suffer and die for the benefit of the few. All we are missing are the classic Indian Agent and I’m sure the Russians are working on it as this is written.

So thanks you MAGA, thank you Pres. Trump for one more stain on American history. Your place in history is assured.

The Munich Effect

Honor, Politics, Rants, , , ,

Yes, I know I’m breaking the ‘sacred’ rule of not citing Nazis in internet post if I’m not to be considered a nut case. But as we learned in school, sometimes break a rule is the best way to make a point. My point here is not what you may think it is. I’m not saying anyone is a Nazi. I’m saying the USA is going to be look at as trustworthy as France and England after they threw Czechoslovakia to the wolves in 1938.

What our government has done, and even though I don’t support anything that the current administration has done, it still is MY government of MY country. What Pres. Trump has done to the Kurd’s in our name is totally despicable. The Word of the United States means Nothing now. No Nation, no people, no person can take anything this government says valid. We will only stand behind our promises if and only if we loose nothing and gain something.

So I say to all the MAGA Trump supporters out there something my mother used to say to me when I had done something particularly bad. “Now aren’t you just so proud?” Look at just what you have done. It is all yours and we, the other people of this nation are going to remember just what your ‘Great Leader’ has done to the rest of us. So don’t come crying that you are ‘misunderstood’ or your ‘being picked on’, or “didn’t know”. None of that maters now. It ‘Fish or cut bait’ time for you all. Does your word mater to you at all? If it does you have to MAKE your Representatives and Senators know that they will be held both culpable as well as responsible come the elections. Not only the one coming next year but for all those Senators who ‘Know’ they are safe because they aren’t up for re-election for 2 or 4 years. Remind them that sometimes the electorate remembers. Sometimes it rejects bald faced lairs.

Or you can keep on supporting Pres. Trump and we will have Hard proof that all your cries of Love of Country and of your Undying Patriotism are no more true than the lies your ‘Great Leader’ tells you and tried to tell us. We don’t believe you any more and we are not buying it any more. You’ve had it. We are done.

For all those ‘Conservatives’ who left the Republican Party when Donald Trump was Elected, or even those who left when he was Nominated. It is time to act or everything you thought you stood for has been shown to be nothing but dross. Not worth the paper it is printed upon. You thought the wilderness that the party faced after Nixon was bad? What is coming is going to be much worse. An don’t go thinking you will get another RR to save you. Where are you going to find him? Non of the current crop of GOP/Conservative up and comers has shown even half the backbone RR had. Trust me when I say this, I was a Regan Democrat, both for Gov. and for Pres. We might disagree with his position but we knew his word was good. At least for a while. Now, who among you has any kind of word anyone take. Just name one who could run in 2024? Just one.

For all the rest of America, now is our time! We know what to do. We know how to do it. We have done it before and we can do it again. Countries in far worse condition have show just what an aroused electorate can do. To my fellow Baby Boomers, remember 1968 and what we did when we had enough of a war we didn’t understand and were lied to about. When we had had enough of the hypocrisy of the ‘establishment’ we did something. It took a little time to figure out what, but we talked and organized and marched and finally protested. An all before the internet and social media. So what if we have a hard time getting out? So What! If your reading this there are things you can do. You can find out who to send a letter to, or you can send an email. You can notice and correct false postings and demand citations for fact checking. You can become a volunteer fact checker.

MAGA has had everything it’s own way so far. It thinks it owns the old white vote. Well this is one old white male they don’t own. Not even close. I stand with the teenagers and twenty somethings of today. I will not let MAGA make the word of America mean ‘nothing’. America stands for something. It stands for ideals so great we have yet to be worthy of them. It challenges us every day in every way to live up to what being an American means. Our honor has been sullied and it is up to each and every one of us to do our bit, no mater how small, it all maters.

They say to Make America Great Again. They used it as a marketing slogan…that was their mistake. America is Great because Americans are great and it is time to show these snake oil salesmen just how a a rail feels to ride.

Libertarianism & Me, Part II

General, Philosophy,
MrPooter Image
The Richest Man in Bedford Falls Owner of half of the town

One of the great pieces of poor logic of the rightist libertarian philosophy is it’s relationship with government power. To put it in it’s simplest form, they seem to want the government not to interfere with anything they are doing, or want to do, but they do want it to keep others from doing things they don’t want done. One of the first examples of this occurred to me in a conversation with a door-to-door canvaser for the American Libertarian Party about 30 years ago. I asked her just what the Party would do for me if they were elected and she told me they would get rid of zoning laws.

Intrigued I asked her just what that would do for me and she cheerfully responded that with out all those bothersome zoning laws I would be able to do anything I wanted with my property. Anything I asked, anything she said. Even starting my own in home business? She brighten even more and said yes, that is exactly what they were after. How about my own fireworks factory? She looked a bit troubled but nodded yes. Even though fireworks can not be sold in L.A. City? She asked if I would sell them out of my home and I said no, I’d transport them to where it was legal to sell. I smiled and said this sounds great as I have a storm drain just one house over where I can dispose of all the chemical wast I produce and if it explodes or catches fire I’ll wont need to worry about my home exploding. At this point she decided to move on to the next house.

The point here is she had no real idea of just what the zoning laws did, she just knew that they kept people from doing what they wanted to do and therefore were ‘bad’. Like most people, myself included, she had not given much thought to the why and wherefore of the laws. This is not a characteristic isolated to Libertarians, this is an all too human characteristic. It is why we have had leaders and wise men and women to take counsel together and make rules to live by. We trust them to consider the effects, the consequences, of actions of the group and not do things that will hurt more than they help. Sometimes they fail, rarely they fail spectacularly and we do suffer greatly.

A here is the problem faced by the Libertarian philosophy, it is just a collection of very simple maxims. The number and composition of the collection of maxims changes from time to time and wither it is right or left based but all in all it is a nice set. But that is the problem. They are simple in form but we now have to come up with rules on how to actually apply the maxims in real life. With real situations involving real people. Now things get complicated. If for no other reason you are going to have to deal with people who don’t like the maxims or want to use them in ways to their own advantage and not in the way intended.

Next time: Libertarianism and the Logical extreme.

What May Come

Law, Philosophy, Politics, , , ,

With all the ‘talk, talk, talk’ going on about the Impeachment investigation I thought it would be nice to lay out the possible paths we may be fallowing in the near future. I’ll start with where we are now, with the Secretary of State Pompeo not honoring the House subpoenas for depositions by State Department employees. We can now ignore, or prune, that branch of the tree that starts with full cooperation.

What are the possible actions now? In no particular order of preference there seems to be three possible branches. Branch one: Increased resistance by the Executive branch. The next Branch is that the resistance stays as low key as possible and the final branch is acquiescence to the subpoenas.

I do not find the third Branch likely but it is the cleanest/simplest. What can follow it is that the House Committees either find sufficient evidence to recommend to the House to vote Impeachment or It doesn’t. If the person(s) being investigated are truly innocent of any impeachable actions this would be the best course for everyone concerned. Given the current evidence available to the public this does not seem likely as it does seem to show that Donald Trump did, in fact, attempt to get a foreign government to provide a thing of value for his upcoming campaign. Of course it is possible for the President to argue that Op Research is not a thing of value. Also it can be argued that he really didn’t ask for this. The problem is both arguments are quite thin and really don’t play well with an impartial jury.

So let us take on the first Branch of the tree, complete non-compliance subpoenas has and total resistance to giving evidence to the House Committees. This branch leads very quickly to either the House caving in and waiting to see just what the election in 13 months brings. Or the house can attempt to use it’s more usual method of enforcing it’s subpoenas by asking the Justice Department to bring criminal contempt charges. This would lead to another set of branches, the JD could honor the request or just ignore the request or responded that they see no merit in the request.

Let’s look at this last one first. Finding that the request for criminal contempt was with out merit would force the House to either just cave in or move quickly to using inherent contempt. More on inherent contempt later. Just ignoring the request has the advantage of burning time while leading eventually to the same two branches of finding no merit. As far as honoring the request for Criminal Contempt this leads to the problems of having the Attorney General go against the wishes of the President, something the current President doesn’t take well. Look for this to happen if Pres. Trump has found a way to get someone else to take the fall. In any case this path leaders inevitably to either the House passing/not passing a bill of Impeachment.

So now let us look at the possibilities of those branch’s above that lead to the use of inherent contempt which will entail having the House Sargent at Arms arresting the person or persons. As inherent contempt has not been used since 1934 (85 years) it is almost anyone’s guess on just how it will be worked now. Something to what for is actions taking place in the House Sargent at Arms office and in/around the cells in the House basement. This action by the house could quite easily lead to one of two events/branches. First, and most likely is that the person or persons peacefully submit to arrest. They also could resist the arrest. The resisting could take many forms, all the way from just not letting the persons from the House Sargent at Arms into the building the person to be arrested is in all the way up to having the persons own security detachment forcefully protecting their charge from the people attempting to make the arrest. This last would be very bad for all concerned and while possible I really don’t see it happening.

Let us look at the breach that leads to the person or persons who are defying the Congressional Subpoena(s) being taken into custody. The House would have to hold a trial and this trial could be long or short depending on the House Membership and just how strong the person(s) being held is. It is customary to drop the Contempt Charge(s) if the person so charged takes action to make amends. If the House does find them in Contempt they have several options ranging from fines to imprisonment. This can last till the current congress expires in just over a year from now. It is also possible that if these persons are of sufficient rank, that is they hold a non-selective service job (and in some cases even if they do) they too can be impeached and removed from office. (Please note that being removed from office by conviction on impeachment is tantamount to being fired for cause and you loose all benefits etc.)

That is all I can foresee for now. More later as thing become either more murky, less murky, or stay the same.

“No Me, Gim Do It.”

Philosophy, Politics, , , ,

When I and my Cuz Shari were toddlers our mothers put us down for a nap in the same play pen. The then went into the kitchen for coffee and a chat. Sometime later there was a great crashing noise from the room we were in. When the mom’s got there they saw the pen had totally collapsed. Shari, standing in the middle of everything looked up and said “No Me! Gim Do It.” Even tho it was obvious to the moms that is had been Shari’s doing.

This is exactly what I think is starting to happen with the Trump Administration and the Ukraine scandal and why I have used the illustration above. While it is Tammany Hall, and thus Democrat Party it is still very illustrative of what is happening now. (Note: I know enough political history to know that both corruption and shifting of blame is an All Parties phenomenon.). While we currently only have three people in the ring (Trump, Pence, and Giuliani) and this is more of a triangle I feel confident that more will be added soon. Some of them will be totally uninvolved, others on the side of ‘Truth, Justice, and the American Way’, and others guilt of some involvement. This is a classic Mob tactic, throw everyone you can under the Bus in hope you will get away scot free. That is why the Impeachment hearings in the house are so important.

Like in chess, Mobsters, try and complicate things when they are loosing. This is about the only way you can get your opponent to make a mistake and that is their only hope of winning. The American people need to see in the simplest, clearest terms just what Pres. Trump did, and what his henchmen did. All of the underbrush being tossed out by the suspects need to be clear away. The facts of the case need to be stated in the simplest, cleanest, clearest manner for all to see. This is why the hearing(s) need to be as tightly focused on the attempt to use the Ukraine to become involved in our 2020 election. While the Impeachment is just an indictment the American people need to be able to see that if the Senate does not Convict, that vote was totally motivated by partisan need and not by any reasonable doubt of culpability.

These hearing(s) need to be done quickly, too. Not only for the nation as a whole, but for the Republican Party. The worst possible outcome would be for Donald Trump to win the Republican Nomination and then be convicted in the Senate. So to the House Of Representatives I say move with ‘all deliberate speed’. To the Democrats I say, do everything you can to see that the truth is shown clearly, to Republicans I say remember you are Americans first and Republicans second and work toward the best interests of the nation, remember what America stands for. This is the only way you can save your party from going the way of the American Party.

Libertarianism & Me, Part I

Philosophy, Politics,
MrPooter Image
The Richest Man in Bedford Falls Owner of half of the town

As some of you may know I recently attended my 50th High School Reunion. Some of you are now saying “Just what does this have to do with Libertarianism?” Just this, it give you a time frame as the U.S. Libertarian Party was formed in 1971 and I was a student in college working on my degree in Political Science.

The next year, being an election year, the campus was flooded with fliers for this ‘new & exciting’ party. I was curious, both because of the party’s name ‘Libertarian’ and because of it’s logo that uses TANSTAAFAL which is from one of my favorite SF Novels of the time.

Unfortunately for both me and libertarianism the more I found out about both the party and it’s ideology the more disenchanted I became. What first got me was the illogic of it’s fundamental political and economic principles. Often as not two or more of the the principles are in diametric opposition. Next was the basic hypocrisy of the party saying it was new. In fact only the “formal” political party was new. The name and political philosophies date back to the 1780’s.

So, where to start? Well, first is that there are really several ‘flavors’ of Libertarianism that can be broadly divided into “Conservative” Libertarianism and “Progressive or Scocialist” Liberalism. An as you might expect they hate each other with a passion. The funny thing is they are really mostly identical with the major difference being which “Liberties” they are fighting for. What is truly sad is that Libertarianism could be a great Political/Economic philosophy if it was so caught up with it’s desire to be totally right.

So where to start? There is so much to cover and so little space-time. How about the idea of “That government than governs lest governs best.”? A grand old American Political ideal, but in the hands of many followers of Libertarianism it is morphed into the desire to have a government so small that it can’t hurt the individual. The only problem with this is that when the government is that small it is too small to protect the individual. I’ve heard many Libertarians say “that’s ok. They should stand on their on two feet and protect themselves.” Well and good for those big enough and strong enough but what about the small and weak? If you are wondering what I’m thinking about try watching some of the great John Wayne ‘Rio’ movies. You know the ones where the local land baron has the town under it’s thumb? I like the ones where John Wayne is the town marshal who is waiting for the US Deputy Marshal to come thru. Why? Because if the local land Barron messes with a US Marshal he is going to have the whole US government down on his head.

This whole political philosophy is based on the great american myth of the self reliant “frontiersman” who relied on no one but himself. This almost never, if ever happened. America was settled by groups, be they individual family, or just by groups like the 49ers of California. I have always like the statement “Men conquered the West, Women settled it.” While we can and should always depend on ourselves we also need help from time to time. This is more true when dealing with those who don’t follow the rules. Like the bullies we all saw in school, I never saw one by themselves. They always had the groupies (minions) around them and they always seem to get them to do the actual bullying.

I can see I have a lot more to say so I think breaking this up into multiple posts. So BBFN.

The Sheldon Crisis, part III

General, Philosophy, Politics, , , ,
Foundation

The Sheldon Crisis the U.S. is currently experiencing is going into it’s next faze today with the first of the Donald Trump Impeachment inquiry by the House Judiciary Committee. An it did not go well for anybody. While the supporters of Pres. Trump seem to have won on points this is only round one of the match. There are many more rounds to go and maybe a few more matches.

As a person who watched much of the Senate Watergate Hearings and the most all of the House Impeachment process Of Pres. Nixon. I also followed closely all the sordid process of the Clinton Impeachment and trial. I can say that today was not a good start. I hope the chairman and the House leadership rethink just how this process needs to work. Or, just maybe we all are missing something. This is more than just a legal process, there is a lot of politics involved.

Things just might get more interesting as time goes on. The House GOP seems to have won the day today with the witness standing his ground and refusing to say anything that is not in the testimony given in the Mueller Report. I just wonder if the GOP really want’s to go down this road to the Prerogative State. The use of Executive Privilege as done by the current Administration is quite expansive and would easily lead to no one who has anything to do with the Executive branch ever having to testify about anything to any body.

Let’s run a little thought experiment here. Let us suppose that no one who has any contact with the President, either directly or indirectly can not be forced by either the Congress or the Courts to give any testimony about anything the President may know, or could have know, or should have known or does not know. Ever! Now let us suppose the Executive Branch acts to confiscate all arms not in the possession of their party membership. An now let us suppose that it is taken to court and SCOTUS rules against the Administration and then the President orders the agency/persons charged to ignore the court order and they do? Now lets say the Court orders the arrest of those persons for criminal contempt and sends US Deputy Marshals to do it and these marshals are met with armed resistance by Federal security officers. Now what?

This is, of course a bad to worse case scenario. We don’t have to go this far to be in trouble. What would happen in the case of absolutely blatant corruption, like the Tea Pot Dome scandal but involving a siting Secretary. If the President could order all witness’ not to testify how could the House and Senate Impeach and Convict? How could you even try some one? Could not the President order the forensic witness and the investigators not to testify about their findings?

I think we can see where the unfettered use of any privilege can lead to. Privilege needs to be highly limited to keep it from being abused. We may live in the 2nd Guided Age and if we do it is paramount for the citizenry to flex it’s mussels and reign in the excesses of this age. The time to start is now. This election. Each an everyone of us needs to look at our Representatives, both House and Senate and see if they are putting Self or Party before the people and the country. To do that we need to stop listening to the Hate Mongers who want to tells that all are troubles are do to ‘THEM’. We must remember who we are and what we stand for. We are Americans and we Stand for more than just wealth, power, and prestige.

More signs of GOP Morbidity

Politics, ,

Once more we see signs of the coming demise of the Republican Party in the actions of the North Carolina House of Representatives this week. It is not the vote to override the Governors veto, but rather the way the Republican Speaker went about it. The damage he has done, not only to the GOP of North Carolina but to the entire party can well be devastating. With how the current GOP National leadership, read current Administration, treats keeping it’s word what can the state house GOP say?

From now on when GOP leadership in any chamber of any state house says it will do or refrain from doing something how will they answer the question: “What assurances can go give that you wont ‘renege’? Even in a profession renowned for the lack of truthfulness like politics, especially in such a profession, something must be sacrosanct. Keeping your word about when and when not votes will be held is one such item. You can obfuscate to your hearts content. You can stand silent. But you can not say, as the Speaker did, say there will be no votes this morning/today and then when things are in your favor call a snap vote. There can be only one result to such an action, nothing this speaker says can be taken as true or accurate. Only his actual actions can be trusted and not even then.

With the election of Donald J Trump as President and the rise of Transactional Politics (aka Zero Sum Politics) the GOP is well on it’s way of joining it’s predecessor the “American Party” (aka No-nothings) on the trash heap of history. For a political party who’s leadership, and membership, is more interested in winning than ethics it exposes is doomed to fade away.

Why a Wave Election is Important

Politics, , ,
Blue Wave

Yes, I know the election is over a year way, but the 2020 election is going to be history making in ways most Americans don’t know about. This is going to be the first Presidential election where the electorate has been told, and is mostly aware of, all the election tampering being done by foreign governments (mostly Russia). At the same time one side, the GOP, has been running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off screaming about ‘election fraud’. If the 2020 election is a close one, or worse yet one where the winner of the Electoral College does not get a plurality of the popular vote, then we are in a world of hurt.

So lets run a little thought experiment here. There are basically two conditions we need to think about. An election where one side wins big and one where the winner just squeaks by (like 2016). With the former Americans can have some faith that the elections were fair as it is very very difficult to massively stack the results in 40+ states. So lets look at the latter.

Lets say the Donald Trump and the GOP just barely squeak by just holding on to the Presidency and control of the Senate. Let us further state that Donald Trump wins just like he did in 2016. The Democrats can, and should, cry out that it was a stolen elections. But besides that, how can the GOP erasure the people that it wasn’t stolen. How can we trust the results?

Little to no effort has been taken by either the National nor State GOP to do anything reassure us that the elections are fare. Indeed in the last few years it has been then GOP who have taken actions to skew the elections in their favor with means both lawful and unlawful. Just the latest is the North Carolina congressional district gerrymandering that violated the State constitution. An let us not forget all of the efforts to prevent voter impersonation election fraud and all of the efforts to have proper IDs. While this is not a bad idea, the way it has been gone about leaves much to be desired. Seems like in most cases these laws impact poor voters. Of course, given the position of many in the GOP that most election fraud is done by ‘liberals’ and/or Democrats this is not to unexpected.

But the point is that the GOP has, for many many years been complaining about how fraud ridden our elections are but seem powerless to make any substantial changes. An the changes they do make seem to make maters worse not better. Now let us add in the widely held belief that in 2016 the Russians used the internet and social media to influence our election. Plus we now have reports of the election systems of some states, like Florida, have been hacked. This is leading us to a very big problem.

If the Trump Administration and/or the GOP in 2017 had taken the position that any interference by anyone is totally unacceptable. That it unfairly casts dispersions on the validity of Donald Trumps election. An to demonstrate that neither he nor the GOP will have any truck with this kind of action. We would not be where we are now. We have a President who totally believes that it doesn’t mater how you win as long as you win. We have a political party so afraid of its far right base that it is totally unwilling to do anything that might though any doubts on the legitimacy of it’s power that it will do nothing. So even if they win, they loose.

So what need to be done? Simply put, but hard, very hard to do, is to create a ‘wave’ election. An election, no mater who wins, that will put into Washington people who will say “enough is enough” and creates a bi-partisan national effort to secure both our elections, the internet, and social media. This will be a tall order, their are people who will see these changes as a challenge to both their power and their wealth. They will join with those out side the country who wish to see the USA in political disarray to do everything in their power to keep things as they are. Finally we need to do one thing:

Get Out The Vote

Dorian & Mar a Largo

Climate Change, History, Socioeconomic, , ,

For years now I’ve been saying that what is needed for the 1%ers to get hurt by the effects of Global Warming (aka Climate Change) and it looks like it could be happening now. According to Forbes, 40 of the wealthiest people in the world live in West Palm Beach.

At the time of writing hurricane Dorian is only a category 1 but it is projected to be a category 4 by the time it makes landfall in Florida. If you look at a map you will see that West Palm Beach is almost exactly in the middle of the cone of projected path for him. Looking at the map will also show that there are a great many ‘large houses’ (dare we say mansions) on the island that Mar a Largo is located.

I have been told that many of these island of the Florida East cost are not very high. It is also be projected that Dorian will be coming ashore at high tide and that it is also a new moon, so the tide will be higher than usual. This is just made for some serious damage. The people who are not going to be your average citizen of Porto Rico, shoot they wont be your average American, much less Floridian. We are talking about the 1% of the 1%. People who don’t take kindly to loosing anything to anything. An they like to find some body to blame other than themselves.

Unfortunately for the President the usually candidates for blame, the poor, the Immigrant, or any “not us” are really good as a scape goat for this. The 0.01%rs are not, generally stupid. They know just what is going on and who is doing what to whom. This has happen before in our, human, history. The example I like to remember is how London started to get a modern sewer system. In the mid 1900’s London was swept by annual Typhus epidemics every summer. Also the Times River was used as an open sewer for the city. The stench was getting so bad everyone but the very poor and the people who made their living off the river got as far away from the river as possible. Unfortunately for Parliament, the parliament building was on the river. So when both the stench and Typhus got too close (aka knocking on the doors of parliament) both the city and national government took action.

They waited this long, in spite of the clambering of the common fore about the problem. Nothing was done till ‘those who mater’ were inconvenienced and/or threatened. Well, we could be seeing this happen to the 0.01% now. First West Palm Beach, tomorrow Manhattan Island.